Is marvel comics able to make better films than DC?

Fury didn't like Phase II, but he still went along with it. That attempted god-killing prototype Coulson tried to kill Loki with? Reverse-engineered from the Destroyer, and even more proof*

The idea that Fury planned it all is ridiculous. Yes, the WSC brought it up, but it's mind-numbingly stupid. There are too many moving parts in the events that happened for Fury to have deliberately manipulated everyone and everything into the events that transpired, especially people such as Thanos and Loki that Fury didn't even know existed and thus could not have planned for their role in the events. "Fury plotted it all" is stupid and impossible.

And again, Humans don't want a clean energy source. They want a weapon that can blow a hole in an Asgardian. They also don't want to "use the power responsibly"; they want a weapon that can blow a hole in an Asgardian. Their desire for the Tesseract has nothing to do with feeding Afghanistan and everything to do with putting a bullet between Loki's eyes that will actually blow his brains out and kill him if he ever pulls a stunt like this again. Phase II has nothing to do with being able to provide clean electricity to the world, and everything to do with being able to stand triumphantly over Odin's bleeding corpse if Odin ever comes to Earth looking for war.

They want to be powerful enough to defeat Asgard if Asgard ever comes looking for a fight. Odin is not going to give this to them. No amount of bartering is going to convince Odin to arm humans with enough firepower to kill Odin himself, and the fact that they even want to be that powerful makes them potentially dangerous.

I agree that Odin isn't doing his part out of spite or "Fuck humans," but the fact is that he's still doing it, and to the humans, Odin is, himself, a potential threat to the Earth. Fury himself aside, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't want to have to pray to Odin and hope that he responds if ever we are threatened; the humans want to be able to step up and defend ourselves from anything that comes.

That Odin may or may not send soldiers to protect Earth if it's threatened is irrelevant; the humans don't want to be dependant on him to do so. The humans want what happened in New Mexico - two Asgardians throwing down on Earth with the humans being completely powerless to do anything, as a human city is destroyed in a conflict that we can't even so much as weigh into - to never happen again, and they can't rely on Odin to provide that. As Loki just demonstrated, the problem isn't as simple as, "Asgard will protect us!" because one of the things we need to be able to fight is ASGARD.

edited 25th Aug '13 11:13:11 PM by TobiasDrake

I don't think the X-Men movies are much to write home about, if people are sayin Marvel makes better movies than DC. Wolverine has bone claws? And was also an Xman before Iceman? Avengers was ok, but compared to the latest Batman movies, its not even close to as good!

But that only proves my point further. When Thor leaves Earth, what does he take with him? Loki, and the Cube. That's it. He didn't take the Destroyer gun. He didn't take the remains of the Destroyer itself. He took the Cube and his brother, and that's all.

If they were so against humans having Asgardian-grade weapons, he would've taken that too, don't you think?

It's a comic book movie. The only thing that's impossible is what the writers say is impossible, and only because they haven't figured out how to make it possible.

Didn't you just get through saying that there are seven billion of those things, so you can't generalize? At the very least, we know the WSC wants weapons, but they are the ONLY ones who knew about the aliens (aside from SHIELD) and they were also the people who thought the appropriate response to an alien invasion was to turn the most populated American city into a nuclear wasteland. I think we can safely say that, though you are right about their desires, they CERTAINLY do not speak for the general wishes of mankind.

Except that, again, if that were the case, then why the hell didn't Thor take back the Destroyer or the gun? Why not confiscate all HYDRA weaponry and Arc Reactor tech while he was at it? At least with the latter, you could argue Thor wouldn't know it was based on the Tesseract's designs—but with the former, he knows that he left the Destroyer on Earth and that SHIELD was confiscating he crap out of Asgardian tech. But it's never brought up, ever.

Nick Fury is SHIELD. If you mean the WSC, who apparently bestow his authority, then you're right. But that aside, Nick Fury thus far has embodied every single goal that SHIELD itself has.

