The Difference Between Marvel and DC

So there's something I've been wondering about for a while now. When people ask what the difference is between Marvel and DC, most tend to point toward the obvious. DC is the people we look up to, Marvel is the people we are. But is that really the case? On the one hand, that's how it started. DC's pantheon was full of upstanding, whiter than whitebread paragons who stood for truth, justice, and the American way, doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do. Whereas Marvel's characters were a lot more 'relatable' and down to Earth, with much more distinctive personalities and reasons for what they do. And for a while, you could argue that was what the difference was and nobody could say different.

But is that really the case anymore? In the decades since Marvel came onto the scene, neither company has existed in a vacuum. Both companies have influenced the other, with DC's characters becoming more believable and nuanced, and many of Marvel's characters becoming more morally upstanding. Batman is more often than not a grade A-tool while Red Hood is probably someone the Punisher could have a beer with. Spiderman is no longer the bitter 15 year old he started out as while Tony has long abandoned the whole 'doing what I can in the time I've got' shtick. And the Fantastic Four are celebrities.

Maybe there was a much clearer difference between the two back when they started, but now it's hard to point to any one big reason that separates them apart. The closest I can think of is that DC tends to have a brighter and more optimistic universe while Marvel's is more cynical and often treats its' heroes like shit. But even DC has its' downer moments. I guess what I'm asking is in this day and age, what defines Marvel and DC? What separates them apart? If there's anything that separates them at all anymore?

Edited by kkhohoho on Apr 24th 2019 at 7:21:01 AM

So I'm paraphrasing Kelly Sue DeConnick, who was paraphrasing someone else, I believe: "In DC, they are gods trying to be human. In Marvel, they are humans trying to be gods."

Now, she was speaking specifically about the Silver Age comics, because as time went on (and writers and editors moved between Marvel and DC) the companies different approach got...less different. In response to the X-Men, DC finally found a superhero soap opera that was a smash hit: The New Teen Titans. Both companies tried to tackle drugs at the same time, although Marvel got there first (with Amazing Spider-Man and Harry's drug problem), with DC's Green Lantern/Green Arrow "Snowbird's Don't Fly" coming a few months later, I believe.

Currently, the approach to each company is pretty similar, it's just the characters that differ. But in the Silver Age, DC tended to go for heroes who were stalwart paragons of virtue (and got into wacky adventures), while Marvel went with more humanized characters with realistic problems (and they also got into wacky adventures).

Although, one big difference between Marvel and DC in the beginning was the fact that Stan Lee hated kid sidekicks, which is why he insisted that they kill off Bucky when they brought back Captain America. This was in contrast to DC, where they gave pretty much everyone a kid sidekick.

The current approach by Marvel and DC is...well, actually, Marvel is a bit more optimistic, while DC is a bit more pessimistic.

Edited by alliterator on Apr 23rd 2019 at 4:56:53 AM

Tell that to the mutants and their latest extinction event.

So basically, both are pessimistic I'd say.

How optimistic or pessimistic the two universes seem depends on what book you're reading? For Marvel, things are more cynical for the Xmen, while stuff like Ms Marvel leans in the other direction. For DC, Batman leans on the cynical while stuff like Blue Beetle goes in the other direction.

Neither company is really more cynical and pessimistic than the other.

This line of thinking seems odd to me given how many myths from various cultures depicts humans and gods as being very much alike when it comes to how they behave.

Edited by windleopard on Apr 23rd 2019 at 11:13:54 AM

I think a large part of what created this stigma that DC heroes are not "relatable" is just how absurd a lot of the power sets for these characters get. Like how Batman, is not only the "world's greatest detective" but also this billionaire that has mastered almost every fighting style known to man, has a genius intellect and is one of the smartest characters in his universe, and "prep time" has been memed to hell and back.

Even that's not universal or company specific. Characters like Thor or the Silver Surfer can be pretty darn powerful or overly competent too. Even She-Hulk beat Aquaman in JLA/Avengers.

How powerful was Aquaman when that happened?

At that point he only had his basic powerset: Strength, enhanced durability, and control over fish. None of the later stuff. She-Hulk only has strength and durability bordering invulnerability, but she's so strong that that's all she needs. Aquaman's not a pushover by any means, but he's never been top-tier in terms of muscle.

Edited by kkhohoho on Apr 25th 2019 at 11:03:39 AM

In other words, it's only recently that he's been likened to being on par with Superman or Wonderwoman, and that incident predated it.

This is why I though he'd lose the DEATH BATTLE!...that and Marvel vs DC.

Then again, JLA/Avengers was sometimes a bit too disproportionate concerning the gaps between some of the characters. A lot of times they weren't too far off the mark, but with others they didn't quite nail the landing. In one scene Wondy beats Wonderman in arm wrestling like a punk, but it's been stated repeatedly in other comics that he's about as strong as Thor and even on par with the Sentry. If anything, they should've been neck and neck.

