Why aren't Marvel speedsters as interesting as DC's?

[Lightning Rider]

Stuff like this is one of the reasons I've never really gotten into Marvel. They have heroes and then they have "heroes". Characters who are good or bad depending on what the story needs them to be. Quicksilver is one of, if not the best, example of this. Punisher, Wolverine, and Hulk all fall into that same category. So do Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and any number of otherwise regular super-heroes when needed. They do this with professor X sometimes too. About the only two that don't are Spiderman and Captain America. DC kind of have their share of those but they're not pushed as major characters. Like Deathstroke or Catwoman or Damien. And even in the case of Damien and Catwoman, Batman is trying to "fix" them. Marvel seems to have a much broader definition of "hero" than DC does.

Quicksilver is their main speedster. And instead of just having him be a straight up hero, he's a bad guy half the time. This isn't going to work. If you're going to have a speed based hero, he needs to be a hero 100% of the time. Or get someone else.

Yeah, having shades of gray are cool, but not if you smudge everything into the same bland ambiguous color.

[captchuck]

I think the name "Flash" is stronger than Whizzer. Quicksilver is a good name, but he always had a real attitude. Both Golden Age and Silver Age Flash were likable.

[Captain Britain of Earth 20]

Because Wally West rules despite the fact that DC has practically destroyed him and Arsenal, oh wait DC killed Roy Harper off!

[phantom1592]

I think the name "Flash" is stronger than Whizzer. Quicksilver is a good name, but he always had a real attitude. Both Golden Age and Silver Age Flash were likable.

I think that's the key right there. Quicksilver was a jerk and marvel reveled in showing how often he could be the jerk. Not my particularly favorite type of character. Though granted Wolverine and Guy Gardner have their fans.

Also I think it's because he's a 'team' guy. Just about everyone gets nerfed when they're on a team and Quicksilver never gets the chance to shine solo. He can't run back in time and break dimensional barriers when he's on a team... so he never gets the 'big' feats. Flash on the other hand ALSO gets nerfed a lot on teams... but he has his solo stories to shine.

But mostly the personality thing. 'Jerk' was his only defining trait for years.

[Electricmastro]

I think that's the key right there. Quicksilver was a jerk and marvel reveled in showing how often he could be the jerk. Not my particularly favorite type of character. Though granted Wolverine and Guy Gardner have their fans.

Also I think it's because he's a 'team' guy. Just about everyone gets nerfed when they're on a team and Quicksilver never gets the chance to shine solo. He can't run back in time and break dimensional barriers when he's on a team... so he never gets the 'big' feats. Flash on the other hand ALSO gets nerfed a lot on teams... but he has his solo stories to shine.

But mostly the personality thing. 'Jerk' was his only defining trait for years.

The speedster character seems to usually work best as a light-hearted/jokey-ish character, though not necessarily parody, and that’s probably why Wally West worked as a more interesting Flash than Jay Garrick and Barry Allen in that respect.

[WebLurker]

I assume the answer to the OP is why DC's "street-level" characters have never been as interesting as Marvel's (e.g. Spider-Man).

[Frontier]

I assume the answer to the OP is why DC's "street-level" characters have never been as interesting as Marvel's (e.g. Spider-Man).

I don't think that's true since DC"s main "street-level" characters are the Batfamily.

Plus there's Green Arrow, Black Canary, Huntress, The Question, etc.

[captchuck]

Yes, I agree. The team thing was important to both of the first two Flash characters. I never found myself wanting to read more about Quicksilver. But, positive team characters I wanted to read more about. I read Justice League before I read Flash and Green Lantern (in the 60's). I also ended up reading Atom and Hawkman as their series were winding down.

[qwazer07]

I assume the answer to the OP is why DC's "street-level" characters have never been as interesting as Marvel's (e.g. Spider-Man).

The Bat franchise is either part of or leads >50% of DC. They simply dominate most of DC. No part of Marvel is in the same level. Not Spider-Man. Not X-Men.

[The no face guy]

I think it primarily has to do with DC already having an established speedster in comics when Marvel was just starting to get off the ground in the early 60's with Stan Lee. So perhaps Marvel didn't want to push Quicksilver for those reasons?

DC's long history has allowed them to run with their silver age heroes, (Barry/Wally) tap the golden age heroes like Jay Garrick and Johnny Quick, and bring in new speedsters (Wallace, Bart, Jesse) to create a large speedster family in the DC universe.

As for Marvel, I can't comment on Quicksilver because I hardly know anything about him, I liked Northstar because he was Canadian, but none of the Alpha Flight characters ever became popular enough to hold their individual titles.