Marvel Fans: What about the DC Universe doesn't appeal to you (and vice versa)?

[Shimbo]

Obviously there are tons of people who are fans of DC and Marvel. I love both, but I grew up with the DCAU and I am a DC fan. That doesn't mean I don't like Marvel. I have very good knowledge of Spider-Man and the X-Men (because of their cartoons as well). Loving Superior Spidey, will be sad to see him go. When I got into comics over a year ago, I was actually given a free issue of Uncanny Avengers #1. It was a fun read, but I had no interest in following it. While I like the characters and story, I wasn't interested in the universe.

To me, as a DC fan, Marvel felt crowded to me. Spider-Man, Avengers, X-Men and many more all in one universe (and many in New York). A recent issue of Deadpool (annual #1) shows how I feel. With all these super hero groups and Marvel characters, I felt overwhelmed.

So, for people who have grown up with Marvel, did DC's comic universe feel overwhelming to you? The Justice League is pretty large. But then again, so is the Avenger's roster. And then there is outer space. DC has Apokolips, New Genesis, Green Lantern Corps and all the other colors (there's a lot more, but I can't recall). I don't even know much about Marvel's galaxy. All I know of is Thor's nine realms and the Silver Surfer roaming the universe for Galactus.

I don't know if this is a common feeling to feel overwhelmed by one comic universe and not the other. Do any of you guys feel overwhelmed or uninterested in the DC or Marvel universe? And I mean as a whole. Both companies have been silly, serious, and stupid. But because I grew up with DC, I feel more attached to that universe and I find Marvel's comic book universe less appealing (however, I love their more self-contained series/story arcs).

tl;dr If you identify more with DC or Marvel, is there any aspects of the other comic universe that doesn't appeal to you? As a DC fan, I have trouble engaging with Marvel's overwhelming roster. Is DC overwhelming to any Marvel fans? I'm curious to know how DC comics is perceived by Marvel fans. Not in story quality, but in size and scope.

As a fan of both Marvel and DC I don't find either roster particularly overwhelming (except for the multitude of Xmen and their history). I will say, however, that Marvel series are much more likely to get tied into a line wide event (much like how most current titles are being tied into Original Sin) and these events usually happen twice a year. This can get exhausting, but if you're not interested in the event, I think most writers do a good job to keep the tie-ins self-contained and still readable.

In terms of concepts, I find Marvel's cosmic stuff to be slightly more interesting. DC has some gold stuff like the New Gods and Apokolips and the 4th Dimension, but DC has been relying heaving on the Green Lantern line for its cosmic stories since the New 52. And I don't find the Green Lantern concept interesting at all. It's corny. The color spectrum that revitalized the Green Lantern title. Cheesy. I just can't get into it. Marvel's cosmic storytelling pulls from all sorts of stuff like the Inhumans, the Eternals, the Titans, Galactus, the Celestials, the Kree, the Shi'ar, the Badoon, the Skrulls, the Xandarians, the Spartax, the Nova Corps, the Guardians, the Negative Zone, Asgard and the Nine (now Ten!) Realms, and the Cosmic entities. Maybe I haven't read enough of DC's cosmic stuff, but Marvel's cosmic concepts and characters are more appealing to me than DC's.

That being said, I slightly prefer DC to Marvel. My favorite characters are DC characters (and usually female, which until recently, DC had a much better track record with than Marvel). But Marvel, in recent years, has been trying new artistic talent that is in stark contrast to the house style at DC (not that DC doesn't have exceptions to this house style). Pulido on She-Hulk, Aja on Hawkeye, Noto on Black Widow, Shalvey on Moon Knight, Tradd Moore on Ghost-Rider, Allred on Silver Surfer, Mike del Mundo on Elektra, Chris Samnee on Daredevil, Kaare Andrews on Iron Fist, Adrian Alphono on Ms. Marvel, Skottie Young on Rocket Raccoon. These artists all have unique and not stereotypical superhero art that makes for a visual diverse line-up of books. While DC has many great artists, I feel that DC is currently lacking in newer talent with unique approaches (although the new Batgirl artist and the artist for Gotham Academy are a step in the right direction).

tl; dr: I love both, but marginally prefer DC. I dislike the Lantern concept. I prefer Marvel cosmic. Marvel seems more interested in offering visually diverse titles than DC (for now).

[SmokeMonster]

None of the Marvel characters really grab me stylistically in a still image.