Again, that isn't the point. There's a whole lot of leeway between "Pray to Odin" and "Screw around blindly with space tech". The idea that greater energy, in almost limitless quantiies, doesn't help them against alien threats is blatantly fallacious. Again, the WSC seemed to have that mindset, but as we all saw, their reaction to any sort of problem is "Fuck it—kill everybody". Furthermore "use responsibly" doesn't mean "make lollipops instead of weapons". It means, more specifically, "here, let's make weapons that won't blow up your own damn planet, you morons".

Thor doesn't know the Destroyer gun exists. He never saw it, and even if he had, he would have had no way of knowing that's what it is. Thor is neither omniscient nor a super-scientist.

Fine, let me clarify: the humans who were in possession of the Tesseract and, therefore, the only ones who matter for the purposes of this context, want to build Asgardian-killing weapons with it.

If Thor had tried to leave with all of it, there would have been a fight. Fury loses nothing by letting him take the Tesseract at the end of the film; they have all those Chitauri guns to play with now, which are exactly what they're looking for: Tesseract-powered weapons. The situation at the end of the film is very different from at the beginning, because Tesseract tech is now plentiful.

I agree, but that's specifically by Odin's definition of "responsibly". That's part of the point: the humans don't want to have to be subservient to Odin. They don't want Odin telling them what they can and cannot build. They want to be a force unto themselves.

From Odin's perspective, the humans are childish and playing with things they cannot possibly understand, things that could potentially destroy them if allowed. From the humans' perspective, that very attitude is completely condescending, because the humans want what all children ultimately want: freedom and respect. To be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with their parents, as peers, and if Odin's not going to give that to us, then we'll do it ourselves.

The humans don't want Odin to be the one defining what "use responsibly" means for their own civilization.

That doesn't mean he didn't remember beating the Destroyer and leaving it on Earth. If his goal is to collect Asgardian tech, that's a big one to leave around, considering it's specifically a god-killer.

But that's still my point; they are officials, not kings. The individuals, and their decisions are literally tied to their position. Presumably, they can be replaced by The Powers That Be; further, someone in a more pertinent position can override their decisions (as Nick Fury demonstrates). Their positions and viewpoints do not speak for the world at large. Odin, on the other hand, is the absolute monarch and voice of all Asgard. Even if the WSC refuses to accept his help, that doesn't mean that the people of the planet, or people in a greater position to act, will.

Where does it say that there would be a fight if he tried to take it back? Who said it and when? If you're speculating, then you're doing so upon an assumption which still hasn't been proven—that diplomacy is out of the question.

Agreed, but that doesn't make them NOT allies. This is basically how the United States existed prior to the 20th Century—they were a growing and fragile nation that had little to compete with the larger empires, but maintain strong insistence of independence.

But again, this proves my point: you're right in that the WSC (stupidly) wants to avoid being dependent upon Odin even if the alternative means nuking a city or two, but my point is that their beliefs doesn't mean that Earth and Asgard are NOT allied forces. The fledgling USA grew by forming tentative alliances with countries that wanted to help them grow and trade with them, even though they also maintained the idea of "Let us deal with our own shit our own way, but we're not gonna burn bridges."

Thus why diplomacy is not out of the question. Those two goals are not mutually exclusive. I think that's all anyone is saying here.

edited 26th Aug '13 9:18:12 AM by KingZeal

How did the cube even end up on Earth to begin with? Do we know yet?

Apparently, it was lost when Odin and the Asgardians went to war with the Jotun back in the Middle Ages.

My argument actually went beyond the fact diplomacy between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Asgard was possible but that it should have been expected, what everyone else was making a case for I really do not know.

But other than Avengers and Incredible Hulk (I preferred Ang Lee's) I do think Marvel has been making better films than Warner Brothers. Okay, the Dark Knight might be a little better than Ironman, but that was only from a somewhat underwhelming finale that decided to handicap Tony.

Not all of Marvel's films have been hits with me either (Rise of the Silver Surfer and X-men origins Wolverine fell particularly flat) but that begs a point to be brought up. To my knowledge, Warner has been doing all the DC films, Marvel's have been split up between Universal, Fox, Columbia and its own studios which are further divided between New Line and Disney. Marvel might actually be benefiting from having many cooks in its kitchen. It has maybe managed to remain fresher in its adaptations do to the wide variety of philosophies and methods. Incredible Hulk, Amazing Spider-man and the Punisher trilogy aside, Marvel is not bogged down on any place. X-men is getting dangerously close to that category too but four is better than two (Batman, Superman, repeat). Perhaps in this way Marvel comics can make better films than DC, perhaps DC cannot escape the crutch that is Warner Bros the way Marvel properties get made without Disney.

