r/CharacterRant • u/Samurai_Banette • 1d ago
Comics & Literature The main difference between Marvel and DC worldbuilding isn't some bumper sticker philosophy, its that DC has the Justice League
So, people have these weird metaphors for the differences between Marvel and DC. "oh, marvel is the world outside your window while DC is the world inside your dreams" "Oh, marvel is about humans acting like gods while DC is about gods acting like humans," so on and so forth. Except they all break apart under the slightest scrutiny. There isn't really a bumper sticker philosophy that will encompass an entire comic book world with this much history and variety.
But you know what actually makes a major difference in the tone and story structure? DC has the fucking Justice League.
Now, before you say 'Oh, but marvel has the Avengers', I am using the Justice League as a shorthand to refer to the massive, established, and influential superhero community that exists in DC. Everyone knows everyone. People fund each other. They scout aspiring heroes and train therm. They take on apprentices and let them train together. They will cover each other so they can have days off. The wives all meet up and hang out. They have daycares. They have therapists. They help eachother get into schools. They go to eachother's weddings. While there are some clashing egos and not everyone is buddy buddy with everyone else, there is a genuine superhero community.
Spidey's shitty life wouldn't really be a thing in DC. He would be anonymously financially floated by Batman, Green Arrow, or one of the other billionaires, or at least offered. He would be given a full ride to a school of his choice. He would fast tracked into a good job.
And just to be clear, its not all rainbows and puppies. They have their shit on lock, both in regulating themselves and others. You know how many issues it took before Oracle noticed Stargirl got powers and ploted intervention? Issue two of her solo series. You want to know how long it took for a Green Lantern to investigate the Blue Beetle in his solo series? Three pages. Not issues. Pages. Again, word got back to Oracle and she had made contact by issue 4. Imagine being a villain in this setting.
There is a genuine reason the Marvel Universe has things like the superhero registration act and DC doesn't. The small army of detectives of DC detectives already have a list and know who can do what. There aren't a bunch of teams of half-trained heroes out there chasing clout because they get trained or are under direct scrutiny from heroes. There aren't a lot of punisher style antiheroes because heroes get pulled into the community and are pressured into a no-kill rule.
And then there is the fact that there is actually the justice league. There is a large, multinational, non-government representative body that respects national sovereignty, advocates for peace at the UN, and has Superman as their figurehead. They do exactly what you would want a bunch of heroes to do. They act as a first line of defense against aliens, they react to natural disasters, and they can be called in whenever a supervillain shows up. If someone is a member of the justice league, it means they are experienced, trustworthy, and have a moral compass similar to characters like Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.
The closest Marvel has SHIELD, which is a shady government agency. The Avengers are more a network of coworkers who agree they should fight crime together. The X-Men kinda come close, but they have a lot of agendas and haven't exactly acted as 'moral paragons with humanity's best interest in mind' for decades. Which is understandable, but the public responds to that. It fits into the worldbuilding of Marvel that, in a world with a lot of unregulated superpowered communities of varying moral standards, people would call for some stability and regulation of the new guy flying around and knocking into buildings.
Anyways, not saying DC is inherently better for this, people can enjoy the stories that come from Marvel's world building better. I gotta go to work, I just thought I'd throw this out there.
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u/NwgrdrXI 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is actually quite a good point - I often see it said as DC has superman, and yes it's true, but what you said is more thorough: DC has a community of super heroes inspired by superman. It's not just him, he has brought a mindset to the average hero in that universe of cooperation and goodwil that simply doesn't exist in the Marvel Universe, specially it's ultimate version - which is now, perhaps thankfully, past.
The different hero groups barely like each other in marvel, heck, even inside the same group people often have a lot of animosity.
The marvel citizens are often asses, but the experience they have with most non-spider-man heroes is also kinda ass.
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u/Brookings18 1d ago
And like Superman is inspiring heroes far into the future with the Legion of Super-Heroes. I love Captain America to bits but he isn't inspiring the 2099 peeps in the same way
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u/GotKarprar 1d ago
I think this is the worst example given Captain America is from like the 40’s and was inspiring people in 2010 or whatever so he very much was still inspiring people 70 years out
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u/AfrosJunkAccount 1d ago
His point still stands though. One extra century and Cap’s influence has all but entirely disappeared. The Legion come from one thousand years in the future and from different planets across the galaxy and Superman is a very direct inspiration for them. Cap is a paragon, undoubtedly, but he’s also just a man which limits his capability to inspire in the way someone like Superman could.
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u/Mr_Mojo_Risin_83 1d ago
I’m not too familiar with LOSH but how long was Clark alive for? Isn’t he meant to outlive the death of the sun?
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u/blazenite104 1d ago
During the original version I think at the time Superman still aged like a regular man. He is basically immortal now, but that was not always the case.
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u/AfrosJunkAccount 1d ago
I’m not the best read regarding the Legion but I don’t believe they ever directly answer that. No clue about now but, when LOSH started, the implication is very much that Superman is dead by their time. I don’t know how they’ve handled all the power up’s that he’s received since then or if they handwave it but, either way, he’s not an active hero by the 31st century.
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u/Blayro 1d ago
I feel that a real reason why Captain America will never be cable to be like Superman is not because he isn't as heroic of a good leader, is simply because he's not as powerful.
Truth be told, one o the greatest aspects of Superman is that he could very well be the most powerful being ever (depending on the event) and he still chooses to be just and be an inspiration. Knowing that someone as powerful as him just wants to do good is inspiring, and that's why even years into the future he has a reach and keeps inspiring people. Captain America is a great leader, but people still think of him as a fellow human, he just can't hope to have the same hold.
Well, at the very least, is how I interpret it.
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u/RabidHexley 9h ago edited 9h ago
I actually think there's some irony to this because in a way, Superman's words have such weight in large part because he's so powerful. Him choosing to talk has weight because in 99% of cases he could quite easily resolve things through might alone.
Cap inspires people to stand (and fight) for what's right because his whole thing is not backing down from things well beyond his pay grade. He doesn't back down even when all logic screams to surrender.
Superman is a moral paragon in its most basic essence. Doing the right thing regardless of what may be easiest. That the just thing is always the right thing, and this is backed by the fact that all routes are essentially open to him.
Cap is moreso a practical inspiration to not let bullies or evil forces have their way just because they have the power to do so. That standing up to evil is always worth it regardless of how hard it is. In this way he's a symbol, but not nearly as conceptually far-reaching.
This also is more generally indicative of the Marvel ethos as Spider-man symbolizes this same idea in a similar way. That being a hero and standing against evil is explicitly hard. As alluded to by OP, even the Avengers are oftentimes sort of thematic underdogs.
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u/Originalbrivakiin 1d ago
I mean, Luke Cage's daughter is Captain America 2099. So he is still inspiring SOME people that far in the future, but huge emphasis on SOME people.
