The Ol' Switcheroo

Those that know me know that when I started reading comics, I read exclusively Marvel. I loved the stories, characters and powers. Marvel's world felt like a possibility, unlike DC, which had to threaten the entirety of creation to create tension (unless your Batman & company). I kept on for a few years starting right after Civil War was wrapping up. Then things went nuts. Marvel became cross over crazy and to get even a fraction of what was happening with the characters you had to get at least 3 books with that character in it. My interest dropped heavily in many books and only stuck with a few like Ultimate Spider-man, She-Hulk and Spider-Girl. That is until the later two books were canceled. I was pissed! But I kept on until the price hike came in the fall of last year. I dropped more books again but was ecstatic to find out that X-23 (female clone of my favorite Canadian, Wolverine) was not only getting a new ongoing series but her book was one of the few that were staying at $2.99. Now since Marvel only had a few books on my pull list I started to pick up Wonder Woman with her revamp at issue 600. I liked it and so put it on my pull list permanently.

Now with this new DC reboot I've been thinking (a dangerous thing I know). I love me some super-heroes of any gender, but being a young female comic reader I do prefer to read a great heroine over a gruff hero. Marvel has a much better track record with a wide verity of female characters. Storm, Rouge, Kitty Pride (even if she can't stick to a super name), Invisible Woman, Black Widow, She-Hulk just to name a few heroes, not to mention other non-powered supporting characters like Mary Jane Watson. The thing is, Marvel has only 3 ongoing series with woman as the titular character and one, Generation Hope, I am not entirely sure if its angle is Hope or Hope and a bunch of other characters. DC with its new 52 has 7 titles with women stars (8 if you include Birds of Prey)! So it seems not only in accessibility but in interest level (for me at least) and over all quality DC has, sadly, gotten better. The only reason that Marvel has as many women characters is because of team books and mainly because of X-men and its many incarnations. Yes DC may have retconned marriages but did they have their heroes make a deal with the devil to do it? They may have only one woman, Gail Simone, under contract, but do their star women mainly appear in team books?

I have to wonder if these differences stem from the two companies current goals. In the 70's and 80's DC had much more media coming out of it with TV and blockbuster movies all really successful for their markets. Comic wise they had the multiverse with tons and tons of story lines steaming from each one. This made the comics relatively unfriendly to new readers. Marvel had a great amount of trouble at this time getting quality media out with horrible schlock like the Captain America movies and the live action Spider-Man TV show. Their comics however were self contained, versatile, and very human with the problems and issues brought up in them. That role has now seemed to be reversed. Marvel has been releasing great movies based off their characters since 1999's X-Men (unless you count Blade from 98) Marvel, with its comics being burdened by so many crossover event comics and new material (characters, back story etc), is almost impossible to keep up with them.

Take the Hulk family of characters. A few years ago Hulk had a son with a super powered alien. Great story idea right? Well, that is dropped for awhile with the son on the distant planet of his birth, Hulk has no idea that he is alive, believing he died along with his mother. Then we get introduced to the Red Hulk who we find out is General Ross. Then Red She-Hulk pops up who turns out to be Betty Ross, Bruce Banners supposedly dead wife and daughter of General Ross. It is also revealed that a female super hero from a future were there is a literal gender war stole Banners DNA and used it to impregnate herself. That daughter then comes to the present and  then Bruce's/Hulk's son shows up on earth and their is a huge Hulk vs Hulk vs Hulk vs Hulk fight. This is all great stuff but it is so freaking compacted being revealed over the last 4 years. Marvel cannot seem to take its time to let new stuff sink in and be explored then release new ideas or characters. This is a key problem because it makes it hard for Marvel fans to keep up with multiple characters, all their money goes into all the appearances of the new and old characters from one section of their company.

Now DC has shown recently that they know how to make their comics accessible. Not only do they not have huge cross over events every year they have a variety of stars in their solo books. Granted it's a little white washed but I believe they are making strides in that area. Now they have this relaunch which has been marketed very well to get new readers. DC has shown they know how to get people in and with their self contained stories seem to know how to keep them. Heck, even with this relaunch DC has implied that all the stories from the last 25 years still happened exactly as they remembered them, just in a different time line, pacifying the long time readers while allowing to hook new readers.

Why has this switch in quality happened? Well it could be in the overall concentration areas of the companies. Marvel is making tons of money off of the Marvel Studio movies, much more than the comics. Now, yes, I know that they are entirely different sections of the company with different heads who have different goals and managing styles but even they have bosses. I think that the boss of the bosses is concentrating quality control on the movies since they are THE cash cow right now. Since comic sales are still dropping from the comic boom of the 90's they don't see any reason to try and expand readership or make sure to keep the comic readers they already have.

DC, on the other hand, seems to be having some trouble making any profitable movie outside of Batman and recognizes that comics can still be profitable. What opened my mind to DC comic books was Blackest Night from Green Lantern (the comics, that movie DIDN'T happen!). It was freaking amazing. It had great art, ideas, characters. Now granted this was defiantly the huge crossover, multi-title, end of all things story that I complained about earlier in this post, but somehow it did not feel like you were missing out if you didn't read one small section of the story. It kept what was needed in the main area and the other parts were just icing on the cake. Also it showed me that the type of stories DC has to do to challenge their heroes can be interesting. The heroes didn't feel over powered like I thought they would. Coupled with this story and the new 52 and what it promises to bring it seems that Marvel is on the back shelf, at least for me. I'll still pick up the books I'm reading now which are really good (and self-contained for the moment) but the bulk of my pulls will definitely come from DC. Sorry Marvel, I love you, I'll keep going to see your movies, but my respect for your comics has gone down the tubes.