What’s a better treat for a geek than one superhero movie in a month? Two superhero movies in a month! And what is better than two superhero movies in a month? One superhero movie each from Marvel and DC. So, yes, it is really a sweet November this year with MCU’s (Marvel Cinematic Universe) Thor: Ragnarok already ROFLing its way to the box office and Justice League waiting in the wings to make the DCEU (that’s DC Extended Universe, officially known as the Justice League Universe) finally Come Together.
It’s really the perfect time to revisit the age-old DC vs Marvel debate that has been geek-gold, but only this time let’s do it for their new cinematic universes. Let’s save the debate on their comic book multiverses for another day.
Every time I’ve reviewed a Marvel or a DC film, ever since the DCEU came into being in 2013 with Man of Steel that is, my Facebook Messenger “other” inbox has exploded with accusations of me being a Marvel fan. #NotTrue. My favourite superhero of all-time is Batman — DC. My second-favourite superhero of all-time is Wonder Woman — DC. My favourite supervillain of all-time is the Joker — DC. Spider-Man may have been the one to introduce me to the world, and the friendly neighbourhood guy will always remain a favourite, but it is Batman I grew up reading. But unfortunately for DC fans (sorry guys), Marvel Studios has been hitting the right notes with almost every movie since the surprise Iron Man hit, way back in 2008.
Why Marvel Wins
So, what makes Marvel movies such a hit with both critics and fans? They are fun — a perfect formula they hit with Iron Man and have run with time and again to super, sometimes surprising, success. Is frivolity everything then? You wouldn’t be wondering about that if you’ve seen Captain America: Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War. What seems to be important is knowing when to have fun (Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man, The Avengers), when to get serious (Captain America: Civil War) and, very importantly, when to go with absolutely silly (Hello Thor: Ragnarok!).
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man brought in exactly the right amount of levity needed for a film as dark as Civil War, proving that a superhero movie doesn’t have to be all dark and dreary to be appealing. And while the Marvel films also have whole cities being destroyed and heroes who have to save the world, they have mixed it up nicely with Spider-Man: Homecoming, which is all about being a local hero. And then there was the biggest showdown between the Avengers in Civil War, and it happened on an airport tarmac.
This ability to experiment with not just tones but also relatively unknown directors like James Gunn, the Russo Brothers, Taika Waititi, and relatively unknown (to non-comic book readers) characters — Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr Strange, Ant-Man — probably comes from the confidence of knowing the source material. Watch interviews of the directors or Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and you know that they really get the characters and are confident about where they want to take them. The fact that the actors — Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hiddleston — add to the characters, helps.
These films have made the Marvel superheroes even more relatable. They are people who can laugh not just with each other, but also at themselves. These are people who fight, make up, split up. These are people who make mistakes, some so silly that you laugh at them (like Rocket Raccoon stealing the Anulax batteries and bringing the Sovereign after them in GOTG Vol 2), and some that have serious consequences, like Tony Stark building Ultron that led to the whole Sokovia mess in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Why DC bombs
Check out the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the first three DCEU films — Man of Steel: 55, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: 27, Suicide Squad: 26 — the numbers tell a story. Speak to die-hard DC fans and you’ll get all kinds of reactions, from the ones who will claim that all the numbers are rigged and it is all a Marvel conspiracy, to the ones who believe that the films are great and non-fans don’t understand them and the ones who admit that DC is missing the mark, by a wide margin.
Marvel has built its universe over nine years and 17 films, DC tried to do it in two. And it fell miserably flat. Marvel had five films under its belt, building up characters before it did its first team-up with The Avengers. DC tried to do it in one short clip, that too thumbnail size, in its very second film (Dawn of Justice). We see clips of The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman in Dawn of Justice and wham, we gotta be ready for the team-up! How are we supposed to be emotionally invested in people we’ve never seen before? They could try to get that emotional connect in Justice League, but it is a tall ask for one film.
Sometimes it feels like DCEU takes its fans for granted. Anything Batman and they’ll lap it up. Well, they didn’t. It pushed the canon so many times that Dawn of Justice almost spelt doom for the universe. Add snazzy songs, make a crazy trailer, go gimmicky and people will love it. Well, they didn’t. Suicide Squad, with its weirdly dressed, odd people failed to connect and the film remained just that — a few cool trailers.
Most of the times, however, it feels like DCEU doesn’t have a clue about what they are doing. In Dawn of Justice, we were introduced to Wonder Woman, the best thing about the film, who had “walked away” from mankind a century ago. But in Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman, the Diana we see would never have been able to stay away from doing her best to save mankind. In fact, in the end we see Diana in modern-day Paris leaping out to go on an adventure. What happened to having a plan in place before leaping?
Also, DC needs to understand that going the Chris Nolan way and making a film dark and serious doesn’t always work. You need to have a whizz like Chris Nolan — who gets the character enough to reinterpret it in a more human way — behind the property to make it successful. Zack Snyder got the dark part right with both Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice. They were so dark you often couldn’t see what exactly was happening on screen.