It takes the movies (the nuance of an actor, sound effects, movement, score) to get me to enjoy their characters, at least with regards to their surface-level appeal. For me, that's when they truly come to life. I need to hear Hulk's roar, to see Cap's SHIELD moving, to hear the iconic sound of Iron Man's hand-cannons, etc.

Whereas as a drawing of Batman in Gotham, Green Lantern's constructs, Flash's super-speed, or Constantine in a dingy alley smoking a cigarette all still excite me on the page. I guess you can also say that the DCUniverse is more stylized (mimicking other genres that appeal to me), more stylistically varied (though not necessarily more diverse artists), and more awe-inspiring. I also think a big reason I don't find Marvel that appealing on a surface-level is the lack of classic superheroes (capes, masks, protecting their own city, secret identity, etc).

For Marvel, I also don't find the tone of a lot of their books appealing, both with regards to art and writing.

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

I'll try answering your questions just by giving a chronological summary on how i migrated from Marvel to DC.

I mostly read Marvel as a kid-teen through the 90s and 00s. And it was almost exclusively X-books and street level stuff (Spidey, Punisher, DD). I guess as a kid I "related" to them more (which is typical for Marvel, right?). I did read Superman and GL here and there in the 90s, but pretty much no DC in the '00s.

The mid-late 00's I was super casual comic fan. Mostly reading X-books and Marvel events, but keeping up on general news/stuff from my friends. In 2010, I decided to be less casual and more serious, going all in and refreshing my favorite medium/hobby. I was still pretty much Marvel only for a year or so. But the Avengers stuff didn't grab me, nor did the Spidey stuff. I dunno why really. I guess the characters/writing of Avengers just didn't interest me and I didn't like how Spidey was handled (bye bye Mary Jane, hello Dan Slott). So I found myself just limited to the X-books again. I felt the need to expand.

So I tried DC.

The characters are gods, larger than life, un-relatable, live in fake cities, etc. But I began to find out, I kinda liked my superheros to be that way.

During this time, I began to like what Marvel was doing less and less - Joey Q ripping on DC, Bendis writing anything, the higher price points for less pages, double shipping titles, etc. I know that's all outside the actual Marvel U, but it mattered to me. In regards to the Marvel U, I actually did like what they were doing w/ the X-books (until putting Bendis on them later...), but when I read some other titles here and there, I just felt like Marvel wasn't taking itself serious - too many puns/qips/generic dialog in books, constant meaningless events, etc. I just didn't feel like giving Marvel my $ anymore.

As for the character roster, I actually found DC's to be more intimidating. Marvel has more A-, B-list characters. But DC is flooded w/ C-list characters. And as I read more and more DC, those turned out to be my favorites. The New 52 launch kinda disappointed me in the sense that i was just learning more of the history of the DCU for a year or so. But I also found it as a good opportunity to truly start fresh and use that past year of reading DC as just a "warm up" if you will, familiarizing myself w/ characters.

As for large scale cosmic stuff, I'm not sure I have much input on that. I liked Marvel's a little as a kid, reading Quasar and Nova. I know its much more expansive now. Again, as a kid I read GL for DC. DC's cosmic stuff seems stronger than Marvel's, but cosmic's never really been my thing. As Marvel I liked X-men and street level characters. For DC, I find myself liking the gods of the JL (no Batman) and the magic/mystical characters (no Constantine).

[Marvel_Is]

The things I've found most intimidating about the DCU when first really getting into it was/is the Multiple Earths and Crisis Events. I still don't understand and probably never will. Apparently old people live on one Earth and young people on another. When these Crisis Events occur none of the heroes remember them to try and stop them from occurring again. Dunno. :-/

This leads me into the parts I find unappealing about the DCU as a Marvel fan.

The Multiverse

Now, Marvel has one as well, but you either pay attention to it or you don't. Whereas it is a strong point of the DCU which can intimidate someone coming from a shared universe that is more lax with it's multiverse.

Marvel has been dealing with rifts all along their multiverse as of late, but outside of titles like Uncanny Avengers and All-New X-Men (with the O5), I don't know of many readers who give a crap. Even the Age Of Ultron event failed hard. So hard in fact that the price one of Marvel's biggest characters is paying right now from that debacle is largely going unnoticed!

OTOH, DC's universe is now neck-deep in the Multiverse. So, if you were intimidated by pre-Nu52 multiverse, just guess how intimidating it looks right now.