Edited by kkhohoho on Apr 25th 2019 at 12:09:40 PM

Not really.

I think on a whole, DC's heroes are supposed to be far more powerful physically.

Wonder Woman beat Thor in a recent Death Battle, and DC just has much higher feats.

The nature of comic books means there's a lot of Power Creep, Power Seep so that anyone can beat anyone however, so if they want the two Wonders to be even, that's completely within the realm of possibility.

Death Battles should not be taken as Word of God.

Also Thor said he could probably beat Superman in a rematch now that he's taken his measure. And the first one was still damn close.

Aside from that, I think it's all relative. If you wanted to compare both company's power levels side by side in a vacuum, then maybe DC might win out. But even if that's so, it's because there's a limit to how far each company is generally willing to let its characters go. If, say, Thor was transplanted into DC wholesale, you can bet that he'd be on par with Supes and the rest because DC's level cap is that much higher. Whereas if the reverse was done with Superman, he'd be that much weaker. The point being that Thor and others still have what passes for Superman-tier strength in their world even if it technically pales in comparison to the DC crowd, and that's something that should be taken into account.

Edited by kkhohoho on Apr 26th 2019 at 11:39:29 AM

I'm not terribly up-to-date on modern developments in either line (if anything they've converged closer and closer into a grand unified tone of bleh), but the way I see it...

The main difference is less in what the heroes themselves are like, and more in what the settings built around them are like. Classic DC is very much a world-tailored-around-the-hero school of storytelling (which is why, in my opinion, teamups between different big-name heroes so often fall flat; someone has to play by an aesthetic and rules they're completely alien to), while in Marvel the heroes and their world are a lot more... indifferent to one another. Not necessarily darker or crueler, just indifferent.

Put it this way: Hell's Kitchen could survive a lot more easily without Daredevil than Gotham could without Batman.

(This may just be a logical outgrowth of Stan Lee's professed dislike of "made-up" cities; jamming so many heroes into one city kinda makes all of them look a little more expendable in the big picture. So what if Doc Ock kills Spidey on this outing - the Avengers or Doctor Strange will probably kick his butt sooner or later.)

The difference between DC and Marvel, the main difference, is that DC's setting and characters come from a wide variety of writers while Marvel's largely originate from two men; Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.

The reason for Marvel's more "mature" stance to DC's, as much as juvenile is more mature than infantile, is largely due to Stan Lee's mentality on Marvel's survival as a company, which was "war" on the "enemy". The reason that's not as pronounced anymore is because DC's entire strategy was taking from other comic book companies as it put them out of business. Despite DC's more iconic stable of characters, sheer familiarity didn't let them beat Marvel. Marvel's fan base, The Marvel Zombies, Lee's Loyal Legion, they were fanatically devoted to Marvel's success. DC couldn't beat Marvel with their purse, they couldn't beat them in court, Marvel actually beat DC in court. All of DC's usual tricks, which until then had steamrolled all competitors in the USA, failed against Marvel.

Still, one of DC's tricks was buying up the writers of other companies. One of the reasons no one else's creative spin never took hold on Marvel the way Lee and Ditko's did is because of DC snapping them up. But the Marv Wolfmans, the Jim Starlins, even Kirby himself after a spat with Lee, they changed DC fundamentally from a story telling perspective. They made DC more like Marvel. In a way this was sort of good for DC, as Lee's marketing tactics were no longer as effective. The zeal of the zombie legion waned, Marvel eventually even went into bankruptcy(and they deserved it after the tripe they put out in the nineties and even more so for the tripe of their bastard child Image) but Marvel slowly crawled its way back, leaving us with the comic book industry of this country today.

Yeah, power levels? You're kidding yourself. Marvel's are WAY higher. It's just that up until that Superman ripoff The Sentry, Marvel's trick was that when a character got too powerful they would send him into space or otherwise remove him from the Earth. After the fifteenth issue or so of some idiot in his basement with a silly mask threatening a team that had Thor on it, Marvel realized Thor was better served fighting living planets and reality destroying time twisters than mad men with wacky science experiments who somehow couldn't do better than New York apartment rooms.

No wait, let me rephrase that. Marvel's stronger gods and cosmic thingies have a much stronger presence in their universe than DC's. It's no so much that The Living Tribunal, Infinites, First Firmament, Beyonder or The Other are stronger than The Over Monitor, it's that as much as people complain about Tribunal doing nothing while TVA failure #25 destroys 75% of the multiverse, Tribunal still does enough to qualify as a character. When was the last time Over Monitor did anything? DC's space weirdos tend to be of the non interference type, so when Imperiex or Mandrak go rogue, it's weird and catches everyone off guard. Marvel's space weirdos are very much about interference, so there have to be entire systems in place for the inevitable Celestial dickery.

