When did DC become darker then Marvel?

[Lee Stone]

box of tissues picture

sheep-1.jpg
.....

[Mark]

I'm not getting these picture references either.

[Lorendiac]

The closest thing I can think of is the Justice League's decision to lobotomize Dr. Light in IDENTITY CRISIS.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

This reminds me of something I said several years ago about how I didn't think Kyle and Wally should have been nearly as "shocked" by that revelation in "Identity Crisis" as Brad Meltzer desperately wanted us to think they were (and of course he wanted us to share their shock). Here's part of what I said, way back when:

* * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * *

Although some fans didn’t seem to recognize this at the time, Meltzer certainly was not the first to write stories showing that in extreme cases the “holier-than-thou” heroes of the JLA were ready, willing, and able to wipe out some or all of the memories, and/or radically change the general personalities, of some of their captured foes.

For instance, over a decade ago, Grant Morrison wrote a story arc comprising the first four issues of the “JLA” title that had just started up (collected in TPB as “JLA: New World Order”), and it ended with J’onn J’onnz telepathically brainwashing 78 captured White Martians to lock them into the shapes of members of the human race, and to make them think they actually were ordinary, clean-living, law-abiding members of the human race, instead of remembering their real origins and attitudes and the wide range of superpowers they had available. J’onn did the dirty work, but all the other Leaguers who’d participated in that case knew what he was doing and never voiced a single objection that we heard of.

Wally West (Flash) and Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern) were among the JLAers standing around twiddling their thumbs while J’onn was erasing memories and changing personalities at the end of “New World Order”; thus, it creates a real head-scratching moment for the veteran fan when, in “Identity Crisis” several years later, Wally and Kyle are both shown to be gaping in horror and disbelief at the revelation that several of the supposedly “older and wiser” veteran heroes of the Satellite Era JLA used to sometimes erase memories and change personalities in some of the villains they’d captured!

[Jabare]

Everyone has their own opinion and if people say DC is darker....fine but I don't really see it. Plenty of books I wouldn't consider dak for mainstream comics to choose from.


But I don't get how people can say DC is darker or more morbid than Marvel. Like are we reading the same books here.

Marvel 616 is just depressing. Half the heroes are straight up villains. All these immoral and terrible events happen, than they are brushed off after a few weeks like it was no big deal and the characters have moved on.

Thats not what's happening in the New 52. You've got some continuity issues and some characters stuck in limbo, but the actual story lines/plots aren't dark and morbid (outside of Batman books). And Batman's been an excessively violent jerk for over 20 years, so his character and Gotham aren't anything new.

So outside of the Bat books the only semi dark titles are Swamp Thing and Suicide Squad. There were some others but they've since ben canceled.

Are people actually reading Marvel titles are just assuming everything's happy go lucky and lighter?

[cgh]

What is your point?

The New 52 has clearly upset you a lot so I gave you some tissues for your tears. I'm no doctor but maybe it's a good idea to focus on other, happier things elsewhere.

[cgh]

Claremont's X-Men and Wolfman/Perez's NTT were both watershed series for both companies. They were the precursors along with Miller and O'Neil/Adams for the big sweeping changes that would occur in the modern era.

Yes, exactly. It's no surprise that the same team did COIE. To me, both Marvel and DC turned "dark" (or rather, focused on non-childish themes) around this time and never really stopped.

Not that there's a huge problem with that except when it's ham-handed or too earnest. The problem with the never-ending story format of superhero comics is that there's a temptation to continuously avoid happy resolutions, kind of like daytime soap operas. Providing character moments and taking a breather now and again is important and it's why I like some of the recent changes DC has made. For example, although the J.H. Williams run on Batwoman is lauded, it's a better book with Andreyko writing because it seems like less of a melodrama character-wise - Kate was a perennially depressed goth and it was basically a big downer.

[Blackfist]

DC was always darker than marvel (in context) but unlike Marvel there was a stronger sense of hope. In my opinion it started with Identity Crisis.

