I am largely bias toward Marvel Comics. I favor the Marvel Universe to the point of unfair ridiculousness. Well, almost. I actually just do not like DC.
Why?
Comics are so much more than inspiring characters (often with powers and gadgets we can only dream of), repetitive story lines, and corny jokes. A good comic integrates political, economical, and social issues with bold taste. In my opinion, Marvel does this best. Dark Horse and Image are close, but DC… It’s just sad.
DC and Marvel are the monsters in the industry– the big dogs, the big enchiladas, and every other “IT” cliche that comes to mind basically stating they kick graphic novel ass. Actually, the two distributors can be quite similar in terms of characters, teams, and the issues they cover. It must be embarrassing for DC to consistently get 1-UPed by Marvel.
1-UPed how you ask? Example:
Comics started reacting to the civil rights movement around the early 1970s by including more diverse characters and placing their already established characters in more controversial settings. Marvel saw X-Men as the perfect opportunity to embellish on the importance of overcoming physical differences. In 1975, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum introduced Giant Size X-Men comprised of the beloved Canadian Wolverine, the Wakanda princess Storm, the German Nightcrawler, the Russian Colossus, and the Apache Indian Thunderbird. At the time, DC’s rival team, Justice League, was comprised of many men (all from the U.S. or some far-off planet): Hawkman, Batman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Red tornado, Atom, Elongated Man (I know…), Firestorm, and two females– Wonder Woman and Zatanna. And what women too! Fun fact: if a man chains Wonder Woman’s cuffs together, she is rendered helpless. Zatanna is a mastered magician and worldly, however, at the time of her introduction she received much criticism because her “stage persona” seemed largely focused on her breasts. Her outfits all concentrate on the breasts, and apparently, many female readers were displeased.
DC likes to boast a diverse superhero lineup, but the first two prominent black superheroes were in fact Marvel. Black Panther (1966) and Luke Cage (1969). In fact, DC has a nice habit of destroying its popular white characters and reviving them into black superheroes to help increase diversity among the Justice League. Examples: The first Green Lantern was originally white, but you wouldn’t know that if you watched the more diverse Super Friends on television (cartoon Justice League), and the once white Firestorm has recently been revived into the body of African American Jason Rusch. These companies develop new characters each day– do they really have to resort to this just to bring a little heterogeneity to the group?
Enemy of Spider-Man, he was supposed to have the “proportionate strength, speed, and agility of a walrus.” That’s not really villain-terrifying so much as it is pathetic and disturbing. However, writers felt he was a good enough character to place in at least three issues in the mid-80s.
Walrus even gained himself a partner in crime, The White Rabbit
. She was a psycho with a gigantic robotic bunny and a posse of killer bunny rabbits. The evil duo was known as the terrible two. Yikes.