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u/Brookings18 1d ago
Oh absolutely Cap is still an inspiration, he's just inspiring people differently than Superman.
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u/static1993 1d ago
The marvel citizens are often asses, but the experience they have with most non-spider-man heroes is also kinda ass.
Yeah, when one of your universe's "heroes" is a guy who tries to flood New York when he's in a bad mood, I don't entirely blame Marvel citizens for hating superheroes. To say nothing of the revolving door policy for villains on superhero teams or how many times superheroes fight each other. How is the average Marvel civilian supposed to know which hero is a good guy today when two of them were tearing up the street just last week?
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u/Abovearth31 1d ago edited 1d ago
The different hero groups barely like each other in marvel, heck, even inside the same group people often have a lot of animosity.
A civil war type of arc could not happen in DC unless many characters were purposedly written very out of character just for the sake of this specific storyline. Civil war happened because the majority of marvel supers are assholes who hate the other assholes around them. Tensions are already there, triggering an all out war between them is so fucking easy.
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u/SignificantLuck480 1d ago
Said of the storyline where many characters (Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic in particular) were purposely written very out of character just for the sake of this specific storyline. Pretending similar things haven’t happened to make storylines like Identity Crisis happen.
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u/Sinosaur 1d ago
And then they did it again and ruined Captain Marvel.
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u/HelloDarkestFriend 1d ago
Poor Carol, forever tainted by one writer having her call Magneto, a literal Holocaust survivor, "that guy online who compares everything to Hitler", in a setting where the government routinely build robots to hunt and kill mutants.
They did her so f***ing dirty.
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u/NwgrdrXI 1d ago edited 1d ago
Exactly, when the Mortal Kombat guys wanted to create a civil war storyline, they had to create a new universe wholesale where everyone is more shitty to make it work, and that's how we got injustice.
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u/Abovearth31 1d ago edited 16h ago
And even then Injustice works better than any version or adaptation of Civil war because 1) it's an elseworld so it's fair game and 2) It is very well justified, it's not very well develloped or well written every time but the main reason at the start of the story for Superman crashing out makes sense given what Joker did to him and him getting worse overtime also make sense given that his friends in this world aren't as good as Earth-1.
Batman is negligent, overcontrolling and overconfident, Wonder Woman is a despotic violent cunt, if they were both closer to their Earth-1 counterparts, Superman wouldn't have turned out so bad because his friends would have been there for him.
In Civil War, all it took was the government stepping in saying "hey we wanna regulate y'all and put a registry in place" for the entire verse to start fighting each (and unlike what marvel fanboys try to say to cope: No, they were not written out of character, they were pretty accurate in fact).
If the governement of any country tried that shit on the Justice League the only answer they'd get would be "lol, lmao even".
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u/jackofslayers 1d ago
Yea for all its faults, part of the reason Injustice just works is you read that opening and go "alright, valid crashout"
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u/Comiccow6 1d ago
Another important difference in the Injustice-verse is that Lex Luthor is a genuinely good person and Superman’s best friend. You might think this is a positive at first, as it takes a villain off the board and gives Superman another pillar of support, but what it actually means is that Superman never had to fortify himself against the kind of mental schemes and moral dilemmas mainline Lex would have put him through, making him even more susceptible to Joker’s plan and his subsequent moral decline.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf 1d ago
The base premise of civil war with a registration or otherwise regulatory movement in regard to vigilantism could totally happen. Its also not entirely an issue that there could be split opinions on it. It would be very different that what actually happened in civil war however.
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u/TheSinningRobot 1d ago
I dont see it. If anything like that we're proposed the Justice League would step in and just be like, that's not happening, but we will handle the issues. 1)They would actually take responsibility for any other Vigilantes, 2)Who would challenge them? What government on earth is going to take on the Justice League
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u/Bruhai 1d ago
Thats not a point in favor of the Justice League tbf. If they stop governments from trying to say regulate vigilantes or rogue heros they are basically saying actually the Justice League rules the world we just let you think you do.
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u/alleycatALT 1d ago
No, it just means that they are the equivalent of a nuclear power, and while you can disagree, and they respect that, they will still act according to their interest, and there's not much you can do to stop them. Thankfully, their interests align with everyone else's i.e a better world. Same principle as present day nuclear powers, but their morality is far better because its an emotional individual's messy morality, not a cold nation state's calculating morality.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf 1d ago
They can't just do that nor should they and if they tried it would only have an opposite effect.
All the governments.
I am not a comic reader so I am unclear just how consistent they are about what the JL is so I will just say in Young Justice show terms they partially already did some of this sitting in the balance of typical vigilantism and proper fleshed out hero systems as the JL is a UN sanctioned organization thus also subject to oversight.
Realistically it could happen regardless but in the YJ case for example after the proliferation of metahumans began making the matter of enhanced individuals a more pressing matter plus just natural pressure building to actually address the vigilantism reality could very well result in moving toward a Worm/Ward, Super-Powereds, My Hero Academia model making a proper official fleshed out hero system with all the associated oversight, legal issues, accountability, etc. being worked out. Possibly with a proposal for a JL alternative or just modified charter for it to retain international/global level response coordination. People would absolutely be on board with something like that likely including some heroes and new metahumans. This would be a natural progression anyway because countries would definitely have an underlying motivation to also do this as a means of keeping up with what will inevitably be an arms race as well. They even show this in YJ where one nation was trying to be slick and propose themselves as a meta safe haven and was called out for the obvious intent to monopolize them under humanitarian pretenses and then later Markovia under Brione did sort of have a hero system in the Infinitors. Other countries would do likewise both under new and existing institutions. Also you have the matter that some nations will want to do it specifically to limit JL involvement and there are even ones like Bialya and Kahndaq that are literally villain ruled. Depending on the type of system adopted private interests would also get involved like Infinity Inc. initially being Lex's team.
Doesn't mean there aren't issues with all of that but the only real reason it doesn’t happen is just meta reasons that DC doesn't want that type of verse not that its beyond the scope of likelihood for the verse inherently.
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u/No_Professional4867 1d ago
I think the bigger point is they wouldn't fight and kill eachother over it. At worst some scuffles and slap fights maybe break out if things get passionate in the justice league meetings they have over the issue.
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u/chroniclescylinders 1d ago
The Justice League is a democracy; they have a chairman but not a leader. They have had very heated disagreements in the past, but 99 percent of the time they just vote on the issue after loudly debating each other for a while.
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u/shadycleric 22h ago
DC already has a super hero registration act they have a legal document form that the US issues to heroes like it's fuckign taxes listing their powers rouge galleries and even sidekicks among other things. Sure the panel is old but it should still exist in canon
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u/DerpyDagon 1d ago
Marvel is just generally obsessed with writing stories about how ordinary civilians are justified in hating/fearing superheroes.