I'm not counting Watchmen or those 80s stories because they weren't done for the sake of it.

[thetrellan]

See I disagree, Daredevil which used to be one of the darkest books in the Marvel library, has become pretty light hearted recently. Sure Hickman's Avengers is pretty dark, but you have titles like Mighty Avengers that are very light hearted. You also have books like She-Hulk, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Rocket Raccoon that are very light hearted.

DC seems to have more over the top gore recently then Marvel has. There are side titles like Batman 1966 that are light hearted, but it seems like the main DC universe is pretty dark at this point.

Yeah, but you know that Rocket Racoon isn't exactly a staple of the M.U., Shulk is a pretty grade B character, and Spider Man has become just a shadow of what he once was (dark but full of wonder and promise, the inclusion of soap opera elements made it a thriving concern until Gerry Conway proved himself unable or unwilling as a romance writer. The stuff that followed was brilliant, but it left us with a seasoned Spider Man, and a fully confident Spidey is nothing but a comedian).

But the true darkness of the Marvel Universe has always been a product of the mutant titles (the well done darkness, that is. I consider the treatment given to Tony Stark and Hank Pym to be grievous mistakes, but maybe that's just me). Therefore when Civil War attempted to extend that sort of racial tension to the entire superhero community, people who didn't really care for X-books found the MU had become way too dark. Frankly, it was a turnoff. and fans weren't shy about saying so. Yes it sold well, because X-men fans loved it, but the idea was to bring X-fans over to other titles, not alienate those readers of, well, every title besides those mutant related.

So when they finally achieved their objective- a mixing of the mutant and avengers- the net result was to lighten the mutant side of the equation, rather than to darken the entire MU. So now Marvel has more of the lightness it had in the 60s and 70s, while DC has tried through the New52 retroboot (just made up a new word, guys!) to actually distance itself a bit from the darkness that was beginning to turn off a lot of their own fans, while maintaining a new sense of drama, kind of dark but not offensively so. At least that's the way I see things.

Overall, though, DC ends up looking darker, partly because the sting of rape and murder hasn't gone away yet, partly because Marvel has lightened up a bit.

[Lorendiac]

Everyone has their own opinion and if people say DC is darker....fine but I don't really see it. Plenty of books I wouldn't consider dak for mainstream comics to choose from.


But I don't get how people can say DC is darker or more morbid than Marvel. Like are we reading the same books here.

Marvel 616 is just depressing. Half the heroes are straight up villains. All these immoral and terrible events happen, than they are brushed off after a few weeks like it was no big deal and the characters have moved on.

Thats not what's happening in the New 52. You've got some continuity issues and some characters stuck in limbo, but the actual story lines/plots aren't dark and morbid (outside of Batman books). And Batman's been an excessively violent jerk for over 20 years, so his character and Gotham aren't anything new.

So outside of the Bat books the only semi dark titles are Swamp Thing and Suicide Squad. There were some others but they've since ben canceled.

Are people actually reading Marvel titles are just assuming everything's happy go lucky and lighter?

To clarify something about my own attitude: I have zero interest in arguing that "the DCU is much darker, right now, than the MU, and this statement has been true for many years, nonstop!"

Heck, since I don't buy flimsy monthly pamphlets from either company any more, and have not done so since before "Flashpoint" and "the New 52" were foisted upon us in 2011, I'm always lagging behind in knowing what's going on in either company's continuity, and so really wouldn't know which company's comic book universe "looks darker" this month, or last month, or the month before.

The title of this thread caught my eye, earlier today, so I gave it some thought and then came in. I saw that Buried Alien had already voiced the same answer which had popped into my head as soon as I saw the original question, so I posted a reply in which I agreed with him, and later I posted some other thoughts. But the original question ("When did DC become darker than Marvel?") was in the past tense, and that was the sense in which I was answering it. I did not say: "And for nearly 30 years now, it has always been true, in any given month of any given year, that overall there's more darkness in most of the DC titles coming out that month than there is in most of the Marvel titles coming out in the same month!"

