DC or Marvel?

Now - just to be clear from the outset and to help you out - If you ask this question and someone responds with anything other than: "That depends..." then you are asking the wrong person to comment. If they say a flat out "Marvel!" or "DC" then they are showing you that they do not know what they are talking about. Trust me...

Now, that first taste is free, the rest is going to cost you... your time. Keep reading if you dare. There is a chance that this post will never end... I have so much to say...

Pic: Ourcommunitynow.com

Okay, so why do I say that???

Basically, it's because you have to give credit where credit is due.

Firstly, the creative teams are recognised more these days for their own contributions rather than just the "company-owned" stuff that riddled the early years of the industry. Consequently, it is rare nowadays that an artist or writer will confine his or herself to one company. All of the best guys float between the two these days and are valued for what they bring to the table. So - the creative teams aren't fixed in one place and I will go where they go. I love Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski, Greg Pak, Greg Rucka, Greg Capullo, Fabien Nicieza, Joe Madureira, Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Alex Ross, Gabriele Dell'Otto, Anne Nicenti, Chris Claremont, Sara Pichelli, Dave Cockrum, Chris Bachalo, Jonathan Hickman... the list goes on. If I loved them but stuck to one company where they worked, I'd miss so much good stuff when they moved on. So, for comics, it depends. I am a bigger reader of Marvel, especially X-Men and Daredevil BUT I love a good Superman, Batman, Justice League or Green Arrow story too.

Secondly, they have both produced some cringe-worthy stuff from time-to-time. Marvel's movies are at the top of their game right now and DC simply can't catch up. But remember when the only Marvel movies were crappy ones done for TV?? I do.... I'll be going through all the DCEU Movies in another post. I'll give them another watch and write up what I see now. I walked out at the end of the Wonder Woman 1984 movie tonight very depressed and I just had to write. That could've been a great movie... but it wasn't...

The '70s Spider-Man and Hulk shows had some cool moments, but my goodness, to watch them now! The Nick Fury TV movie starring David Hasselhoff... 'nuff said! The '90's Captain America TV movie, Dolph Lundgren's The Punisher and the ill-fated and hidden away Fantastic Four movie... all pretty crap... Good ol' Jesus would be throwing out that "Let he who is without (crappy movies) cast the first stone!" line if he was about to comment...

Pics: From Spider-Man '70s show, Hulk '70's show, Fantastic Four '90's film, Nick Fury 90's film, Captain America '90's film, The Punisher '80's film. Amazing...

Links go to the websites where I got the pictures. © remains with the original owners.

...And the '60's Batman show... well... it's iconic. I loved it as a kid, but I was too young to realise the fun they were poking at themselves as they made it. I thought it was very serious television at the time, I'm sure. Super campy, but I don't care! I loved it. I loved the '70's Spider-Man shows/TV movie too... Don't judge me. I was young and it was the '80's. when I got to both of these shows... Many crimes were committed against us in the '80s and this was the least of them!

DC and Marvel have both had some success with cartoons and games, both console/PC based and board/card games. I love various '90's Batman, Superman, Justice League, Spider-Man, and X-Men cartoons. They're all great. I love much of what has come later too. I loved Young Justice and wish there was more of it. On the Marvel side, I've loved the newer X-Men, Avengers and Spider-Man series as well. DC wins this round for me, though, for the most successful and amazing collective cartoon series' and animated films and I always love seeing who they get to voice each film or show. Kevin Conroy will be Batman forever (pardon the reference) for me. It was great to see him don the Kingdom Come Bat-Exosuit in the Arrowverse's Crisis of Infinite Earths.

Pics: Ew.com and Looper.com © remains with the original owners.

And that leads me to TV. I loved Smallville and it paved the way for the Arrow series, which spun off into this massive Arrowverse of connected series - a universe to rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in terms of a coherent and enjoyable whole. Marvel's MCU TV shows have been good too... well... some of them... Netflix's "The Defenders" series of inter-related shows are overall great, with some duds (Iron Fist S1) thrown in. Agents of SHIELD is very enjoyable. The Inhumans... not so much. I haven't got far through Runaways yet and I haven't seen Cloak and Dagger or New Mutants. I've heard some good stuff. The Gifted and Legion were enjoyable X-Men spin-offs. The Gifted was perhaps the truest interpretation of an X-Men dynamic to date, as far as I'm concerned. Initially, I was giving this round to DC, but having written all that, I'm calling it a draw, tipping slightly towards DC's Arrowverse. I love Supergirl, Arrow, and The Flash and don't mind Legends of Tomorrow either! I'm yet to see Batwoman out of the crossovers, but she's cool. Titans took a bit of getting into, but I liked it. Gotham was a wild ride and I loved it too.