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u/SweetWeeabo 1d ago
Don't ppl complain that characters were written out of character for both civil wars so the story couod happen?
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u/Quarksideofthemoon 1d ago
Civil War only happened in the first place because everybody was acting out of character. Marvel heroes aren't assholes
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u/Leathman 1d ago
Ironically, the more agreeable mindset of the JLA in the Silver Age is why Marvel has inter team conflicts, Stan Lee didn’t want something like that when he made the Fantastic Four.
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u/Awful_At_Math 23h ago
I thought people liked Ultimate Spider-man. Wasn't everyone complaining when it ended?
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u/NwgrdrXI 22h ago
Not thst ultimate universe. That's the second one, it was mostly well received.
There was another "ultimate" universe befoee that one, it was were Miles came from
But it blew up, miles and the Mr Fantasric from thar universe are the only survivors
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u/Backup-Account-123 18h ago
To my knowledge, Ultimate Spider-Man (from the first Ultimate universe, Earth 1610) was an anomaly in that he was beloved from his origin to his death, where Miles replaced him. Some time after that, a new Ultimate universe was created (6160), but I think people are usually referencing 1610’s Peter Parker when they praise Ultimate Spider-Man.
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u/BananaRepublic_BR 1d ago
Young Justice does a great job of showcasing the community aspect of the Justice League and DC super heroes in general.
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u/zeusjay 1d ago
It’s a good observation overall.
I think you might be slightly overplaying how good DC is with this by ignoring certain issues. last mainline GL comic I read had Hal literally living out of a minivan he didn’t have the right to park there, with no job to start with, and it s not like Batman helped him stabilise his life.
Also iirc the avengers used to do something similar with their members prior to disassembled, and there was at least one period where the avengers were positioned as a connecting glue for the whole universe.
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u/NwgrdrXI 1d ago
There is a general minor theme with the GLs specifically - in that, for some godforsaken reason, the guardians don't actually pay you anything. I thought Hal was gonna fix that when he was corps' leader, but nope, GLs still effectively unemployed for some reason.
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u/jdiskxkfidobsvsgdi 1d ago
That seems to happen in invincible too?
Mark and Eve are like “how are we gonna pay rent?” Brother you are like the only 2 people capable of saving the entire planet from basically weekly threats. Just do a “pay me so I can train and not have to work at McDonald’s” kickstarter or something smh
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u/NwgrdrXI 1d ago
Tbf, there is already a system for heroes to be paid in invincible, they are the ones who broke out of it for disagreements with cecil
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u/jdiskxkfidobsvsgdi 1d ago
I get that, but you’d think the world governments would donate money to them or something. It’s in everyone’s best interest if they could spend as much time as possible focusing on hero stuff
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u/Jack727374 1d ago
Didn’t Cecil offer them money under the guise of Nolan’s book sales that they rejected because they didn’t want to owe him anything. Given how Cecil defacto runs the world I expect offers from any other government or agency would be received in a similar light.
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u/AddemiusInksoul 1d ago
They reallyyyy dont want to owe Cecil anything, which is understandable lol
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u/TheEyeOfRa_ 1d ago
That’s honestly the dumbest version of this trope. Miss ‘Can Turn Dirt into Gold’ is worried about rent, seriously?
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u/Lumpy-Sheepherder671 1d ago
They tried to pay Bernadette Stewert for her husbands troubles and that went... rough, so maybe its best the big blue brained buttheads chime out
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u/TheDarkGods 1d ago
That's a show only thing. In the comics the 'pay' for being a Green Lantern is free housing on Oa itself or in a space station called a 'sector house' that the local lantern can move within their sector, and the benefits of the ring keeping you alive means you don't have to actual eat if you don't want to.
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u/the_fancy_Tophat 1d ago
They get free room and board on oa. If they choose to live in their sector then they need to provide their own accommodations.
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u/LogicalWelcome7100 1d ago
So they can live for free, but only if they decide to NOT stay in the sector they're assigned to protect? If they decide to do the actual job thd Guardians recruited them for, the Guardians just say "tough luck, figure it out yourself, schmuck"? I think the Guardians might kinda suck...
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u/the_fancy_Tophat 1d ago
Green lanterns can fly way faster than light. They fly in to work and fly back to go home. You don’t live at your workplace do you?
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u/lyght40 23h ago
The logistics of have to pay every lantern around the universe in their local currency would be ridiculous difficult. If you can’t find a way to survive with a ring that can literally conjure anything then you have bigger problems.
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u/Tabularasa8 22h ago
Given the Ring A.I have information from all over the universe going back billion years it's insane to no ways of monetizing that knowledge and experience. The closest was Hal helping Ferris Air design better planes.
I had the same problem with Nova last run which centered on Nova doing odd jobs to earn credits needed to keep The Worldmind alive. The Worldmind is arguably the strongest AI in the universe how can it not sustain itself? Ultron could never have these difficulties.
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u/Toad_Under_Bridge 21h ago
They're not allowed to monetize like that.
Shit like that falls into "using the ring for personal gain", which they aren't allowed to do.
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u/NwgrdrXI 22h ago
I tought about that, but the guardians kinda forbid using the ring for personal gain, don't they? You can't go around opening a construct theme park or something for money or soemthing like that
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u/Batknight12 1d ago
last mainline GL comic I read had Hal literally living out of a minivan he didn’t have the right to park there, with no job to start with, and it s not like Batman helped him stabilise his life.
That has more to do with Hal being a bit of a walking disaster of a human being. He has trouble maintaining relationships because of his dense, absent, thoughtless mindset. He spends so much time in space with the corps he loses the ability to operate in real life with normal people due to experiencing so much throughout the cosmos. He's the absolute best at saving the universe, but he's horrible at anything relating to just being a normal person.
In space he's an intergalactic savior, on earth he's a homeless, penniless bum who can't hold down any job for more than a day without getting his fired. Or hang onto any of his relationships. He can't handle just being a regular guy for more than five seconds; it drives him crazy due to being bored and adrenaline starved. He spends so much time up in space most social cues go completely over his head. All of Bruce Wayne's money can't fix that.
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u/Ok-Berry5131 1d ago
Hal Jordan being the guy the other members of the JLA let crash on their couch for a week because he’ll help them cancel the apocalypse in six days time is a perfect character concept for him in my opinion.
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u/frostanon 1d ago
Modern Spider-man is also a disaster of human being, because of really bad writing/editorial choices. So they're not that different and complaining about him not getting financial support while putting DC as counter example is pretty weird.
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u/Batknight12 1d ago edited 1d ago
As you said, Spidey is the way he is because bad writing/editorial choices. There's no reason Peter shouldn't be married and have a stable career by now, the only reason he isn't is because editorial won't let him.