The People Behind DC (or not)

For some reason, as a Marvel Reader I feel like the staff running DC haven't a clue as for what to do with their characters. It's like they've inherited gold (characters) and that's pretty much it. Well, they've taken the biggest chunk (Batman) and pushed him onto the world, while the other bits of gold just collect dust.

I understand Warner Bros. dictates what the publishing division can and can't do, but that lack of fun and exuberance palpable at Marvel just doesn't seem to carry over to their rival and for all intents and purposes, I think that has hurt them.

You can't fake it.

Next up!

Crisis Reboots!!!!!!!!!!

[SmokeMonster]

^Marvel is definitely doing more with the hand they were dealt.

But to me, DC's failing to reach their potential (which yields a lot of complaints and negativity in the community, which a lot of people seem to focus on) doesn't the change the fact that I still find their stuff more appealing than what Marvel has going on.

[greenish lantern]

Marvel:
- Too few standalone stories, very difficult to just pick up a comics and enjoy it.
- Too many ripoffs
- DC has better characters (Though I do love Spider-man, Wolverine, some X-men and Captain America)
Most importantly though, the Marvel comics at its best is nowhere near to DC's best. There are very few truly great "classics" (God loves man kills, Spider-man Blue, Kraven's last hunt, Marvelman, Born again, Marvels...?).
DC has Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight returns, Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, Animal Man (Grant Morrison), Swamp Thing (Alan Moore... Maybe Charles Soule as well?), Justice League: Final Frontier, Superman: Red Son, Black Mirror, Whatever happened to the caped crusader, All Star Superman, Mad Love and many others.
Perhaps Court of owls as well.

[JackDaw]

I like the way Marvel primarily grew "organically" using characters specifically created for the comic verse concerned. Less keen on way DC has imported many characters that originated in other companies and settings.

Also very peed off that DC has managed to lose, some way or other, a chunk of my favourite writers.

[WillieMorgan]

I was introduced to comics through the 1st Christopher Reeve Superman movie in 1978 (early 1979 in my case). It was the first film I was taken to see. The film led me to the Superman comics, then Batman, Green Lantern etc (all US imports). There were concepts throughout the stories that blew my mind as a kid. Thousands of space cops patrolling different sectors, different older versions of the leading characters from an alternate dimension, cities that don't exist in the real world, a multi-national super hero team 1000 years into the future who inhabit a utopian 'Star Trek'-like universe, so many great b-list characters. For an imaginative English kid this was manna from heaven.

Marvel comics were easier to get hold of in England though. There was a UK branch of Marvel that published black and white reprints of leading characters (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, really old X-Men stuff). Secret Wars 1 and 2 was published over here as a continuous weekly comic for nearly 4 years I think. I loved Marvel too and loved the X-Men stuff of the early 90's.

Thing was, by the mid 90's I was in my twenties and thought the developments of that decade (EXTREEM comics, lurid art-work, sensationalistic storylines) were very poor indeed. Had I been a decade younger I probably would have enjoyed it better. I abandoned comics for football, the pub, women etc. Like many fans that stray I missed the characters and was drawn back after a decade or so. That's when the choice came back to me - Marvel or DC. And I chose DC.

Those sci-fi themes I mentioned before drew me back. Green Lantern, the Legion, the Multiverse. Marvel just doesn't have those in a way that appeals to me. I don't like Marvels snottiness either. The whole 'Brand Euecch' and 'Distinguished Competition' stuff. Grow up.

[Magneto]

I prefer Marvel s lot more than DC. I think DC's heroes are too much ''godly''. They don't struggle with their life on a daily basis. It look less realistic. And having grown up with the X-Men, they are in the middle of my hearth.

[manduck37]

I actually started off in comics by reading Marvel. My parents got me a pack of X-Men comics for Christmas as a kid. I got into X-Men and Spider-Man pretty early on. My favorite superhero was always Superman, from the Christopher Reeve movies. I never knew where to start reading his comics as a kid. I was kind of intimidated by the large numbers on the covers. Comics were really a niche thing in my area at the time. So no one could tell me to just jump in or about things like a Crisis event that gave a good jumping on point. So I started reading X-Men, with X-Men #1 when Jim Lee first signed on. I started picking up Spider-Man with Web of Spider-Man.