The end result is that Marvel has an absurd amount of "cosmic" level types, but a surprisingly small amount of them can be found around New York, where most of their stories take place. DC never saw much issue in Captain Marvel(Wisdom Of Solomon and the talents of several gods) vs Dr. Sivana(good with numbers), and while one writer(Gail Simone? George Perez?) did try to beef up Wonder Woman's rogues as she was in turn buffed up to Captain Marvel levels, for the most part it didn't stick. Rather than keep an ever stronger Wonder Woman off planet, DC ended up creating her own Sivana type(I'm a self made business woman, I sell stuff! I will destroy the demigoddess flying around at orbital velocity!) So DC has all these Titanic characters hanging out on Earth(though at least not all in New York). And again, that's down to Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, the minds behind The Mighty Thor and Dr Strange. When Kirby was in DC he created cosmic mighty men the mites of Earth couldn't hope to defeat. And when Kirby left DC they were gradually all beaten up by Superman. Jim Starlin, Kirby wannabe, created great galactic conquerors not even Superman could take in a fistfight, and they were then castrated when Starlin was out the door.

Individual writers just don't have that kind of hold on DC, although DC taking so many Marvel writers has nonetheless altered it. DC chasing Marvel for four decades altered it, even with their temporary victory.

That is a surprisingly accurate description of Marvel and DC.

Now that I think about it, another big, if slightly more superficial, difference is that Marvel heroes tend to be based out of real world Cities and places (especially in and around NYC, but that’s neither here nor there), while DC tends to favor fictional stand ins, such as Metropolis or Gotham.

DC also has a lot more variety and color in its history and portrayal of their characters than Marvel, does, I think. Batman has gone from the upright caped crusader of the Silver Age, to the more modern dark and brooding vigilante, and everywhere in between, in a way that a character like Spider-Man never really has.

Edited by megaeliz on Jun 2nd 2019 at 9:17:28 AM

I like the Kelly Sue DeConnick quote, though I would say it was more of "humans trying to be heroes / heroes trying to be human" contrast (because, like windleopart said, gods are often on the Jerkass side). For most of it (until the nineties, at least), DC made sure that the main character was the superhero. That usually leads to the long-winded discussion about the Alternate Character Interpretation of Superman, asking whether Clark or Superman is the "real" identity (the same goes for Batman and some others), but nobody would expect to read a story about Clark having trouble paying the rent or find a good lead for a story, even if they assume Clark is the "real" personality. Marvel was the opposite, the twist is that the secret identity is the driving force of the books, so much so that the superhero identity doesn't even need to exist - the first marvel silver age book, the sadly underrated Fantastic Four, was basically four people with superpowers who adopted superhero names and costumes more out of a sense of comic book tradition, than because they were relevant to the story.

Of course, people didn't buy Spiderman comics expecting to read about the life of a teenage nerd, but that is what hooked them to it - and I think it's very obvious the comics wouldn't have been as popular if it was just some generic guy with spider powers, even with Ditko's design and action scenes.

I think a good comparison would be Marvel = Watchmen and DC = Astro City. Marvel was more interested in the people behind the mask, their issues and feelings, and DC wass more interested in how the heroes affect the rest of the world, but wholly accepted that they were superheroes, wore costumes and had silly names.

Which is probably why Marvel has, to this day, an annoying resistance to just putting a guy in a costume and giving him a wacking Animal Person name, out of a misguided attempt to be realistic. While DC doesn't care - they'll introduce a new character, spandex costume and all, and let the story roll, because it's not about how the guy became a hero, it's about what he does as a hero.

Where is this resistance in Marvel you are talking about?

I don't know. Maybe that was true back in the day, but DC's more than once tried to give characters like Wondy more of a life out of some notion that they don't 'get' normal people. And Marvel has guys like Cap which are pretty much what you've described for DC.

Yeah when was the last time we sawSteve interacting with someone who wasn't a superhero or SHIELD agent?

I still think it applies. Cap is a military man, after all, so that's a justification for him wearing the uniform and hanging around SHIELD. I know the idea that he uses the costume as a symbol of the stuff for which he stands is a more recent retcon (as is the idea that he wears it so he'll attract enemy fire onto himself and away from civilians).

I don't keep up with the floppies that much, nowadays, though, but I think that, at least as far as casual fans perceive, characters like America Chavez and Luke Cage would be out of place on DC.

But, loads of people in this thread mentioned, the lines are blurry, with writers and gimmicks being traded around by the big two, so it's not easy to pin the difference down, exactly.