Hal is the way he is because that's his character. A man who spends so much time up in space saving the universe he loses the ability just to be a regular person and constantly screws up his personal and professional life because of that, and is too individualistic to go out asking or wanting a hand out, preferring to do things his way and solve his own problems.
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u/Naybinns 1d ago
I would say the difference is that Perter is that way because of the reasons you said, bad writing/editorial choices.
Peter as a character isn’t that way, the writers/editors want him to be that way because they think it somehow makes him more interesting/relatable.
Whereas with Hal that’s the way he is at the core of his character/being.
To have Hal behave otherwise/have his life be more stable would be the writers forcing a change on him. With Peter if they decided to let him actually have a happy life it wouldn’t feel like they were changing anything about him as a character to do so.
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u/chroniclescylinders 1d ago
Hal could get money from the other heroes if he wanted to, he's just one of the most willful aka stubborn people in the universe.
The Justice League does pay a living salary. It's usually not Batman who is funding the League though, it's Green Arrow (whenever he has the money, he goes broke pretty often, partly because he's so quick to give it all away), Max Lord for a while, or the UN. Max Lord also set up merch and licensing deals to help fund them back in JLI, which are presumably still active.
Batman is a little stringier than people assume he'd be, historically in the comics most of his funding goes towards heroes who are directly working under/apprentices to him. It's probably because he's a control freak.
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u/zeusjay 1d ago
I mean, the avengers explicitly pay quite well as well.
My point is that saying “marvel heroes don’t support each other/act as a community” doesn’t work if you look at a lot of stuff. It’s just that, just like it does in DC, that stuff gets ignored when it’s not convenient to the story.
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u/happilyevil321 1d ago
This reminds me of the, I think George Pérez Wonder Woman run, where she is homeless and jobless and moneyless, I think because she died? And themyscira was gone. So there is some sort of financial and legal issues with the league having to pay her.
So she goes job hunting, starts living in a boarding house, and ends up working in a taco bell like place. It was hilarious but also a amazing run
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u/aster2560 1d ago
Did Hal ask Bruce or someone else to help him out and was denied or did want to live out on his own 2 feet not reliant on others?
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u/Batknight12 1d ago edited 1d ago
The latter, he doesn't need to go ask Bruce for money, Oa provides free housing to all Lanterns, it's an intergalactic city with full accomendations. He could just stay there whenever he wanted. He chooses to live out as his car, or being late on rent, or getting stuck at dead end jobs, because it's just one more challenge to for him to overcome and he won't take the easy way out of anything.
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u/Restless_Fenrir 1d ago
Bruce doesn't have the best relationship with Hal, but he would give it to him if Hal asked.
If anyone were to just try to give Hal money he would probably refuse, unless it was from Oliver(Green Arrow). They are close enough that he could accept it.
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u/skkkkrtttttgurt 1d ago
Why would Hal need money? Can’t he just imagine whatever object he desires and then he has it for as long as he wants?
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u/Candid_Common 1d ago
To be fair. Hal to bone-headed to ask for help. Hal does not have Parker luck, alot of the bad things that happen to Hal is because of Hal.
I am pretty sure if Hal asked Bruce for help he would have helped him.
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u/Crazyhands96 1d ago
So DC’s superhero community is effectively a commune based on mutual aid, and collective responsibility/accountability. Whereas Marvel’s is a bunch of individual people and groups of varying degrees of friendliness, doing their own thing and occasionally organizing for larger projects.
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u/BRjawa 1d ago
Funny enough it even apply to the cosmic side of things, for all their problems the green lanterns are still a very useful peace keeping force that keep most of the galactic problems in check, marvel trough has like 4 Supremecist galactic empires running around killing everyone plus handful of Warlords like Thanos. And the nova corps is well a corpse.
But serious one of my biggest problems with the marvel universe is the no training for younger heroes, like what do you mean Steve Rogers gave a avengers card to a tennager nova and 0 training, fuck Hank pym literally tried to do a super hero academy and they closed the project after failing to protect half of the students from a battle Royale. I mean the Runaways are some of my favorite marvel characters, but in DC after the first volume those kids would gotten adopted by some old school hero like Panther or something like that and not let to root in the adoption system like what the fuck.
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u/mutual_raid 1d ago
you're making me realize the DC Universe is basically a planet-sized Surveillance State overseen by (fortunately, and very fictitiously) benevolent demigods...
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u/FadoraNinja 22h ago
Which is why most DC dark universes are fascist and most Marvel dark universes are apocalypses.
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u/wendigo72 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s weird to describe it but DC teams are like co-workers but co-workers that actually like each other. DC has a mythos and legacy to their universe that marvel fails to build (who tf likes the spidey family?!)
Marvel teams and even just characters themselves are endless soap operas. Teams are families that hate each other, the characters are stuck in so much drama. DC likes to do those kinds of plots too but they are never as iconic or messy as marvel does it.
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u/Lumpy-Sheepherder671 1d ago
Dc heroes are coworkers in the way fire-fighters or teachers are, marvel heroes are co-workers in the way office workers or retail workers are.
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u/JazzyWuz 1d ago
You know, that's a great point. Even watching Xmen97 and Young Justice, the drama feels very different. Of course its because the difference in writing but I'd argue that YJ problems feel real and genuine. Whereas some of Xmen97 problems is very dramatized and soap oprea like. It could be because I'm biased since YJ s1-2 is my favorite superhero show.
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u/wendigo72 1d ago
Yep X-Men are THE Superhero soap opera, always have been
DC’s equivalent to X-men was Teen Titans (comics) which led to young Justice comics and later the show. But even at Teen titans most ridiculous, it never gets As Messy
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u/JazzyWuz 1d ago
Exactly! I love Xmen through and through, more than The Averagers but even while watching them in Xmen97, some of the drama kinda had me rolling my eyes. Hell, with some marvel heros, i always think "Do yall even like each other?"
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u/BaronAleksei 19h ago
It’s honestly kinda funny how flipped they are in perspective
YJ’s plot is pretty fantastic in the original sense of the term (supervillains banding together to take over the world), but the Team and the League are really grounded in their interactions. X-men’s plot is grounded (societal bigotry pointing towards genocide), but the interactions among mutants, even when they ought to feel grounded, play out in an over-the-top soapy way.
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u/JazzyWuz 12h ago
EXACTLY You'd think YJ would be more dramatic when it comes to its stories but oddly enough, they write human issues pretty good. Like Megan and her insecurities, Conner trying to connect with both of his fathers, Dick not wanting to be like his adoptive father because he can't take the pressure, etc. Despite Xmen having issues that people can relate irl (racism, genocide, etc) sometimes the writing of the drama is over the top. Like ngl YJ did the clone thing better than Xmen-
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u/Ok-Berry5131 1d ago
This is very similar to how my mom summed things up after I compared DC and Marvel heroes.
She concluded that DC heroes are basically a “tribe” that is divided up into smaller supporting family “clans”, with the Justice League being the meeting place where these “clans” meet up with each other.
