Why DC over Marvel? what are your reasons?

[PlumeNoir]

That is an interesting question.
In the 80s, it was about equal for me. I had my core titles I liked on both sides of the fence. But then the 90s happened (and everything that went with it) and Marvel was hit hard. The books became ugly messes.
While DC was affected as well to some extent, you also had things like Vertigo starting up. You had the lighter side with the JLI. It was still fun. I pretty much dropped all my Marvel stuff by 2000.

Every now and then I peek back over at Marvel and it seems like every single crossover is heroes fighting heroes, going back to at least Civil War. I just don't find that interesting. So sadly, while I enjoyed Secret Wars, there was so much lost on me because I didn't follow the Avengers' years of build-up.
But I loved Superior Spider-man and was sad when it ended, but kept up with the title...until Secret Wars changed him to Tony Stark-lite. I couldn't make it to issue 3.
And I'll always buy a She-hulk book, she's probably my favorite Marvel character. I think the only Marvel titles I'm currently following regularly are Old Man Logan and Darh Vader (and I'm not even a major Star Wars fan).

[Ascended]

Just gonna copy-paste my response from the Marvel version of the thread.

I read both.

I dont have any brand loyalty, I just read what I consider good. So sometimes I have more Marvel on my pull list, other times its DC. Sometimes its virtually none of either and almost all indies.

Typically Im more of a DC guy, but that is by no means a hard-and-fast rule.

Though these days I read more Marvel than DC, and with the Rebirth stuff they're doing next month, my DC pull looks to be dropping even more, to the point I might have as few as six DC books a month, and two of them are only there because my wife reads them.

Typically, I enjoy DC's larger-than-life approach; its almost like modern mythology. And I often think that a lot of Marvel characters are written as self-defeating asshats, which is often a turn off for me in superhero lore. But as I said, these days its more Marvel than anything (though we'll see how petty and contrite Civil War II makes everyone. This might be another year where its virtually all Image and Dark Horse).

[Random4]

Do you guys agree with the bolded?

a common argument that i always here is that

DC tends to be more mythic....it presents its heroes as these sort of legendary figures, larger than life..DC seems more like a fantasy world

while Marvel tends to present its world as being grounded, superheroes tend to deal with human issues more so than DC

obviously their is a mix of both these things in both companies...but would you guys generally agree with this sentiment

I can also see why some might prefer 1 over the other for these reasons, it just depends on taste i assume

[Bored at 3:00AM]

It all comes down to quality of the comics in the end. I read more Marvel over the last couple of years because I was enjoying their stuff more, but I have always preferred the DCU when the comics are worth reading. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for far too long.

I think it's the classic old school goofy optimism of the DCU at its best. DC's characters are much more retro and pure. This is not to say that Marvel can't be these things, but the strength of Marvel at its best is that it is much more of today, while DC tends to be harken back to a more old fashioned sensibility.

[Doctor Know]

Do you guys agree with the bolded?

a common argument that i always here is that

DC tends to be more mythic....it presents its heroes as these sort of legendary figures, larger than life..DC seems more like a fantasy world

while Marvel tends to present its world as being grounded, superheroes tend to deal with human issues more so than DC

obviously their is a mix of both these things in both companies...but would you guys generally agree with this sentiment?

Not really.

DC - Where magic is abused to magic story points happen.

Marvel - Where science and technology are abused like magic to make story points happen.

A rose by any other name, you know.

[Pohzee]

I was introduced to superheroes at a young age by DVDs of Batman: The Animated Series. As a kid that didn't have cable, that was the only thing I could watch. I heard that there were Superman and Justice League cartoons that were in the same universe as B:TAS, so I watched all those too. These shows introduced me to the DCU small steps at a time: Batman, Superman, Justice League, and them the greater DCU with JLU. (I still don't know if that is the order it goes, but that is the order I watched it in.) I was amazed by the scale of it.

I read whatever comics I came across when I was little (which wasn't much,) but most of them were Marvel and I never cared for them. I have never been interested in Spiderman, Captain America, or anybody from Marvel. I actually find being dragged out to Marvel movies a chore since I don't care about the characters. When I got older, a friend had me read some of his Blackest Night issues, which I really liked, but I still didn't start buying DC comics until the New 52.

