When did DC become darker then marvel?

[mathew101281]

Was it the lm...

The 80’s: Watchman, Dark Knight helped bring dark stories to superhero comics. But I’d argue both Marvel and DC got a lot darker in the 80’s and 90’s so I don’t think that was the deliberating moment.

The Marvel Disney deal: I feel this is the actual moment where Marvel began to tamp down on darker stories.

[superduperman]

I thought a lot about this and I think a lot of it is a backlash to the silver age. COIE was a reaction to nearly going under because their more kid friendly books couldn't compete with Marvel. So I think sometime around the late 1980s they kind of said "never again" and went all in on being the company that invests in "mature" comics. Sandman, Hellblazer, and everything that eventually became the Vertigo line were all attempts to say to the public, "Hey, we've come a long way from Krytpo and Superbaby!" And to some degree, I don't think they ever really got over that trauma.

I pointed out on another thread how Dave Stevens wanted to do a Superman/Rocketeer crossover in the nineties using the golden age Superman and DC said no because the rule at the time was that only the post-Crisis Superman could be used. That's a result of being ashamed of your past. You don't want to be reminded that you used to do "silly" stories. Now, to be fair, by the late nineties, they had pulled the stick out a little bit. But we missed out on a great story because of a stupid mandate that didn't really serve any purpose. In terms of Marvel, they've always been a little afraid to rock the boat. Even back in the nineties, they didn't allow cuss words in their books. I don't think it was until the Marvel Knights line came along that they started loosening some of those restrictions. With I think Alias being the first book that allowed real cussing in it.

[Agent Z]

They didn't.

[Lee Stone]

I think the ‘80s was the real start of it, due to both Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen’s success and impact on the comics industry. The ‘90s was mostly everyone taking the wrong message from the two.

Then in the 2000s, after the Comics Code was dropped and publishers starting doing ‘ratings’ similar to tv and movie ratings, they were allowed to go even darker.
DC really put the pedal to the metal with New52. The first few months had plenty of graphic violence, with nearly half the titles having stuff like decapitations, impalings, body torture or exposed guts.
Suspicions are that the writers were suggested to go as extreme as they could to either show the new readers that DC wasn’t for kids or to appeal to Didio’s tastes.

DC has toned it down considerably since then. But 2011 was like watching a kid that had just been given the keys to the family car go crazy.

In comparison, tv has gotten darker, too.
It also started with them when they began using ratings.
It was suddenly like adding a TV-14 or TV-MA label meant they had nearly no restrictions, so it became a free pass to do whatever. And now a lot of shows use TV-14 or TV-MA so they don’t have to worry about the content.

[I'm a Fish]

DC tonal shift in the 80's was in response to Marvel's shift in the 70's with more grounded stories with deeply flawed characters, that's what boosted Marvel's popularity.

Also, I don't think DC is darker than Marvel. DC has more famous stories that are gritty, and they based their movie franchise off those stories, but judging the franchise as a whole I don't see it as being "darker" than Marvel. Don't forget, it was Gwen Stacy's death in 1973 that sort-of kick started the more grounded story telling and was a turning point for Marvel.

Marvel is worse with characters being killed off (and revived) and sexually assaulted, especially if you count the Ultimate universe which is notorious for how horrific it is.


I don't think DC tried to bring that darker tone into their mainstream comics until the 90's, and even then I feel it was only in a few comics (namely Green Lantern stuff). The 2000's is when it really went of the deep end, with the Zatanna mind-manipulation to be specific. Most people don't know about that anymore anyway.

[Phoenixx9]

I think the books of both companies seemed to get darker themes than previously by mid to late '80's stories.

[Jackalope89]

The 80s. Not only with Watchmen and Dark Knight's Return, but also the canonical to the main line, Death in the Family. Things really snowballed from there.

[SiegePerilous02]

I don't know if they've ever been consistently darker than Marvel, even now. At least not across their entire line at once.

But the 80s with TDKR, Watchmen, the proto Vertigo stuff, Death in the Family, etc. were when they definitely started getting darker compared to what they used to be like.

I pointed out on another thread how Dave Stevens wanted to do a Superman/Rocketeer crossover in the nineties using the golden age Superman and DC said no because the rule at the time was that only the post-Crisis Superman could be used. That's a result of being ashamed of your past.