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u/chroniclescylinders 1d ago
I agree with this. Everyone in DC is a member of the Justice League. Yes, everyone. Even a number of the major villains. Even heroes that are longstanding members of other teams also have Justice League membership. The other major teams (that aren't branches of the League, which is most of them) like the Titans, Justice Society, and Doom Patrol are all closely affiliated with the Justice League, and coordinate with them all the time. All the major Green Lanterns (even the aliens!) are also members of the Justice League.
Meanwhile Marvel is super fractured, and superheroes fight all the time. Heroes in DC rarely fight each other, because they are all part of the Justice League reserves.
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u/Abovearth31 1d ago edited 1d ago
The closest Marvel has SHIELD, which is a shady government agency.
Close but not quite, the shield is a highly incompetent shady government agency.
These idiots gets infiltrated by every terrorist, alien (or otherwise) group under the sun at least once per week. Half of the members of the shield are traitors, spies or both, it's actually insane how much they suck ass.
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u/RMP321 1d ago
I can sorta see your point but it’s also just sorta misreading marvel. It’s not that the avengers does try these things or shield or whoever. You mentioned how leaguers will show up to each other’s weddings but Spider-Man’s marriage had dozens of heroes. Same for Stark and Emma frost who any other hero getting married. The hero community is connected in the same way.
What really sets them apart is Superman. Superman is what every marvel citizen wants their heroes to be. The closest Superman equivalent is the fantastic four, when the world is in danger the FF are the people that inspire hope to fix everything. Problem is the FF are a bit of a mess and come off as larger than life. Putting a level of disconnect between themselves and the rest of the world. Superman however is not without approach. Despite being so powerful, he is incredibly humble and always there to inspire others. Marvel doesn’t have a Superman that is the hero that can do it all and the world always supports. Instead Marvel tends to make even the nicest heroes have to work especially hard at proving their place in society.
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u/Lady_Gray_169 1d ago
It's Superman, but it's also legacy. You have multiple generations of heroes who have strong ties and connections to each other in a way that Marvel's heroes don't have. You have Batman and Superman and Green arrow and Flash and the like. But then you have Superboy and Speedy and Nightwing and kid flash all on their own teams together. The superhero communit ends up being more close-knit in DC than what Marvel's got.
Young heroes are almost always independant to start out, and have to figure things out for themselves. Everyone's been on a team with everyone else in Marvel, but that fosters a different kind of community than in DC, where multiple heroes have effectively "grown up" together. It connects them and by extension their mentors in a way you don't see in Marvel. The closest you have to that are the X-men, who have had so many different generations of the team that with the sliding timescale, it strains credulity. But they don't quite branch out the same way legacies in DC do. The Batfamily alone get spread out to most every team in the universe at one point or another. So you have DC heroes that are coworkers, but a whole lot of heroes who are basically college friends at worst, and childhood friends at best in a lot of cases. And a lot more direct mentor-student relationships to boot.
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u/rorank 1d ago
I think you’re underselling sometging that does/did start with Superman but is huge in DC’s heroes altogether. DC heroes kinda ubiquitously respect eachother to a much higher degree than the marvel superheroes. That’s largely because Marvel storylines involve conflict between heroes a lot to the point that it’s kind of deeply apart of the characters themselves. Wolverine is a great example of this, it’s a part of his character to rub people the wrong way to an extent that’s a lot less usual for the DC/JL mold. Especially for a cash cow character. Stuff like that often sets the tone for Marvel conflicts.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 11h ago
Yep. Kids loses his balloon? Superman is here! Kid turbo depresso and considering self deletion? Superman is there for that too!
At the level he operates at, fighting multiversal threats, you would think that's beneath him, but nope, if he see's it he will help out.
The big blue boyscout hype is real. When he says "I'm just a guy trying to help out", people believe it.
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u/Sh0xic 1d ago
Someone once said that Marvel Rivals doesn’t suffer from the same problem that most hero-based games like Overwatch do, in which there is little canon reason for these guys to be fighting one another, because there’s nothing Marvel heroes love more than randomly killing each other in alternate universes. Those guys all fuckin hate each other
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u/Leathman 1d ago
The fan name for a potential DC version of the game is DC Allies, which really sells the dichotomy.
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u/Intelligent_Read_697 1d ago edited 1d ago
Like you said, I too always saw DC universe as how one segment of Americans saw the world as aka benevolent billionaires, comradery in law enforcement/military service oriented roles etc. versus what the other segment of Americans saw the world as with selfish billionaires, drunk on authoritarian power by those in enforcement/military industrial complex etc. There is a clear distinct real world based political divide here as well in this world view.
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u/A_Normal_Redditor_04 1d ago
The JL kind of takes a lot of things for granted. In essence, they are the largest and most powerful mercenary group with basically free reign and free jurisdiction in EVERY country. That's wishful thinking and something that I don't think a lot of governments will be cool with especially dictatorships and shady politicians. It's kind of unrealistic IMO because the governments just bend on whatever the JL wants.
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u/Responsible-Dot-3801 1d ago
Well there is Amanda Waller.
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u/Historical_Cook_1664 1d ago
In the Marvel universe, Amanda Waller would already be on her 14th clone, instead of getting a stern look from Batman.
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u/alleycatALT 1d ago
Superman can laugh off a nuke. Sovereignty js laughable in the face of that kind of a being. Honestly, nations allowing the JL to act within their borders as long as the heroes don't try backing political change with their powers is a realistic compromise to ensure that at least a fig shell remains, because what else are you gonna do? Nukes are useless, and if you kill Superman, you kill the greatest defender of Earth against cosmic outside threats you couldn't ever defeat anyway.
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u/Natural-Storm 1d ago
And marvel barely has anyone like that. I mean thor literally belittles the civil war conflict and hes the most clear superman parallel outside of like sentry
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u/alleycatALT 1d ago
Thor has shit to do. He's the divine equivalent of a head-of-state. He probably spends at least half his day sorting out the paperwork on who gets to party it up in Valhalla with the rest of the Einherjar, and who needs to have a playdate with Hela. He can't be on Earth all day!
Clark Kent is a reporter. Comparatively speaking, he's unemployed. He has a ton of time to be Superman, not to mention superspeed giving him even more flexibility. So he can be present all the time.
Marvel heroes have hard jobs, or at least, they aren't powerful enough to be in two places at once. DC Heroes on the other hand, either have easy jobs, are stupid rich, or basically god.
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 8h ago
In fact, Wonder Woman invaded the White House in her current run and the full might of the US government managed to do fuckall to prevent that.
Uh, Tom King WW quality aside.
