Saturday, August 24, 2013

DC vs. Marvel: Why Marvel is always better.

I know it isn't exactly science or technology, but a lot of people into science and technology read comic books and watch TV shows and movies.

Both Marvel and DC have 'Rebooted' their comic books and characters to younger readers. The same is being done with Star Trek (Possible Star Wars, but I hope not) and other stuff.

DC does not get it, every time they have a 'Crisis' series or reboot a universe or character it ends up costing them. DC is owned by Warner Brothers and of course can make movie adaptions which don't always work. The Batman trilogy with Christian Bale was a blockbuster trilogy, the Man of Steel, Green Lantern, and a few other movies not as much. If you have to ask why the Batman trilogy tried to stay as close to the comic book as possible and in some cases deviating from the comic (Heath Ledger as The Joker who is more of a schemer and anarchist rather than a criminal who wants fortune and fame and play jokes on everyone. Ledger's Joker for example burned up his share of money, it was not about fortune, fame, money, or jokes, it was about proving others wrong and showing their hypocrisy)  it was so good that it changed The Joker in the Batman comics into more of a sadist, anarchist, schemer.

DC tried to reboot their universe, and they messed some stuff up. They did not reboot Green Lantern, Batman, and didn't reboot The Flash much. The Green Lantern comic worked because of "Blackest Night" and "The Sinestro Corps" being hit miniseries. Batman comics stuck to the old formula of Batman. Basically Batman and Green Lantern have great supporting villains. As part of a good comic formula you have to have great villains. Great villains are people or entities who do evil things for a great purpose. Sinestro for example was once a Green Lantern, until he abused his powers to take over his home planet to fight evil and wipe out crime. This did not go over well with his bosses the Guardians so they stripped him of his Green Lantern ring.  Instead Sinestro harvested fear instead a willpower to create a new power ring, one that uses yellow fear energy instead of green willpower energy. Sinestro is a great villain because he sees himself as 'wronged' and has this 'revenge' thing to get even with the Green Lanterns because he considers himself 'good' and them 'evil' for having wronged him. In Batman you got The Joker, he is a great villain because you cannot predict him as much as other villains and you never know what The Joker is going to do next. But The Joker is on this anarchist scheming trip to try and trick Batman into breaking his own rules and also causing some mayhem in the process. The Joker lies to play pranks on people and trick them into doing things, it is all mind games. Batman has Catwoman who is sometimes bad sometimes good, sure she steals stuff but sometimes gives the money to charity or only steals from evil rich people. Sometimes she helps out Batman and has a romantic interest with him.

DC wants to do a Justice League movie, but first they have to get Superman and Batman together. They can't do a Wonder Woman movie because they are not sure if they can get it right. Well to be honest DC keeps rebooting Wonder Woman's origin and changing her personality as well. If it was me, I'd stick to the Classic Wonder Woman that Linda Carter played in the 1970's and 1980's, the one everyone likes. The one that doesn't age, the one who has good morals, the one that doesn't kill. I'd merge her with the modern DC Nu52 Wonder Woman who is the daughter of Zeus and makes Hera mad, but is also the daughter of the Queen of the Amazons. She can fly, is super strong like Superman, has wrist bracelets that can deflect anything, and of course a magic lasso that can't be broken and makes people tell the truth. I'd remake the Green Lantern movie with the Sinestro Corps War, and then introduce Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner as alternative Lanterns recruited for the war.

You see Marvel has great villains, most of them want to take over the world, just so they can make a better world or free people from tyranny or whatever. Magento wants freedom for mutants, he saw the Nazis and how they treated Jewish people and thinks human beings feel the same way about mutants. Doctor Doom is super smart and crazy, he wants to take over the world because he believes everyone will be better off under his benevolent dictatorship instead of democracy. Thanos (who you might see soon in Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy) just wants to impress 'Death' because he is in love with her, and in order to do that he has to kill half of the galaxy but he needs these Infinity gems or a Cosmic Cube to get such power to do so. Galactus is this big guy who survived the big crunch of the universe before ours, and he is so powerful that he has to eat planets full of life in order to survive. So instead of using his own energy to move and find planets, he gives power to 'heralds' like The Silver Surfer to find them for him. But the Silver Surfer has a good soul and sees that this is wrong and turns on Galactus to save Earth, and then leads Galactus to planets that have life but not inhabited with intelligent life.

Marvel Comics had recently pulled the old switcheroo on Spider-Man. They had Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man switch minds and bodies. So Peter Parker's mind is in Doc Ock's body that is dying. Doc Ock is in Peter Parker's body aka Spider-Man. In their final battle Doc Ock in Spider-Man's body (Fans call him SpOck for Spider Ock) had this metal shield over the back of his head as a helmet so Peter couldn't get back into his own body and died in Doc Ock's body. Fans got upset, the Peter Parker Spider-man they knew was dead. Dan Slot got death threats on Twitter (This is uncalled for, it is just a comic book people, never make death threats just because you disagree with something.) for doing this. I mean at first you miss Classic Spider-Man but Superior Spider-Man with SpoCk makes it interesting to see where the book is going. You see SpOck was bullied and abused as a child, and buried himself into learning all he could about math and science. He made these mechanical arms to help people out and even handle radioactive materials through a shield at a distance. But an accident fused those arms with his body and radically changed his brain chemistry making him crazy and evil. Yet once he switched minds with Peter Parker, it was like that insanity and evil sort of went away as he had access to Peter's memories of being a hero, losing his parents and then making a mistake and his Uncle Ben dies. Somehow this makes SpOck want to become a hero. While he has Peter's memories he does not have his personality, but there was a little of Peter's personality left that followed him around like a ghost until he was able to remove it. After that using Doc Ock's resources and inventions he was able to become The Superior Spider-Man, all of the power and none of the responsibility. But SpOck really gets things done, unlike Peter Parker. Mr. Slot had taken a great villain and turned him into an anti-hero like The Punisher or Wolverine ad put him in Spider-Man's body. Brilliant, even if you hate it, the idea is brilliant.

DC is doing more reboots, Lobo is not Lobo anymore but an imposter and this new 'Teenage Emo Lobo' is coming to kill the fake Lobo and so every single comic about Lobo is now null and void, and people are upset. I figure DC is trying to copy the SpOck thing, or copy that War Marvel had with Skrulls being imposter super heroes. I think DC should have done better by making the new Lobo one of his 'sons' that survived and wants to kill his father to take over his title of "The Main Man". This is what DC tried to do when Hush took over as Bruce Wayne after the real Bruce Wayne was Batman died in a battle with Darkseid, and was traveling through time and dimensions to try and get back. Look DC instead of just rebooting characters, why don't you just make brand new characters that connect with the younger audience instead? Marvel made this Ultimate Universe for that, you can use one of your alternative Earths like Earth-4 or whatever for that. Just stop messing with formulas that work like Lobo, and then changing them for the worse. The same with your movies and TV shows. Otherwise Marvel is just going to eat your lunch as the fans defect from DC to Marvel.