How connected is the DC Universe compared to the Marvel Universe?

[Hybrid]

I think the big reason is DC does not have all their characters crammed into one place. Really the Marvel U seem very small because almost every book is centered around New York and wherever the X-Men are these days. To Marvel most of the rest of the world doesn't really exist most of the time. With DC almost every hero is in their own city so them running into each other is not as frequent. That may make it seem like it is less connected but really it is just better for storytelling. In a marvel book it kind of gets hard to ignore that if say Spider Man is fighting someone in some big battle where the hell is everyone else you know is probably only a few blocks away and why are they now coming to help? In most DC books if something big is going down the nearest backup could be hundreds of miles away not just a few streets over.

Heroes often have their own stuff to deal with. Example, the Fantastic Four are often out fighting bad guys around the world, if not the universe or even the multiverse, the Avengers are dealing with world-class threats like Loki and Ultron, and the X-Men are constantly at odds with either mutant terrorist groups or anti-mutant cells. It's unlikely they could devote time to helping Spider-Man in a pinch when fighting the Lizard or something.

Even then, heroes teaming up with each other is very common sight. For example, I was reading Donny Cates' run on Venom recently, and out of nowhere Miles Morales showed up and they worked together. It was very organic, and believable (because a giant symbiote dragon was in NYC and Miles just happened to be there). Despite what I said above, and what you described, it still isn't that uncommon for heroes to get the "back up" you referred to.

NYC also isn't the only place where things happen. It's often the hub where many heroes are based, but it's not where they operate exclusively. Granted, this is variable, but some heroes see it as their main base of operations between missions elsewhere.

That said, what you said about everyone in NYC isn't without merit. Stan Lee admitted he had much of the action in and around NYC both to give it the feel of being a "city of adventure" and making such crossovers easier to happen.

[jetengine]

Batman is their X-men if you know what I mean.

[Hybrid]

Batman is their X-men if you know what I mean.

Interesting. Care to explain?

[jetengine]

Interesting. Care to explain?

X-men often seems as if it takes place in an alt universe with people actong radically different or not turning up at all. Similarly with Gotham.

[Restingvoice]

Annoyingly connected. I stopped reading because the stories or characters I like keep getting interrupted, canceled, killed or victimized because the family head or the overarching story needs a victim.

There's a pretty strict hierarchy in DC Comics.
The overarching story, which is usually Justice League level or special Events book.
The family head, which is usually Justice League members who are popular enough to have his own family books like Batman and Superman
Then the family member or sidekick books, members of the Batman/Superman family level books that are popular enough to headline a title of their own.

Then there's the special case. Books written by a hyper-popular writer that everything else has to stop to accommodate what they want because DC trusts them more to bring money that other books don't matter.

The story and its importance are trickle-down from top to bottom. What happened on the Justice League level, Events, Family head, or Special Writer's books can influence the family member's book, less-selling books, or other books, but not the other way around.

So let's say an Event or Batman book demand a victim, they can just grab from the sidekick tier books, and then go on with their own story, leaving those family, sidekick, or less popular books to deal with whatever consequences that happened to their character. This can mean sudden alteration to the storyline or straight up cancellation.

If they're popular enough their story can be continued in other books or by other writers, usually because the previous writer understandably doesn't want to write it anymore.

Now, this system makes sense if everyone follows the same main story, but fans pick what they like, and they get attached to different characters. You're lucky if you follow the "main" heroes but if you're interested in fringe books, you'll find out sooner or later that DC doesn't care about you or your money.

It doesn't matter if the character's a popular sidekick or former sidekick whose book sells higher than some members of the Justice League currently or in the past, they will get dragged to an event if they're close to the family head and can cause some angst. They're still gonna be considered their supporting cast no matter what.

Sometimes they'll get picked because they're popular and attract attention and therefore more sales.

[Hybrid]

X-men often seems as if it takes place in an alt universe with people actong radically different or not turning up at all. Similarly with Gotham.

Eh, that seems stretching it.

[jetengine]

Not particularly. In one book Cap is actively criticising or attacking the US Government, in the X books he becomes a government stooge. Humanity mostly likes the heroes...unless irs sn X book when suddenly anyone even vaguely related to mutants is suddenly assaulted etc.

[Hybrid]

I covered this in detail elsewhere, but the bottom line is that the racism was meant to be illogical to mirror real life prejudice.

[jetengine]

I covered this in detail elsewhere, but the bottom line is that the racism was meant to be illogical to mirror real life prejudice.

Theres illogic and then theres plain stupidity.

[LifeIsILL]

• Marvel would occasionally use established villains in other heroes' comics so the bullpen wasn't constantly having to gin up new menaces.

A lot of the DC hero/villain dynamic feels more personal than the Marvel counterparts due to this I would think. A lot of villains were created so that they would have some sort of hatred towards the hero.

Batman is their X-men if you know what I mean.

You mean Doom Patrol and Legion of Superheroes, who almost never crosses over with anyone outside of their own books.

[Hybrid]

A lot of the DC hero/villain dynamic feels more personal than the Marvel counterparts due to this I would think. A lot of villains were created so that they would have some sort of hatred towards the hero.



You mean Doom Patrol and Legion of Superheroes, who almost never crosses over with anyone outside of their own books.

Hey that’s not a good comparison. I illustrated this on the first page.

[DrNewGod]

• Marvel would occasionally use established villains in other heroes' comics so the bullpen wasn't constantly having to gin up new menaces.

A lot of the DC hero/villain dynamic feels more personal than the Marvel counterparts due to this I would think. A lot of villains were created so that they would have some sort of hatred towards the hero.

I disagree. Dr. Doom's blistering hatred of Mr. Fantastic was not even slightly diluted by his dealings with other superheroes, nor was that of Attuma toward The Sub-Mariner, or The Kingpin's toward Spider-Man (and later, Daredevil). If anything, it gave Marvel's villains a richness that some of DC's lacked; they were doing their dastardly deeds for reasons of their own, rather than as merely players in the heroes' stories. IMO, one of the reasons Darkseid has been such a go-to for DC is not only his power and epic grandeur, but because no hero owns him, and he has goals beyond any of them. No matter what else Lex Luthor or the Joker want, humiliating and destroying Superman and Batman (respectively) always has to lie at the heart of it.

[LifeIsILL]

Hey that’s not a good comparison. I illustrated this on the first page.

Well replace X-Men with Runaways or Exiles or whatever, you get the point.

[LifeIsILL]

I disagree. Dr. Doom's blistering hatred of Mr. Fantastic was not even slightly diluted by his dealings with other superheroes, nor was that of Attuma toward The Sub-Mariner, or The Kingpin's toward Spider-Man (and later, Daredevil). If anything, it gave Marvel's villains a richness that some of DC's lacked; they were doing their dastardly deeds for reasons of their own, rather than as merely players in the heroes' stories. IMO, one of the reasons Darkseid has been such a go-to for DC is not only his power and epic grandeur, but because no hero owns him, and he has goals beyond any of them. No matter what else Lex Luthor or the Joker want, humiliating and destroying Superman and Batman (respectively) always has to lie at the heart of it.

There are a few successful villains in both companies that are flexible enough to have their own journeys. I remember when Venom became hugely popular and would just show up in Daredevil or Iron Man books, it's cool to see but it became silly after a while.

My point is even in Marvel they would still have to make sense of out of the interconnnected appearances. You're not going to see Ultron or Apocalypse appear in a Luke Cage or Iron Fist book unless there is some wide storyline or event happening.

[Desmark]

It all depends on the writers and editors idiosyncrasies and whims not to mention the 'events' that how connected the titles and the characters feel any given moment of time.
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