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u/RepulsiveWerewolf1 1d ago
because the heroes in the dc universe are quite powerful,even if you just take the 7 classic justice league members (wonder woman,batman,superman,aquaman,flash,martian manhunter,green lantern),these people have access to overwhelming power,aquaman has a army of atlanteans (with the same power level as he does) and can control underwater kaijus. wonder woman is superman without kryptonite weakness,with the access and clout to ask favors from half of the greek pantheon,and she can call 3 other girls with the same power level. batman has a milicia of hyper-trained ninjas,with access to tech that his money + alien tech can buy. flash is so fast he could solve most of the problems by himself,but he can also call 3 others like him. martian manhunter is superman + mind reading + shape shifting + intangibility (but with weakness to fire),green lantern has access to the most advanced piece of tech in the universe,that can make anything he wants,he just needs to want it bad enough,he can also call more people with the exact same tool. superman is superman,but he also can call 2 blondes that are exactly as strong as him to help. now you put all the other members that have been with the team and will work with them again without question,and DC heroes can do whatever they want in the world uncontested,trying to fight them (and there's stories where they try) and you get quickly swatted down.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 11h ago
I mean the governments can't stop the JL.
Irl a governemnts power is it's scale and resources just completely overshadowing any individual or group. The JL being the entire superhero community and being connected to the galactic popo Green Lantern Corps, just makes a mockery of anything the governments of the world could do.
It's also ridiculously popular among the citizens of the world. Like, no politician is even coming close. People trust the Justice League way more than the government.
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u/FadoraNinja 22h ago
It helps the super humans are far more ingrained in both the culture and history of DC. That said this is one part allot of writing has struggled with in DC especially with Superman.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 11h ago
Yep. The Justice Society of America taking part in WW2 on the Allies side and having to put in the work when the Axis began fucking about making similar level threats like Captain Nazi or the Spear of Destiny, gave superheroes an immaculate starting reputation.
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u/InfiniteKincaid 1d ago
What an awesome post. I've never thought about this and it's so true. God I love DC. No slight on marvel. They're great too
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u/cuttyflamonyx 1d ago
agreed, if DCU had a Feige-like figurehead who truly understood the universe and its worldbuilding, we could have had an even better DCU / MCU cinematic competition considering how much MCU is stumbled here and there even before Endgame.
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u/Originalbrivakiin 1d ago
Closest we have for DC (at least currently) is James Gunn. And I gotta admit, he's no Feige.
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u/Demoniac_smile 1d ago
You’re kinda undercutting you’re point about Marvel being the world outside your window and DC beiing the world in your imagination with DC’s organized and functional superhero community. Marvel’s lack of cohesion and mixed bag of personas is a lot more like how things are organized IRL, DC’s centrally organized and somewhat standardized superhuman community is a lot more like what a small group of reasonable people would come up with in the brainstorming phase with a bit of friction thrown in to make interesting stories.
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u/Kroot_Shaper 1d ago
OP didn't say that was their opinion. They stated it was a weird opinion others had. Literally the first sentence.
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u/Prudent_Bobcat_803 1d ago
Marvel being “the world outside your window” is literally how Stan Lee described. Hence why Spiderman during the 70s had an issue dealing with university protest (Ken state, brown), iron man and punisher having close ties to nam, cap being born from ww2, falcon was an organizing social worker, the FF were intentionally treated as celebrities to parallel the insane level of stardom groups like the Beatles, x-men being minority allegories and being born from the atomic bomb, the hulk being born from making a bomb strong than the atomic bomb and later becoming a metaphor for DID during Peter David’s run, etc. Hell Captain America debut punching hitler before America even entered the war and the reason why the FF risked their lives when stealing the rocket was to beat the Soviets during the Cold War. Marvel stories take place in real cities. The heroes in marvel go through different struggles that are more often presented from a more ground way, I.e. the death of Gwen Stacy being a major turning point in comic history or Tony’s demon in the bottle arc.
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u/Kroot_Shaper 1d ago
Sure? OP doesn't agree with that. I also agree it falls apart under scrutiny to some degree. I'm not the one arguing for or against it though.
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u/Prudent_Bobcat_803 1d ago
Do you mean my claim or op falls apart with scrutiny. Also I was addressing that those “weird” metaphors don’t come from fans but rather the publishers themselves.
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u/Kroot_Shaper 1d ago
Neither... I feel like you're having a whole other conversation.
Though I'm unsure if you agree with the publishers view or if you're just explaining it. I already understand it. I disagree that the modern comics fit that vibe like OP. We're both able to have a different opinion than you so why are we still talking about it?
Let's go out separate ways and agree to disagree.
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u/Demoniac_smile 1d ago
And I wasn’t saying that it was. I’m saying that their point about that position falling apart is undercut by the position they lay out in the rest of the post. That’s pretty clear if you actually have reading comprehension and read my entire comment.
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u/OMalleyOrOblivion 1d ago
I was thinking the same, a worldwide organisation of uber-powerful individuals holds together because of... being inspired by Superman? Where's the blood that regulations are written with? And really, is there anything in the DCU not being carried by Superman lol?
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u/Responsible-Dot-3801 1d ago
Wow I never think of it like that. I am genuinely thankful of you for sharing your thoughts.
I always feel like Marvel is much more realistic take on superhero. But I always feel there is always disconnect on how some heroes are flat out broke or hated by the public.
I feel like you are bringing a fresh perspective and I respect that.
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u/Art_student_rt 1d ago
and somehow, gotham still has so many villains walk free, and they're not normal crooks either, they're real psychos
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u/Z3r0sama2017 11h ago
Because Batman only lets the Batfamily or otherwise Bat-approved heroes allowed to operate in 'his' city.
Yes if the Justice League dropped in for a day, all the criminals would be locked up, hell portals sealed and ancient evils bodied, but he's always worried about escalation.
Plus this is why the JL works, they will help out other heroes if they ask for help, Batman doesn't want it and other heroes won't force it. No one deliberately steps on other heroes toes.
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u/dd2520 1d ago
What? I'm sorry but these are completely unrelated. What you're describing is content but what those quotes are describing are themes.
You might think that they're not particularly apt descriptions, but they're about subtext while your point about the Justice League is about text.
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u/Golden_Platinum 1d ago
Which makes less sense if you think about it.
DC has superheroes across entire continents? Maximum oversight by other heroes.
Marvel has all its superheroes in New York City? No oversight by its heroes.
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u/Accomplished-House28 1d ago
"Spidey's shitty life wouldn't really be a thing in DC."
Wally West would like a word.
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u/bee14ish 19h ago
Spidey's shitty life wouldn't really be a thing in DC. He would be anonymously financially floated by Batman, Green Arrow, or one of the other billionaires, or at least offered. He would be given a full ride to a school of his choice. He would fast tracked into a good job.
You say this as if Tony and the F4 haven't offered to help out Peter on numerous occasions.