Pics: From Wikipedia's pages on Crisis on Infinite Earths (Arrowverse) and Agents of SHIELD (Season 4) © remains with the original owners.

Then, the films... What a mixed bag. I don't always like what other people like, so there'd be some surprises in here. For example, I was never a fan of the older Superman movies. I always thought they were too campy and didn't take the character seriously enough. Lex Luthor was a joke in those. It's why I loved how serious Smallville took it. I don't think it gets enough credit, as the show that really brought back the comic properties and treated them seriously. I'll go through some. they are not in chronological order... because it was easier this way... deal with it...

What I thought of the DC/Marvel films:

* The '70s-'80s Superman movies - Meh...

* Batman 1989 - Loved it

*The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren 1989 - I can't remember much... but what I can remember is not good...

* Batman Returns - What the hell happened there?? Someone put Burton back in his box, please!

* Batman Forever - I loved it... shut your face...

* Batman and Robin - Without a doubt the worst Batman movie ever. I disapprove of its very existence... BUT The Batman and Robin Batman Pop Vinyl is kinda awesome, so...

-Pic: Zingpopculture.com.au

Next:

* Blade - Was not a fan. I don't like over the top blood and gore. Still, it set the scene for Marvel's comeback!

* Blade II and Blade Trinity - Loved them! Unpopular, I know... and I also know it doesn't make sense given what I said about Blade I, but I liked these movies and their stories more. They were cinematically stronger to me. Plus I love Ryan Reynolds' version of the character Hannibal King.

* Spider-Man I - Great. Hated the Green Goblin suit, but loved Willem Defoe outside of the mask. Also found it annoying that adults played teens. It wasn't believable. They stayed pretty true to the comics though, except for transferring Gwen Stacy's story to MJ Watson, with a twist... Anyway, Still loved it. I'm a big Sam Rami/Bruce Campbell fan...

* Spider-Man II - Loved it. Best of the originals.

* Spider-Man III - What in the name of all things holy happened there??? Emo Peter Parker?? Skinny venom? C'mon!!

* X-Men - Oh my God, I loved this. Being an X-Men fan since 1991, this was what I was waiting for.

* X-Men II - Loved it. Better than the first. The Pop Vinyl for Cyclops is also awesome... Kinda looks like me...

-Pic: Zingpopculture.com.au

* X-Men III - What is it with these 3's?? Suddenly added some comic-book coloured trims to the costumes and some movie comic-booky, other-worldly abilities (like invisibility cloaking for the X-Jet). It was a big step down but I loved it anyway... It went places I did not think it would.

* X-Men Origins: Wolverine - The worst one in the series by far. It destroyed the franchise's timeline continuity and it all went down from there. That's what happens when you introduce time travel, people... You start to make mistakes... And don't get me started on the "Dead Pool"...

-Pic: Collectiveconsciousness.com.au

* The Wolverine - Meh. It was okay. Again, made some continuity errors that ruined it for me. In X1 Wolverine can't remember more than 15 years ago... here he remembers World War II...

* X-Men First Class and its sequels - Well... These were fine movies, but they insisted on linking them to the original series and consequently destroyed their timeline and continuity canon. It's all over the shop. Apparently, mutants live forever and never age... Or they change actors and ages... so many times...

* Logan and the Deadpools - Loved them.

* The Fantastic Four and FF2 - Rise of the Silver Surfer - I loved these. They were good and were family-friendly. That was good to see and rare. What was going on with that Galactus though???

* Hulk with Eric Bana- Very, very ordinary... with some okay scenes. Not a great movie...

* The Punisher with Tom Jane - I loved it, others hated it. I'm right though...

* The Punisher: War Zone with Ray Stevenson - While he looked the part, this movie was not good.