DC might want to try going smaller too. Constantine would have been a just fine film, if it did not have the pretensions of being a film about John Constantine. Simply changing the main character's name would have improved it on many levels. Marvel could get away with doing that to Blade because he was not a popular character from a long running series, he was a somewhat known supporting character who popped up in Dracula, Morbious and Ghost Rider Books. Maybe DC should just do a movie about Rao or Mophir? Maybe they should let Jack Black do that Green Lantern movie he proposed independent of Warner.

My case boils down to that I don't think Odin really respects the humans enough to entertain the idea of bartering with them as equals. I think he sent Thor to simply extract Loki and the Tesseract and return to Asgard with as minimal confrontation with the humans as possible, and Thor tried to do just that, which is why it's believable to me that Thor attempted to simply grab Loki and run. Would have worked, too, if not for Iron Man.

At its core, we're debating whether Thor's actions at the beginning of Avengers were out of character or not. Should Thor have just gone to S.H.I.E.L.D. and offered to join forces against Loki from the start, and is it out of character for him not to?

edited 26th Aug '13 3:15:08 PM by TobiasDrake

Again, what basis are you using to assume that about Odin? Odin and Thor seemed to be on the same page at the end of the first film, and Thor was pretty horrified that Loki saw himself as above humans. Beyond personal speculation, what gives you any impression that Odin is against human independence at all?

Also, join forces for what? SHIELD had already captured Loki. They didn't have the cube back, but Loki was captive. Thor came in and grabbed Loki out of nowhere, but that's not out of character for him.

I don't think it was entirely out of character for Thor to be aggressive, but as far as the narrative was concerned Thor very much just shows up out of nowhere and picks a fight. The movie barely even bothered handwaving how Thor got to Earth or knew where they were. The entire fight was because he refused to ask questions, which is really stupid because there were obviously a lot of other people involved already.

As to the above comment, Warner Brothers primary problem is that unless they are willing to borrow from other studios (and thus share profits) they are stuck financing all their DC movies themselves. The Marvel movies are split up between a lot of different studios and the MCU itself has relied on a lot of foreign funding in order to make the shared universe feasible.

@Lightflame

Oh quit your damn complaining dude.

You and I both know DC's habits of wanking the shit out of their characters. It's quite apparent they'll make terribly obnoxious scenario which results in Bats and Supes clashing with each other.

@Coochpotato

Apparent from what? The footage that's been released so far? Oh wait, there hasn't been any footage even filmed yet.

Apparent from DC's previous record of film crossovers? Except this will be the first one...

Huh, I guess it really isn't apparent whatsoever.

Constantine isn't really anymore popular than Blade. Remember, the core audience is not fans, but average viewers. I doubt people could name either character if you went up and asked them about them, with maybe a slight edge to Blade since those films were fairly popular at one time. But the fact that they pissed off Constantine fans or whatever had little bearing on the actual movie's merits or box office.

edited 1st Sep '13 1:35:25 PM by comicwriter

Maybe not pissing off the fans in of itself, but it definitely weighed the film down. They were trying to use the Constantine Mythos in their story but it was halfassedly. Reeves just was not believable in the role as is but if they had at least been faithful to the original they might have gotten some positive word-of-mouth or alternatively went the whole way and divorced themselves from the source, going completely in their own direction, we could have seen a more inspired film...that would not have aggravated fanboys contributing to the negative word of mouth.

Wolverine has bone claws?

You realize Wolverine had bone claws in the comics like ten years before he did in the movies, right?

Perhaps, but my point was it was a poor analogy. "Constantine failed where Blade succeeded because John Constantine is a more popular character" is a specious argument because as I said, neither character is very well known or popular to a mainstream audience. Constantine was a bad managed to pull in over 230 million dollars, which isn't too bad considering the R-rating. It's just that it was a very shitty film.