Then came The Death of Superman. I certainly wasn't going to miss that. It ended up being a good jumping on point for the Super titles. Around that time I also decided to take the plunge with Batman and just picked up random issues. From that time on, I gradually stopped reading Marvel and moved to DC. I still read a Marvel title or two, but sometimes none at all. Oddly enough, the only character that really made me stick with anything Marvel was The Punisher. I read the entire Max series and just kept going from there.

There are a couple of things about the Marvel U that have put me off. One is that there is always a crossover event. Every book ties into every other book, it feels like. I can't just enjoy a title on it's own without it being dragged into a crossover. I also don't care for heroes fighting heroes all the time. Mix things up, fight a villain from time to time. Marvel heroes spend so much time fighting each other that it got old fast. I don't need a school yard "my hero can beat up your hero" kind of story all the time. It also felt to me like the Marvel characters just became more and more tarnished. The Marvel U is a very down place where even the best heroes are damaged and broken people. Where as over at DC, the characters are more optimistic. The idea behind Batman is that no one should suffer like he has. He tries to make his city better no matter the odds and keeps at it. Superman tries to inspire others to be super too. It's much more positive than having X-Men get into a race war or seeing Spider-Man make a deal with the devil to get his 90 year old aunt back. I still find plenty of Marvel characters very compelling, but I'll stick to the movies to share in their adventures. The movies don't seem to have that negativity that looms over the MU. Oddly enough, I still faithfully read The Punisher and don't find him to be as much of a downer as most of the Marvel U. Heard good things about Waid's Dare Devil too, which I'd like to check out. So I prefer, what feels like to me, a more optimistic superhero tale with larger than life characters.

[chamber-music]

I have always read both Marvel and DC but I've always leaned more to the Marvel side as I like their flawed relatable heroes although DC also has their share of such heroes.

My first exposure to DC was 90's from the death of superman which I read along side as Steel and Superboy. I eventually went on to read The Flash and Moores Swamp Thing. I've read some Batman stuff here and there. Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman is the first time I've read the character regularly and I really enjoy it. I really like Green Arrow, The Shade and a few other lesser name heroes.

I've never been able to get into Green Lantern. The mythology seems very expansive and deep. I tried reading some of Geoff Johns stuff but could never get into it.

I find the multiverse and reboot stuff sometimes hard to follow at DC.

I wish both companies would put the amount of effort in quality of stories in their lower tier heroes which might actually elevate them.

[tib2d2]

I avoided DC for years because I HATED all the "crisis on infinite crisis's final 52 crisis", and despised the idea of Alternate Earths. Plus I felt some of their characters were in dyer need of a modern revamp. I got into DC because of the New 52 relaunch, gave me a starting off point which I liked.

I moved away from Marvel in the last 4 years or so (I still read Spider-Man) for several reasons-

X-Men never interested me, too many characters, too many titles and Wolverine is in EVERYTHING

They had $3.99 cover prices for nearly the entire line of books

Marvel is constantly canceling series and restarting them, it was difficult to figure out the reading order (ie Cap and Hulk have like 9 volumes as of now).

HATED the ".1" issues.

My move away from Marvel had nothing to do with the characters, which I think are awesome, more of their Universe as a whole and some of the business decisions Marvel makes.

[GlennSimpson]

Hopefully nobody who doesn't read DC comics at all is perusing this board. That would be weird.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I prefer Marvel s lot more than DC. I think DC's heroes are too much ''godly''. They don't struggle with their life on a daily basis. It look less realistic. And having grown up with the X-Men, they are in the middle of my hearth.

I don't really get this complaint. Its definitely not what I see when I read DC comics. DC characters have jobs, love interests, personal drama, etc. At least in the past 40 years they do. This isn't 1956 anymore.

[thor]

I'm pretty new to comic books and just started reading them about this time last year, but there was something about all of the Marvel characters that appealed to me. I think it was that I related to them in a way. It's daunting to just jump in to a world that you know nothing about with as many characters as Marvel has, but it's rewarding, too. As you become more versed in the comics you start to get the characters more and put the pieces together and enjoy more and more things. I started out just liking Thor, but through him I discovered a whole world of different characters that I like just as much. He was my gateway to Marvel, in a way. I've come to find I especially like the comics featuring younger characters, like The Runaways and Young Avengers and Ms. Marvel. I get them and I feel like most of the time, they're written realistically and think like I and a lot of people my age do. When I've picked up DC comics on the other hand, I don't really get the same feeling. It seems like a smaller world with less interesting people to explore and try to understand. At least, that's my POV as a new reader.