That actually kinda makes sense though. Unlike the core of 616, which was created in the 60s and is fundamentally a product of the Silver Age, Captain America was created during the golden age, around the same time as many of the most iconic DC characters.

Which I think plays into what I see being the fundamental difference between the two. At its core, the entire Marvel Universe is built on the legacy of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko, and the Silver Age of Comics. Their original runs on many of the books are still considered definitive, and are still loosely considered cannon within 616

DC on the other hand, has a much more colorful and varied history. Many of their most iconic characters were created in the Golden Age of Comic Books, by many different and unrelated creators, and tended to be very archetypal chapters that could easily be interpreted in many different ways. They also have just a longer (and weirder) history, and has a generally less cohesive universe.

Edited by megaeliz on Jun 17th 2019 at 3:40:09 PM

My reading experience of DC Comics is that it feels more timeless, more essential, more accessible than Marvel's stuff. And that in DC, human supporting characters for all heroes tend to have a bigger role and presence. DC also tend to have more female superheroines than Marvel do. DC has Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Zatanna, the Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Supergirl, Batgirl, the Montoya Question, Hawkgirl, while Marvel belatedly got on board with Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel, and that's just one. DC however are less diverse than Marvel in some respects. IN DC in the majority of instances, solo hero stories work better than their team stories. There are exceptions but not too many. Marvel was revolutionary once, but it was a revolution for young male teenagers and them alone. So the whole "Marvel was more human/flawed/relatable than DC" is basically a nostrum that was true, but just once, and even then for a brief while and now it's no longer very relevant aside from corporate and marketing bilge talk. I kind of think that this kind of self-proclaimed nostalgia for them being radicals as if they are still radical now has to some extent held Marvel back. In DC their fictional cities of Metropolis/Gotham/Central City allows for a timelessness while in the case of Marvel, everything is rooted in a nostalgic haze for a New York City that, for better and worse, doesn't exist anymore. Daredevil for instance doesn't make sense to be set in a now gentrified and expensive Hell's Kitchen.

If we do head to head comparisons:

• Between Superman and Captain America, I'd say Captain America is a much more consistently written character who continues to have good writers writing him well as well as defining runs in multiple decades. Whereas Superman despite being such an interesting character has not really had writers who do for him what people have done for Cap. Either people get too nostalgic or reverent, or they get too deconstructive. The happy medium struck by Bruce Timm and Dini in Superman: The Animated Series where Clark Kent comes across as a believably flawed but essentially good person hasn't crossed over.
• Dr. Strange is an improvement over Dr. Fate and other magical characters, but DC fired back with John Constantine and later Zatanna who are both cooler and more interesting than Strange. Strange's best stories are in the 60s and briefly under Stern in the 80s but since then he's worked more often in team-ups than as a solo.
• Batman and Spider-Man are both the company mascot and major money-maker cross-media successes. Between the two, Peter Parker is the more complex and dynamic character than Bruce Wayne and has a more interesting supporting cast, but Batman has the best villains ever.
• Mary Jane Watson is a better character and more modern take on the love interest than Lois Lane. She did first what Post-Crisis Lois Lane was allowed to do in her stories.
• Catwoman though is a much better character than Black Cat and still the most charismatic version of that archetype.
• Doctor Doom is Marvel's best villain and his DC counterpart Lex Luthor isn't fit to shine his shoes. Chrome-dome is supposed to be an ultimate villain but the contempory corporate-Lex is a ripoff of Miller's Kingpin. Doom is a more versatile and complete villain, and someone who is far more believable to root with over the hero than Lex ever is.
• X-Men are better than Teen Titans.
• The Avengers and the Fantastic Four are a more compelling and believable team than the Justice League.

The other problem with the DC Universe is that in the case of Marvel, in general people would say that the comics are better than the adaptations and people judge adaptations based on fidelity. There are exceptions (like RDJ is better than Iron Man comics could ever hope to be, as is Brolin's Thanos) but mostly that's the case. In the case of DC, adaptations have improved the comics material several times. Like the DC Animated Universe provided us the best Justice League ever, far better than any comics run on the team, and of course the best versions of Batman and Joker and others.

One more. Between Wonder Woman and Thor, I'd say Marvel have done better integrating Norse Myth into the regular universe and making a corner of it than DC have done with Wonder Woman and Classical mythology. That's such a rich vein to explore but mostly DC have not done the heavy lifting for it. There have been excellent Wonder Woman runs but not enough to really push her the way Walt Simonson and now Jason Aaron are doing for Thor.

Oh and Namor is better than Aquaman. Green Lanterns are better than the Nova Corps but Marvel's real Green Lantern Alternate Company Equivalent is Guardians of the Galaxy and they are cooler than GL ever were.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Jun 17th 2019 at 12:42:42 PM

Edited by megaeliz on Jun 17th 2019 at 4:14:22 AM