Originally Posted by
Revolutionary_Jack
"Neck-and-Neck" from the start is a huge stretch. In the late 30s and early 40s, National Comics (aka Proto-DC) would see Fawcett Comics or Quality Comics (which had Plastic Man) as its main competitors, in fact that's why they bought them out and in the case of Fawcett launched a ridiculous lawsuit to kneecap Fawcett's Captain Marvel (who in the '40s was the biggest superhero comic and sold way more than Superman did, and appeared in serials moreover). The reason Timely Comics escaped being bought out by DC in that time is, well, they probably didn't have much to tempt or attract DC, and were otherwise not seen as stepping on its toes. The Golden Age Marvel stuff -- Human Torch, Namor, Captain America -- weren't directly competing against Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman since in terms of genre they didn't correlate entirely to that. DC remember helped Timely/Marvel in the '50s and '60s when it claimed monopoly on distribution of superhero comics and Marvel had to cut a deal to get its comics printed (which they got out once they hit big and realized they needed to get out of the cap placed on number of monthly comics put on it by DC). The reason DC did that was, they didn't think Timely/Marvel was all that big a deal to worry about.
This might be true once. But it's not really true anymore. In the '60s to '80s or so that might be the case but these days I don't think that's true anymore.
Tony Stark's comics don't sell in numbers anywhere near enough to give DC any worries. He's never been a top mainline character owing to the fact that his supporting cast and rogues gallery is very poor and weak. The movies did well and worked yes, but that's not been reflected in the comics, or cartoons and games. Tony Stark also hasn't battled alcoholism and loneliness for a while or on a big consistent basis for any stretch.
Which is also a theme for Superman, Batman (with all those robin suits he puts in glass cases), many Flashes, and many DC characters and stories. In fact Spider-Man has always been a character who is far more kin to Superman and Batman than any other Marvel character. 00
DC has a lot more iconic romances than Marvel does -- Clark/Lois, Bruce/Selina or Bruce/Talia, Barry/Iris, Wally/Linda, Grayson/Starfire, Grayson/Barbara, Ollie/Dinah, Aquaman/Mera and many others. The only Marvel Romances that's about as iconic are Peter/MJ, and maybe Cyclops/Jean or these days it's Cyclops/Jean/Logan (with Emma as Scott's +1).
Marvel is the company that tends to make male heroes into playboys and so on so you have a revolving door of love interests and so on to "add drama".
Marvel also tends to have far fewer female heroes than DC had historically speaking. That situation is changing recently to some extent but historically DC had this over the "House of (lack of) Ideas".
Marvel has its virtues and interest, in that I think on the whole Marvel writer/artist runs are more interesting than DC's. And Marvel tends to get a lot out of all its characters and stories than DC does (where Batman sucks too much of the oxygen). Despite my disagreements, I'd also say Marvel Editorials especially recently have been better than DC. I happen to think Dan DiDio is a terrible editor and for all that people have issues with Bendis being given the keys to the kingdom, it's nothing compared to the damage that Geoff Johns inflicted on DC (I dropped DC the minute that guy was allowed to stick and except for some things here and there I don't read DC anymore).
But I don't think that means that Marvel has any intrinsic advantages over DC. Sure Marvel had characters that were more complex and shaded than DC's back in the day, but DC's writing met the challenge and closed the gap by the '70s and '80s. In the 80s, DC via Vertigo basically created an entirely new comics market for creator-owned stuff that brought new readers into comics and was the most committed expansion of the market away from superheroes by any major publisher since the '50s. Marvel has never done that.