Wouldn't this crossover, by its very nature, be an Elseworld that wouldn't impact the post-Crisis Superman anyway?

Jeez, so many of the Post-COIE edicts were so fucking dumb.

[Vordan]

Don’t think they are really. I mean how do you judge that? The number of killings per book? Over at Marvel Hulk is a straight up horror book, the X-Men have a very creepy vibe going on in regards to the whole Krakoa status quo, Spidey is dealing with demonic entities (again), and so on and so forth. DC right now is pretty relaxed in comparison.

Vertigo however was the source of a lot of the “dark” comics outside the mainline, and Batman has been a franchise that struggles with darkness since DKR. Batman replacing Superman as the number one DC Character has I think led to the perception that DC is dark, since Batman is a lot of casuals first encounter with DC. The Nolan Batman trilogy, the DCEU, the Arkham video games, and the Injustice franchise being also extremely dark has shaped the public perception of DC as the “darker” of the two companies, but all of those are Batman centric which is why that perception exists. The comics though aren’t that dark.

[I'm a Fish]

Don’t think they are really. I mean how do you judge that? The number of killings per book? Over at Marvel Hulk is a straight up horror book, the X-Men have a very creepy vibe going on in regards to the whole Krakoa status quo, Spidey is dealing with demonic entities (again), and so on and so forth. DC right now is pretty relaxed in comparison.

Vertigo however was the source of a lot of the “dark” comics outside the mainline, and Batman has been a franchise that struggles with darkness since DKR. Batman replacing Superman as the number one DC Character has I think led to the perception that DC is dark, since Batman is a lot of casuals first encounter with DC. The Nolan Batman trilogy, the DCEU, the Arkham video games, and the Injustice franchise being also extremely dark has shaped the public perception of DC as the “darker” of the two companies, but all of those are Batman centric which is why that perception exists. The comics though aren’t that dark.

Don't forget all the terrible, terrible stuff they have done to Carol Danvers. Truly, I am not sure if there is a comic character that has suffered more.

At least it's finally gotten better for her.

[Jim Kelly]

When Ryan Reynolds said so in that Deadpool movie?

The publisher has gone through wild swings in tone during their history. In 1935, I'd say they had no specific outlook--as they featured humour and adventure in the same comic, plus adaptations of famous novels. But when Superman burst on the scene in 1938, he had a definite mean streak in him. Even darker was the Bat-Man that appeared the next year. Pulpy violent adventure was the order of the day in the late 1930s. But when Vin Sullivan left as editor and Whit Ellsworth returned, to work for the new publishers, he instituted a civil code of behaviour for the heroes--Jerry Siegel's nasty Spectre being a holdout, yet the Ghostly Guardian would be tamed in 1941 by Percival Popp the Super-Cop.

Of course, Timely was rather ornery back then, too--with the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner always trying to kill each other. It was likely World War Two that made them shape up, because they had to battle the Axis rather than each other.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, National Comics got more and more optimistic and uplifting. While the new Marvel Comics Group won teen fans by being pessimistic and brash.

But in the late 1960s, when Batmania went bust, National returned to having a much darker edge. Joe Orlando, who had worked at E.C., as well as Murray Boltinoff, oversaw various horror anthologies. Soon to be publisher Carmine Infantino co-created Deadman. The Batman became edgy again. Green Lantern and Green Arrow looked at the dark underbelly of America. The early 1970s were much darker at D.C. than at Marvel Comics, on balance.

While the horror anthologies continued to do well, the dark super-heroes didn't pay off for National Periodicals and the comics became sunnier again in the later 1970s. And their distributors favoured that kind of comic book.

I think what took D.C. back down that dark alley was the failure of the mass market and the need to gain an audience in the direct sales shops. As I remember my L.C.S. back in the early 1980s, a lot of foul gloomy characters haunted the comic shop. And it seems like these characters liked their comics dark. So it was probably a snake that fed on its own tail--as the more dark comics that the publisher put out the more those guys would buy.

Still, I remember Marvel being a much darker publisher in the 1980s. Their Vietnam War post traumatic stress comics did very well for them. And the Indies thrived on characters like Spawn. So I'd say the late 1980s and the speculator-driven early 1990s were pervasively dark.