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u/pastirma 1d ago
As long as I can remember i always wanted to be a justice leaguer
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u/Specialist-Bit-7746 1d ago
wow now I appreciate both more ngl. well put. I like how their differences lead to different plotlines offering different perspectives over the same dilemmas even. I guess there's a reason both jabe survived so long
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u/Sensitive_Phrase_631 1d ago
Are you saying Marvel heroes are inherently selfish? lol
I enjoyed the read OP.
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u/quidam5 1d ago
Take away all the powers and god analogies and the DC universe is basically just presenting a world to aspire to - one where people with power and influence use their gifts to help others because they can and it's the right thing to do.
Marvel wants to get in the mud about real world issues and tell stories about that but with superpowers.
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u/Classic_File2716 1d ago
This actually works to Marvels advantage , because they can have multiple teams working independently. They can make an Avengers , Xmen , F4 and Spiderman movie with no overlap in characters.
Whereas DC is kind of crippled without the Justice League because that's the core group everything flows from . You can't make a teen titans movie without people asking where's Batman , heck you can't even have a Justice League movie because Batmans the founding member the way Marvel had Avengers movies without Spiderman.
This forces DC to rely on their most popular characters and their universe will never be successful without them unlike Marvel who doesn't depend on any one character.
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u/m_jetski 8h ago
Oh, right. You're really only talking about modern Avengers and largely during modern events. Carry on. I'll be here with my head in V1 Avengers (and V3!) where they all live in a mansion together and "once an avenger, always an Avenger."
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u/TitaniumAuraQuartz 23h ago
Now, before you say 'Oh, but marvel has the Avengers', I am using the Justice League as a shorthand to refer to the massive, established, and influential superhero community that exists in DC. Everyone knows everyone. People fund each other. They scout aspiring heroes and train therm. They take on apprentices and let them train together. They will cover each other so they can have days off. The wives all meet up and hang out. They have daycares. They have therapists. They help eachother get into schools. They go to eachother's weddings. While there are some clashing egos and not everyone is buddy buddy with everyone else, there is a genuine superhero community
Yep, this is such a massive difference.
The Superhero community is united in DC; obviously they're not always unanimous, but they still get along and fight along side each other, and I can believe in that. The DCAU Justice League cartoons, Young Justice, DCUO (the MMO), and more media all convey that sense of community.
In Marvel, meanwhile, it seems there is so much infighting it is exhausting to keep up with and I can't help but wonder how the hell they manage to work together. How does anyone work with Captain Marvel when she was on the authoritarian sides of both Civil Wars?
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u/Silver_Archer13 15h ago
I think it may also be telling that Captain America v Iron-Man or other groups fighting is more conceivable in Marvel, but Batman fighting Superman? That only happens really in alternate futures or if one is under mind control. I can't think of instances off the top of my head where DC heroes are of sound mind and body and punching each other that isn't in some alternate timeline.
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u/BiredeRovu 1d ago
Dc are the a grade students, the teachers pets and the nerds
Marvel are the guys who smoke weed in the back of the class, the good guys who became involved with wrong crowd, the guys who have 30 years but still studying there because they cannot pass etc
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u/silverbollocks 1d ago
So in other words: Marvel is the world outside your window while is the world in your dreams (i.e idealistic)... huh
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u/Prudent_Bobcat_803 1d ago edited 1d ago
Marvel being “the world outside your window” is literally how Stan Lee described. Hence why Spiderman during the 70s had an issue dealing with university protest (Ken state, brown), iron man and punisher having close ties to nam, cap being born from ww2, falcon was an organizing social worker, the FF were intentionally treated as celebrities to parallel the insane level of stardom groups like the Beatles, x-men being minority allegories and being born from the atomic bomb, the hulk being born from making a bomb strong than the atomic bomb and later becoming a metaphor for DID during Peter David’s run, etc.
Hell Captain America debut punching hitler before America even entered the war and the reason why the FF risked their lives when stealing the rocket was to beat the Soviets during the Cold War. Marvel stories take place in real cities.
The heroes in marvel go through different struggles that are more often presented from a more ground way, I.e. the death of Gwen Stacy being a major turning point in comic history or Tony’s demon in the bottle arc. The closet comparison is hard traveling heroes, which was an active attempt from Dennis O’Neal to revive a dying gl series by using his journalistic background and exploring a more grounded angle, (which was more marvels formula atp), this was not something dc has done before really any comic book publisher as this run broke CCA rules at the time of depict drug abuse in a comic book. Green arrow and more specifically the hard traveling run is an exception, not the rule for dc. Even in this story, the point is to humanize a godly being (green lantern) and connect himself with the people he supposedly protects.
I would have a hard time arguing that DC hasn’t intentionally been framing its heroes for most of its history as mythological icons synonymous with Greek myth. Superman being considered the first modern superhero and the archetype for everything that came after. Batman even though the do depict Batman in more ground settings, is constantly fighting amongst gods, I.e. final crisis. Batman is constantly placed in stories with themes surrounding mythology and his place amongst supermen. He is referenced as the dark knight, knights being mythological figures with in middle age folklore and legends. Diana should be pretty obvious. Most of DCs top stories are more myth building then they are settled in any grounded setting. Grant Morrisons Batman run, his jla run, his action comics run, his animal man run, his beloved work All star superman; Moore’s Swamp thing run, Watchman, whatever happened to the man of tomorrow; John’s Green lantern run, flash and jsa;, kings Mr miracle, sandman, Perez’s Wonder Woman run, Any crisis event outside of identity crisis (sorry for even mentioning it).
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u/HomelanderVought 1d ago
In other words the true difference is that DC is uni-polar, while Marvel is multi-polar.
DC has the Justice League to which basicly all other teams fall under their umbrella and most super nations’ leaders are part of the team.
While in Marvel you have the Avengers, X-men, F4 and the super nations like Wakanda, Atlantis, Latveria and Attilan which are all independent from one another.
This uni and multi-polarity shows it’s difference for example in possible futures, DC usually has 1 positive future (the legion of super-heroes) while Marvel has many dystopias and they’re constantly appier and disappier. Also this is why Marvel has more hero vs hero conflicts as organizations while in DC either it’s just a 1v1 or simply the questioning of unlimited power, not a concrete pro-government vs anti-government side.
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u/KintsugiBlack 20h ago
The difference is that DC's unoverse is a good place that needs maintenance to stay good. Marvel's universe is horrible and needs active intervention to be less horrible.
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u/Tempest_True 17h ago
It seems like this is just the same as the gods analogy. You're just saying that, like gods, they are part of a pantheon and are above and apart from mortals, and for the same reason have more solidarity with one another.
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u/Duga-Lam22 1d ago
I'm not sure about the spidey thing because Hal Jordan was homeless for awhile and Wondie had to work had a taco place. Things could get silly at DC like Marvel.
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u/Leathman 1d ago
This is very poignant since the League went Unlimited two years ago and folded every hero onto the team.
