I really don’t consider marvel and DC equal in comics quality in the totality of their history.
Yes. They both have iconic characters, and some great runs.
But only DC managed to break into the “literary” idea of comics. Where they launched a mature line for author driven comics like watchmen, sandman etc. Along with the vertigo Imprint
Marvels mature line came decades later with MAX and as much as I enjoy punisher max I wouldn’t say it’s particularly deep or a work of high art. It’s just a very fun comic with some heavier assessment of frank as a character and uncensored violence.
Why hasn’t marvel ever pulled off the kind of higher quality graphic novels DC did?
Even before the disney merger they didn’t, but I have no faith they’ll use marvel for anything but a copyright factory for movies at this point. Which kind of negates them doing anything too experimental or new.
Remember when joss whedon said that Batman should be a marvel property?
Luis Sanchez
You're right that there are great "literary" Vertigo comics but they aren't mainline DC capeshit and are only tangentially related to mainline DC capeshit. And when DC tries to force them into the main DC universe like with Doomsday Clock, it's garbage. Vertigo might as well be a separate publisher from DC.
Carson Reed
Plus DC didn't lose their minds after 9/11. Early 00's Marvel is a fucking embarrassment.
Nathan Gray
Was 1802 any good? I don't know because I don't read Marvlel.
Connor Morgan
I don’t disagree they often mishandle them after they get popular. But they get created none the less. That doesn’t really happen in marvel and I’m not sure why.
It can’t be that hard to make some literary marvel imprint for independent authors to try their own mature projects in can it?
Dominic Howard
What in the literal fuck are you talking about?
DC didnt launch shit, they bought other smaller but solid companies and had their writers come up with your lauded bullshit, decades after Marvel got mature when they started...
-checks notes-
...dared to put black people in crowd scenes, and started a major ongoing story about racism and antisematism in murikkka.
So I ask you again, the fuck are you on about, bruv?
Grayson Edwards
You're thinking of 1602. It was alright until the plot became about time warp shenanigans.
Ethan Reyes
What do you mean by this. Only thing I know about marvel and 9/11 is that page of the supervillain’s Crying over it
Justin Foster
After 9/11 Marvel went into complete sleaze mode, it was like the 70's all over again but worse.
Most of their heroes became assholes & hypocrites. It's like they became a hateful parody of themselves.
Mason Martin
>DC didn’t launch shit
They specifically saught out well regarded smaller comics writers, gave them full reign in titles like swamp thing and animal man. And essentially stayed hands off in editing them to see how they did.
Then when they were proven as good. They accepted most whatever was pitched to them as a side project. Which is where watchmen and sandman come from
Not sure what marvels equivalent can claim to be. Once again I agree they have some good runs in comic series (daredevil during Miller was great IMO) but it’s not really the same as it’s own imprint and separate story
Mason Miller
Why? I know the marvel office was in New York. So did they all just get PTSD and decide their jobs were a joke because a terror attack happened.
DCs headquarters were in manhattan until 2015 when it moved to California. But i think they also managed a lot more long range work schedules for artists and writers all around the country and even world before 9/11 so I don’t think they had THAT many literally working in New York when it happened
Adrian Barnes
& there's the other topic of how DC's women characters are worlds above Marvel's.
Marvel for being the hip, younger company they tend to treat their ladies like battered brothel workers.
Jack Gonzalez
Take Alias for example. Considered the most acclaimed of the MAX comics line with a popular character lasting to this day, even getting a tv show.
Is it as high quality as DCs high quality imprint comics? What’s its relative equivalent? I enjoyed it, but it didn’t feel great
Marvel was explosive onto the scene with FF and Spider-Man. DC were absolutely blown out by these titles. And franchises like X-Men were grown to be titans hitting their peak in the late 80s/early 90s. Silver Age DC is incomparable to Silver Age Marvel. People went crazy for Spider-Man having romance issues or money problems they could relate to.
If anything, the mature titles for DC in the 80s and injecting that into their titles was something Marvel had done for years already. Nothing at marvel will compare to something like Watchmen, DC certainly did better attracting talent with the British invasion.
On the whole I still believe the generalisation that marvel has better runs and dc has better limited series, yes I know there are exceptions. DC is god's trying to be human and marvel is humans trying to be god's, another generalisation.
It's easier to say "read Watchmen, tdkr, batman year one" as opposed to "read Millars daredevil, or ditkos Spiderman, or this or that."
Ryder Ross
Both companies have a bunch of shit female characters. I would say marvel has better women characters but most of them are X-Men adjacent and go through peaks and troughs of relevance
Chase Phillips
I think it's worth pointing out that Marvel's success meant that DC was far more in need of reinvention. One of the reasons marvel hasn't exactly done what you wanted is that they were doing better.