I'm not really so much a comic fan as a DC fan. I like the characters and I like their universe. I've watched DC cartoons, movies, and (some) shows. I read DC comics and try to pick up older DC trades and graphic novels. I have never watched a Marvel cartoon or read a Marvel book. I have no desire to. In fact the only book I have read that was outside of DC continuity was Watchmen, but 1.) that is still a DC imprint and 2.) though I haven't read it yet, I've heard that Rebirth brings it into the DCU. It's kinda like how you may like Star Wars, but not Star Trek even though both are sci-fi. I don't like Marvel just because they publish comics too,

[JasonTodd428]

When I first started buying my own comics I was more into Marvel then DC simply because their comics appealed to me more at that time. As recently as about two years ago my pull was somewhat evenly split between DC, Marvel and Independents. These days though I've pretty much grown tired of Marvel's constant events so I've permantly dropped them in favor of more from independent publishers and DC. That's pretty much what it boils down to for me right now. I've been burned one to many times by Marvel to care about them any more and I simply enjoy DC's output more.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Marvel. like some people on here said, they are flawed people. spider-man's popularity was because readers related to him. girl problems, school problems, life problems on top of the fact he was spider-man. punisher, was not just some guy that wanted to stop crime, his family was wiped out in a mob hit. he has motivation that people can relate to. there are of course other characters that are not as relatable but take the fantastic four. they were a family but like a lot of families they had personality issues. which took a back seat when it was clobberin time.

Meh. Any discrepancy between DC and Marvel in terms of portraying "grounded-ness" and "relatability" pretty much disappeared some time in the 70s, anyway.

[kingaliencracker]

When I got into comics, Batman (1989) was pretty much THE event at the time, so I naturally gravitated towards DC. While I dabbled in Batman, I fell in love with Superman the character, and from there I went on to Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Justice League, and so on.

I do love Marvel, mind you, as Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America, and the X-Men are some of my favorite characters also. But my heart is definitely with DC.

[Sacred Knight]

Just the characters. They trail in almost all other areas, but, I love the characters more. Believe me, sometimes I actually wish it were the other way around so I wouldn't have any reason to get let down by DC so often. But, that's the reason.

[Username taken]

There's nothing particularly wrong with preferring one group of books over another. For me, I generally swing back and forth. All the talk of one group of characters being more relatable than others never really mattered to me. I like seeing Superman as a benevolent God Boy Scout that only uses violence when necessary, I like seeing Batman as a ninja, scientist, detective etc that always fights for the greater good and will never, ever kill anyone.

Growing up, I was more of a DC fan (particularly after the first Crisis) as DC was pretty hot in the mid-80s. This changed in the early 90s when the likes of McFarlane, Lee, Liefeld etc became more prominent at Marvel (I'm pretty sure this was the case for many young people). I was all Marvel all the time at that point.

I got back into DC with The Death of Superman and Knightfall but my DC reading was almost completely decimated by Zero Hour and the subtle changes that DC felt they had to keep applying. That was the case until Infinite Crisis when i went back hard into DC comics. This all changed again with the nu52 which I didn't like at all and I never, ever felt there was a need to completely re-boot the DCU. From 2011 till now, I've read mostly Marvel comics.

However, it's very likely I'll be reading more DC comics after re-birth. The possibility of the return of the post-Crisis continuity has really gotten me excited (granted I'm still very confused as to what is happening with Superman).

[Icefalcon]

I'll switch back and forth depending on what I'm enjoying at the time. I have character loyalty but these days it only goes so far. To be honest I've stopped reading nearly everything DC during N52 as bit by bit I've stopped enjoying it. I'm hoping Rebirth will give me a different set of stories that I'll like again.

[JackDaw]

Do have a preference for DC over Marvel.

But honestly no idea why. As a kid probably had a preference overall for DC characters over Marvel (probably Ben Grimm edged out Superman as favourite character...but apart from Ben for some reason never cared much for most Marvel characters). But anyway long since stopped following characters.

But when I look at long runs I've enjoyed most in last ten years reading...there's a heavy bias towards DC. Take one of my favourite writers...Peter David...I enjoyed his runs on Young Justice, Supergirl and Fallen Angel (which started at DC) substantially more than his runs on Hulk or X-factor. Similarly enjoyed John Ostrander's DC work much more than his Marvel work.

Really no idea why...because I actually think Marvel universe is more consistent and coherent than DC's.

[DCStu]

One of my earliest memories is watching the old Christopher Reeve Superman film, and as a kid I went completely nuts over Michael Keaton's Batman film. So when I got into comics I gravitated towards titles related to those - and discovered all the other heroes of the universe that way. It was an organic thing really.
I don't think I picked DC, I think it was more a case of DC picking me.

Funnily enough - the same thing has happened with my kids. DC picked them too. They used to be into the LEGO games you can get for XBox and my wife got them the Batman ones. That was their gateway into the DC Universe.

I must say I was also a big fan of the old Bixby/Ferrigno Incredible Hulk show - but instead of leading me to Marvel, it led me more to becoming a fan of the work of Kenneth Johnson.

[Batarang]

Batman.

when i learned that Batman is in the DCU at the age of 17 or something (yeah, i didn't know till that age cause there was no comics at where i live at the time but Movies and Batman TAS) I became a DC fan lol that was all i need to know, myplace is at Batman side lol