Since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is quickly approaching I thought it'd be appropriate to bring this thread back. Marvel was able to make a Guardians of the Galaxy film work and its characters are by far the least popular known in the entirety of the Marvel Universe. So I'm curious, do you folks seriously think DC could make Aquaman, much less Flash, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg film work?

Good question. Honestly, in my opinion...no. This new film might be good on its own merits (doubtful) but part of the reason The Avengers worked was that they had quite a few films beforehand to establish the characters and make the audience care about each one of them individually before throwing them all together. I'm not saying this upcoming movie can't do it but it will definitely be difficult to do in a two-hour time frame. Espescially since Aquaman and Wonder Woman have proved repeatedly difficult to adapt well to film without competing with each other for screen time.

I don't think we can draw any absolute conclusions about the two studios' capacity to make good films. The Nolan Batman trilogy were good films and got good reviews, even if I though TDKR veered way too far into Objectivism.

The best-reviewed superhero movies thus far (ones with over 90% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) are: Spider-Man 2, '"The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Avengers, and X-Men: Days of Future Past''.

So, one each for Sony, Fox, and DC, and two for Marvel. That's not overwhelming.

Films with over 80-90% positive reviews are: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight Rises, X-Men, X-Men 2, X-Men: First Class, Spider-Man, and Captain America The Winter Soldier.

If we add together all the films over 80%, we get: 3 for DC, 4 for Fox, 2 for Sony, and 3 for Marvel. If you look just at the DC and Marvel movies, that's a tie.

If we look at financial success, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers and Iron Man 3 are the most successful by a wide margin (all have over $1 billion worldwide; no others have over $900 mil). That's 2 for Marvel, 2 for DC.

So, although I think Man Of Steel was bad and don't have high hopes for Batman v. Superman, that doesn't demonstrate that DC can't make good movies, as it has done so in the past.

Marvel's films are exceptional in two ways: their willingness to take risks with their properties (adapting characters like Thor or the Guardians of the Galaxy, with concepts that would seem weird to the average viewer) and their ability to not make terrible movies.

What distinguishes Marvel from DC, and from all the other studios, isn't being able to make good movies: it's the fact that they've made no bad ones - in terms of either critical or fan reception. This contrasts with, for example, X-Men 3 (profitable but critically panned, loathed by fans, and nearly sinking the whole franchise), Spider-Man 3 (also profitable, but unpopular enough to prompt a reboot), or Green Lantern (financially unsuccessful, critically panned, and just terrible across the board).

And this winning streak is likely responsible for Marvel's willingness to be more adventurous in what they adapt (although not so adventurous to include any lead characters other than white males in a total of 16 completed and upcoming films).

edited 4th Aug '14 5:59:11 PM by WarriorEowyn

The problem with Green Lantern was executive meddling.

The original script was great but the studio forced them to change it and the Director was over budget because he felt everything needed to be CG.

Three for Marvel. Guardians of the Galaxy is a 92%.

The fact that DC's contributions to those lists is limited to a single trilogy that was driven by Christopher Nolan and starred their most reliably bankable property speaks for itself.

At best you can say that we have a really small sample size at the moment- Superman Returns, Man of Steel, and Green Lantern being the only other three movies in DC's current run. But if the studio can't get their act together enough to capitalize on the current superhero craze while Marvel has been able to give us near a dozen with more on the way then I certainly feel justified in holding it against them.

In a lot of threads there's people ranking their favourite MCU movies, or Spider-Man movies or FoX-Men movies or post revival DC movies, but never one where people actually inter compare.

I'm curious because there's lots of abstract arguments over Marvel/Fox/Sony/DC, but no one really goes into detail.

Though maybe that's asking too much as it's too big a genre to fairly compare them all.

I'd be hard pressed to compare just my favourite film from each of the four studios.

Well, actually, no, Dark Knight Rises > Captain America 2 > First Class > Spider-man 2

Though, Spider-man 2 suffered in that comparison because it's from such a different era; it does the uplifting heroes journey better than any of the other superhero films in recent memory, but more recent movies are so much better at being pensive.