In other words: In the 1960s and 70s and into the early 80s, I think DC's superhero universe titles (not counting their old horror titles which had precious little to do with the main universe's continuity) were lighter, overall, than the things Marvel was experimenting with. I see COIE and the transition to Post-COIE continuity thereafter as the time when the DCU dropped into the "darker than the MU" territory. That does not necessarily mean that I think DC has continued to hold the proud distinction of "Our stories tend to be darker! Our stories tend to be darker! We're so proud!" ever since that time! For all I know, if you found a scientific way to measure "how much darkness was in each of the Big Two's stories, on average, in any given calendar year?", you might find that the answer to "who's been darker lately?" had flipped back and forth fifteen or twenty times over the last few decades!

So I basically was thinking: "COIE and its aftermath marked the occasion of DC's storytelling becoming, overall, 'darker than Marvel's' . . . for the Very First Time. But nobody ever guaranteed that this would be the Permanent Status Quo from that day forward, as some sort of sacred rule!"

[Mark]

I don't agree, I think marvel with it's cloning of Thor by Tony and Reed and the fact that the Illuminati are blowing up worlds, not to mention what the government in the mu is doing to the children of the Fantastic Four and all of the back stabbing that went on in AvX all makes for a dark, morally bankrupt, cynical place.

[Buried Alien]

Another possible turning point year for DC Comics was 1979.

That year:

1. The murder of Mr. Terrific.

2. The murder of Iris West Allen.

3. The violent death of the Golden Age Batman.

It all went down in the dear old year, 1979, when gasoline lines and disco music dominated American lives.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Lorendiac]

Another possible turning point year for DC Comics was 1979.

That year:

1. The murder of Mr. Terrific.

2. The murder of Iris West Allen.

3. The violent death of the Golden Age Batman.

It all went down in the dear old year, 1979, when gasoline lines and disco music dominated American lives.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I feel it's worth pointing out that by the time he died, Terry Sloane (the original Mister Terrific) had not been a regular presence in any comic book for over thirty years. He had appeared in a few JLA/JSA teamups in the 60s and 70s, intermittently, but he was not exactly a "big name" in the DCU. I suspect a significant percentage of the JLA title's readers in the late 70s -- possibly a majority -- were thinking: "Mr. Terrific just died? Gee, if I'd ever actually heard of him before, that might be shocking!"

[Legato]

I don't agree, I think marvel with it's cloning of Thor by Tony and Reed and the fact that the Illuminati are blowing up worlds, not to mention what the government in the mu is doing to the children of the Fantastic Four and all of the back stabbing that went on in AvX all makes for a dark, morally bankrupt, cynical place.

Agreed. The DCU, despite it's faults, is looking more heroic than Marvel as of late.

[Buried Alien]

I feel it's worth pointing out that by the time he died, Terry Sloane (the original Mister Terrific) had not been a regular presence in any comic book for over thirty years. He had appeared in a few JLA/JSA teamups in the 60s and 70s, intermittently, but he was not exactly a "big name" in the DCU. I suspect a significant percentage of the JLA title's readers in the late 70s -- possibly a majority -- were thinking: "Mr. Terrific just died? Gee, if I'd ever actually heard of him before, that might be shocking!"

DC might have chosen Mr. Terrific as a sort of "test subject," a proverbial toe in the water, to see how fans would stomach a character death before moving on to more...ambitious character death plans. Of course, even in 1979, character death wasn't new to DC Comics. An entire decade earlier, DC memorably killed off Black Canary's husband, Larry Lance.

Additionally, minor characters died off with some frequency in the O'Neill/Adams GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW run.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Easy. Its not darker than Marvel.

Go read Ellis' Moon Knight and then come back and try to tell me that there's anything at DC that's darker or more moribund than that.