Perhaps it was the failure of the speculator market and Marvel being driven into bankruptcy that made them see the error of their ways. While Marvel and the independents failed, D.C. managed to get through that financial crisis and the Death of Superman was one of the biggest selling comics of all time.

When Marvel recovered, I would guess that their comics didn't look as dark anymore. So by contrast, D.C. seemed darker. But what puts Marvel in the positive column is the Marvel Studios movies and being absorbed by Disney. Disney wants to be family friendly. Warner Brothers has a reputation for putting out dark movies (going all the way back to the gangster movies of the 1930s), so dark super-hero movies is on brand for them.

[OBrianTallent]

You're also leaving out the impact of the Seduction of the Innocent book by Dr Fredrick Wertham. That took a tremendous tole on the comics industry in the mid 50's and moving forward. Wertham argued that crime comics attributed to the moral decay of the youth reading them leading them to a life of crime and sexual immorality. Mostly citing the crime comics of the time as well as EC comics, he also paid harsh service to Batman and Robin (homosexual affairs) and Wonder Woman (lesbianism and bondage) and Superman being fascist.
The book became a national best seller causing parents to bring attention to the medium by way of Congress. From this was born the Comics Code Authority, a service comics publishers voluntarily adopted which set strict limits on what could be shown and how. The CCA held fast until the 80's when the Direct Market started becoming a much larger presence and publishers found they could skip the CCA. I forget which comic it was, but there was a regular newstand comic that was not submitted to the CCA and became a major news story at the time in the 80s. From there, publishers started moving towards more "adult" oriented material and away from the juvenile stories of the 50's-70's.

[sunofdarkchild]

DC in the 70s had Speedy becoming a drug addict. Marvel did something similar not long before with Harry Osborn but Harry wasn't a superhero or a sidekick. Marvel also had Gwen Stacey killed and the Green Goblin impaled around that time. Then there was the Punisher who was introduced that decade. In the late 70s and early 80s there was Carol Danvers getting brainwashed and raped by her own son. Magik was non-stop child abuse from start to finish. The X-Men had pretty graphic depictions of mass murder in Mutant Massacre, and Wolverine was given particularly gory injuries at certain points in the 80s, like Uncanny #205.

I really wouldn't say that DC has ever been truly 'darker' than Marvel. The 2000s, when DC really went over-the-edge dark with Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and War Games was balanced out by Marvel having things like Avengers Disassembled, Decimation, and Ultimatum, which might just be the most needlessly gory and dark comic by either company. Mutant children would get killed in the most brutal manners possible. Captain America was shot in the head. This past decade as well had mutants suffering from 'M-Pox' which was another truly horrific way to die. The recent future storyline in Captain Marvel was also dark as heck, with the villain stabbing his own father in the heart and turning the surviving heroes into slaves or sacrifices.

[I'm a Fish]

DC in the 70s had Speedy becoming a drug addict. Marvel did something similar not long before with Harry Osborn but Harry wasn't a superhero or a sidekick. Marvel also had Gwen Stacey killed and the Green Goblin impaled around that time. Then there was the Punisher who was introduced that decade. In the late 70s and early 80s there was Carol Danvers getting brainwashed and raped by her own son. Magik was non-stop child abuse from start to finish. The X-Men had pretty graphic depictions of mass murder in Mutant Massacre, and Wolverine was given particularly gory injuries at certain points in the 80s, like Uncanny #205.

I really wouldn't say that DC has ever been truly 'darker' than Marvel. The 2000s, when DC really went over-the-edge dark with Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and War Games was balanced out by Marvel having things like Avengers Disassembled, Decimation, and Ultimatum, which might just be the most needlessly gory and dark comic by either company. Mutant children would get killed in the most brutal manners possible. Captain America was shot in the head. This past decade as well had mutants suffering from 'M-Pox' which was another truly horrific way to die. The recent future storyline in Captain Marvel was also dark as heck, with the villain stabbing his own father in the heart and turning the surviving heroes into slaves or sacrifices.

Yes, Marvel has had 3 mutant genocide's...

[DrNewGod]

An unappreciated influence was Marv Wolfman. His Judas Contract, Runaways arc, the inaugral story of the NTT Baxter series, and his Vigilante were all really dark, especially for the time. They all predated DKR, and their success bred imitation.