Times, they are a-changin’
But things are looking up for DC fans, a change that began with what is DCEU’s best film till date, Wonder Woman. It was exactly what it needed to be — fun, earnest, positive, hopeful, powerful. Goes to show once again that a movie can be a whole different ball game in the right hands.
But to give credit where it’s due, Warner Bros. seems to have heard the complaints from fans loud and clear, if the trailers of Justice League are any indication. Not only is there more colour in the film than all the three films preceding it, but the characters themselves are changing.
Looks like Wonder Woman’s feelings towards mankind are being retconned (short for ‘retroactive continuity’, comic book parlance for introducing a sudden change that contradicts what has gone before, without any explanation). Gal Gadot has been quoted as saying: “We realised that, actually, there is no way that Wonder Woman will ever give up on mankind. The reason why she left the island was because she wanted to make their life better and safer. They are her calling. So, I’m giving you a very honest answer: Sometimes, in a creative process, you establish something that is not necessarily the right decision, but then you can always correct it and change it.”
Ben Affleck has also been talking about the changes we can expect in the Caped Crusader in Justice League. “This is a much more traditional Batman. He’s heroic.... This is more in keeping with the canon of how Batman’s usually been portrayed, and how he’s portrayed vis-a-vis the Justice League in the comics. This is more the Batman you would find if you opened up your average Batman comic book,” he has said.
Also, instead of the dark and dreary, we get quite a sprinkling of much-needed humour, thanks to Batman’s interactions with Ezra Miller’s The Flash and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman. The fact that Joss Whedon has taken over from Snyder (who had to go because of a personal tragedy) to add final touches to Justice League also gives us hope for a more fun outing since he is the same guy who gave us the rollicking The Avengers, which still remains Marvel Studios’ biggest box office hit ($1,518 million).
Where Marvel is lagging behind
Seventeen films down and Marvel is still to get a solo female superhero-led film, where DC, just four films old, has already done it with Wonder Woman. The only three female superheroes in the MCU right now are Black Widow, Scarlet Witch and Gamora and it wasn’t till Whedon directed The Avengers that Black Widow got a substantial role. The Black Widow film that fans are clamouring for has still no sign of becoming a reality, and Captain Marvel, MCU’s counterpoint to Wonder Woman, is still one-and-a-half years and three films away.
The other thing that could have added to Marvel’s soaring graph is a solid villain. Not that the DCEU has fared that well when it comes to villains, with Zod failing to make an impression and Lex Luthor turning into a hammy joke, but at least they are just four films in and have some great villains to choose from. Marvel has had four times that many films and is still to match, let alone outdo, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.
Yet another strike against the MCU is that it doesn’t have creative control over all its characters unlike the DCEU, and while the understanding with Sony saw Spider-Man coming home to Marvel and joining forces with the Avengers, it is unlikely that he’ll be hanging out with Deadpool (a popular comic book pairing) any time soon, nor will the
X-Men and the Avengers.
The small screen live-action battle
When it comes to the small screen today, the DC vs Marvel debate is more evenly matched, with quality content coming from both, though DC was a league ahead till Netflix’s tie-in with Marvel saw a slew of excellent shows being served up. But unlike Marvel, DC’s small-screen heroes don’t share the universe that the big guys do, and that’s a bummer, sometimes. For example, I am so fond of Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen aka The Flash on the telly that I keep thinking that big screen Barry Allen, played by Ezra Miller, will fall short.
DC set the ball rolling with Arrow, a Dark Knight-ish take on the Green Arrow aka Oliver Queen of Starling City. A good storyline and an engaging cast made it a successful show that is now in its sixth season. Fan-favourite characters like the Black Canary and popular villains like Deathstroke and even the
well-known Ra’s al Ghul made it to the show.
Marvel’s entry into the small screen in present-day context was with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which brought back Agent Coulson from the big screen. Unfortunately for Marvel, it did not do so well in the first couple of seasons and was no match for Arrow.
Marvel’s second offering, Agent Carter, again played by the big screen’s Hayley Atwell, was however a critical success, even if it didn’t draw in the numbers.
DC, on the other hand, branched out from Arrow into an interconnected multiverse with The Flash, which was polar opposite in tone to Arrow and again extremely popular. The entry of Supergirl, a fun and campy show, has added a golden touch to the multiverse that even a misstep like Legends of Tomorrow cannot take away. The best part about these shows is the crossover episodes that sometimes unfurl across all four shows. DC also has Gotham, but it doesn’t tie in with any of the other shows.
Marvel’s fortunes changed with the Netflix series — Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and finally the crossover show, The Defenders. While these characters exist in the same universe as the big screen superheroes and you can often hear references to “the incident” (the hole in the sky in The Avengers) and “incredible green guy” (The Hulk), they are completely at opposite ends compared to the ones on the big screen. The ones on the telly are far more real. They are flawed, the themes are darker, and it is far more violent.
The winner is the geek
So, while some like me believe that Marvel seems to have the upper hand on the big screen, with DC and Marvel tied on the small, and the battle between who is actually better still rages on, we the geeks should be rejoicing because no matter who is beating whom, the biggest winner is most definitely us!