* The Dark Knight Trilogy - I loved Batman Begins, loved The Dark Knight but hated the very end (the whole hunting Batman as a killer thing) and I was a bit disappointed by The Dark Knight Rises - particularly Bane, his stupid voice, and the way they did the fake-out death scene and the little "Surprise! He was a Robin!!" bit at the end. Cheap stunts diminishing the whole. Bane was horrible... Overall, I still liked it... mostly.

* The Amazing Spider-Man I and II - Far too CGI heavy for me. Deviated from the comics storylines too much, to separate themselves from stuff already done in the original Spider-Man movies - which had only just fizzled out with Spider-Man 3... I couldn't help but wonder if we needed a reboot so close to that soul-crushing end to the last series? I don't think we did. Andy Garfield was good though as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. I didn't like the redesign of his suit in ASMII, because it just looked exactly like Toby Macquire's from the first franchise. That was an unnecessary mistake. As we saw with Tom Holland and even Andy's first suit, there was heaps of room to be original.

* The FF remake - Meh. No good.

* Venom - Meh. Okay-ish... Not a Tom Hardy fan, as it turns out...

* The Marvel Cinematic Universe - I have never been disappointed. Some were not as strong as others, it is definitely true, but I have loved the ride regardless. I haven't hated/strongly disliked any of these movies.

-Pic: Zingpopculture.com.au - with... a magnetic detachable arm!! Love it!!

* The Joker - I'll put it here, because it stands alone and doesn't belong with the stuff below. I didn't like it, but I generally wouldn't like this sort of thing, so I understand if others thought it was brilliant. I find

Joaquin Phoenix difficult... more in interviews than in the movie... He's a little too out there for me...

*The DC Extended Cinematic Universe - Man of Steel impressed me that someone was finally taking Superman seriously. That being said, it was very dark and they made some decisions I couldn't understand - like Johnathan Kent telling Clark to hide his abilities at all costs, even if it might mean others (including Pa Kent himself!) dying. That's bullshit!! Superman is precisely who he is because Johnathan taught him to always use his powers to help other people. And then he kills a guy at the end... SPOILERS!! Oops, too late... I kind of understood why they did this, but it was a big diversion from the character for me. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were bad movies. They were soooo bad... and made soooo much money anyway... Wish I could fail that good... So by this stage, I set the bar for my expectations ridiculously low and I think that was why the Justice League was okay (if mildly annoying) for me. I accepted it for what it was and let it go... except for Superman's CGI-removed mustache and the CGI cornfield!?!?! What the hell!!! Wonder Women and Aquaman had many elements I did not like, but I come away okay. I enjoyed them overall, despite the high level of frustration they left me with. I have written other articles about these here. Shazam! was good, light-hearted fun... well, light-hearted-ish, anyway. It was not a Snyder film, thank goodness.

-Pic: Zingpopculture.com.au

- If he had come out wearing this, I would not have been surprised...

As I said this, brings me up to date. I walked out from Wonder Woman II tonight, incredibly disappointed. I don't know how they can keep making these bad movies... I think part of it might've been they "need" to make a sequel for a successful movie, rather than waiting until they had a good story to tell. I got the feeling that they might've just told one for the sake of getting a sequel out there. The story was crap - literally a magic wishing stone granting people wishes... Pedro Pascal who is awesome in the Mandalorian was not good here as Maxwell Lord... I don't think it was his fault so much as how the character was written. And don't get me started on Wonder Woman essentially being involved in unwittingly stealing a stranger's body to turn him into her former boyfriend and then sleeping with that hybrid man... umm... that's not cool. That guy has zero say in what's happening to his body right there... not cool at all, progressive princess...

-Pic: Zingpopculture.com.au

-Yep... In one of the most ridiculous scenes I have ever seen... that happens... She lassos lightning... Sigh...

Anyway, I didn't like it.

I watched a bit of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) and then turned it off. Why that depiction of Harley got offered a stand-alone (sort of) sequel, I have no idea. After Suicide Squad, I thought they would've binned these guys in those roles completely.

I'm setting the bar to a moderate height for the Suicide Squad sequel because James Gunn is directing and he worked wonders with an unknown quantity like Guardians of the Galaxy. Hopefully, he can do it again!!.

So, there you have it... DC or Marvel?

Yeah... it depends...

NOTE: The pictures used here have been sourced from different internet sites, always linked to under the picture. In the case of comic panels, the original issue numbers and creators are listed, as well as the company that owns them. All rights remain with the original creators and have been used here for entertainment and educational purposes only.