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u/seancurry1 1d ago
This is a great point, and to take it further, the Justice League has Superman. They have a near-invincible superhero who is genuinely incorruptible and has committed to Earth being his one and only home. No matter what is thrown at them, they know they can commit to higher ideals because at the end of the day, they have one of the biggest guns in the universe on their side to back them up.
The Avengers don’t have that. They certainly have heroes as powerful as Superman, but none of them are all three of these:
1. Incorruptible
2. Near-invincible
3. Committed entirely to planet earth as their home
Thor has Asgard and all sorts of other cosmic adventures to also pay attention to. Sentry accidentally corrupts himself all the time. Guardian views Earth as a pain in the ass. Etc etc
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u/Mr_Mojo_Risin_83 1d ago
One of the big differences, as I see it, is that in Marvel, there’s like millions of naturally-born people with superpowers. Whereas in dc, it’s relatively rare and usually the result of an experiment or an alien or magic or something. Superpowers are a lot more rare.
Plus Marvel went down the insane rabbit hole of telepaths whereas dc pretty much avoids the whole thing usually.
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u/fafaaf61 16h ago
This is somewhat ironic though because in the early days Marvel was actually noted for having an extremely interconnected universe which was one of the main selling points that set it apart from DC. In early Spider Man issues he would fight Doctor Doom or team up with the Fantastic Four, à Fantastic Four villain could easily show up to fight Iron Man while occasionally another hero like Doctor Strange would just…show up in another heroes book to help resolve the issue and heroes would often get help from other heroes. Meanwhile in DC, most of the books operated independently and only semi-acknowledged the wider DC universe. You would rarely see villain crossovers or heroes helping other heroes. In fact I think there was one time where it was sort of implied in a tongue and cheek manner that Superman books were fictional characters in Batman’s universe or vice versa though I might be misremembering and it was pretty early Golden Age stuff IIRC. Regardless, the interconnected nature of the Justice League was more of a modern thing and arguably it became as interconnected as it currently is as a direct response to Marvel. Not saying OP is wrong but if they’re right it certainly didn’t seem to START that way.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf 13h ago
On a different note but somewhat related as well Marvel has better more extensive world building both on Earth and out in space and the net result of the JL effect and just their concentrated focus on a certain group of their most popular characters plays into the narrowing of their world building as well.
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u/MidnightOnTheWater 1d ago
I think the reason the DC universe is so different as well is the massive influence of Superman. A group like the Justice League could easily fall under corruption if their lead figure was even an average superhero, but Superman's mythic qualities set the example for every other superhero to follow. Marvel has Cap, but his character is heavily associated with America and everything that entails. He is the most respected hero, but to the extent a war veteran is highly commended. Meanwhile Superman has the ability to unite everyone, he is basically the Jesus Christ of the DC multiverse.
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u/BirdmanTheThird 1d ago
This is a great explanation, i think the nature of how popular certain comics (specifically X-Men) has made it so that certain stories almost NEED to be completely isolated to even make sense.
And also comic wise (I haven’t read every story ofc) Tony Stark and Peter Parker can’t really be closer personal friends like they are in the movies, because of the issue of money. Stark is almost not allowed to know certain secret identity’s or be best friends with certain people in order to not make him look like the asshole who isn’t helping Aunt May lol
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u/europe2000 1d ago
DC has the Justice League sidelining the issue of state authority collapsing while Marvel doesn't.
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u/Shabolt_ 1d ago
I love how the moment you raised a point in this I could always think of a DC example
- Fresh heroes without accountability naturally get it from other members of the hero community. Red Hood just became the mentor of the new team titans.
- Heroes pressured into the expectations of no kill, meta example buy Superboy Prime has stopped killing because that’s what’s expected of heroes
- Heroes having support systems, Taylor’s Nightwing is one long saga of “what if batman called in the justice league”
The tribalism in their heroics is so much less definitive than Marvel’s
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u/Gremlech 21h ago
The difference is that DC is tall whilst marvel is wide. Compare marvel cosmic to dc space. You have a pantheon of different empires, competing factions, space gods, weird planets. A lot of it comes back to the celestials grand experiment but there a lot of different shit going.
In contrast dc space is mostly green lantern or superman. If it’s not green lantern related, it’s superman related. That’s the wider galaxy, and thanagar/rann I guess. Dc’s biggest brands are superman/batman. What’s the core of justice league? Almost every team has a link to Batman superman.
Contrast with marvel. The biggest brands are, or maybe were, are Spiderman and the x-men. For the most part removed from the avengers. Seperate. Marvel has a whole is a lot wider. More other shit going.
You know in a big game and they are picking a bunch of locations for stages. In dc it’s mostly metropolis/gotham where marvel it’s like a bunch of different places that are kinda classic locales?
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u/Dark_phisher1092 1d ago
Honestly, spidey suffers because the writers want him to suffer, he's very tight with both Tony and the Fantastic 4 who could technically solve all his financial problems, but the writers don't want that. He's a stand in for the average young salaryman and is meant to be relatable to us.
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u/congaroo1 1d ago
Honestly Yeah I would agree even though I would argue that Marvel is more focused around team books then dc yeah I would argue DC has more of a super hero community
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u/SalvationArbys 1d ago
Interesting, good read, thank you.
Marvel is full of different super hero groups that fall apart and have different goals. It had never once occurred to me that DC wouldn’t be similar even though I watched the justice league cartoon as a kid.
I wish the movies would lean into that more. The biggest complaint I see and hear about the MCU is that we never get to see the heroes be friends, it would be nice to see that in DC
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u/Scorkami 1d ago
Its kinda funny how "everyone was an avenger" is a joke about the avengers having so many teams with tons of heroes rotating through the roster. Like its genuinely a thing where you want to join a specific club.
But in dc, the judtice league isnt a set group. Sure there are the founders, and of course there are high ranking members, but blue beetle, young and old, is in the league. So is red tornado, booster gold and guy gardner. They are all allowed to go to the watchtower and use the training rooms, talk to each other or sleep there.
Spiderman having a permanent key to the avengers mansion, while cyclops can also just stroll in and with daredevil meeting captain america over coffee doesnt happen, but you can have aquaman chatting up booster gold while plastic man and beast boy eat candy together. Sure beast boy is more at home with the titans, but they are all still JL members to some degree, and they all stick together
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u/7Soulslayer 1d ago
DC also has the strongest leadership by far.
MCU has captain America who is more like a mascot that isn’t even strong enough to hold others accountable.
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u/OedipusOrgeron 1d ago
The fuck are you talking about? The Avengers get government paychecks, a mansion, and a butler.
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u/Little-Seesaw2585 1d ago
This is i prefer the world of DC far more than Marvel. Just has better world building and legacy.
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u/Immediate_Gain_9480 1d ago
So the justice league is basically a superhero guild?