# Marvel vs DC



## Morrus (Mar 16, 2021)

So, let's not 'edition war' over our favourite billion dollar multinationals. But I wanted to zoom in on a particular difference I've seen repeated over and over for years.

"DC characters are more epic. Marvel characters are more relatable."

It's a comparison which is repeatedly used. Is that actually true though? What do you think?

Superman more epic than Thor?

Flash more epic than Quicksilver?

Hawkeye more relatable than Green Arrow?

Darkseid more epic than Thanos?

Scarlet Witch more relatable than Zatanna?

Generally, I feel like they have very similar characters (of course they do -- they spent decades copying each other).

I wonder if it's literally down to Marvel's biggest property is Spiderman (relatable) while DC's is Superman* (epic). Is that why the comparison keeps getting used?



*Well, Batman I guess. But he's not epic.


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## aco175 (Mar 16, 2021)

Like most things fantasy (movies, books, characters, etc...) it comes down to relatability and character development.  Some of my favorite PCs are ones that have the best story and bits of roleplay that come through.  Movies are better when the character are defined and have development.  

Marvel feels more developed to me.  I know that there are examples in DC, but this is just me.  I relate to the heroes better and feel them.  Not sure how this is defined.


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## Ryujin (Mar 16, 2021)

I don't know. Batman and Iron Man are the two gadget guy millionaires. Is Stark more relatable because he's a dick, while Wayne is aloof?

DC characters might have problems, but Marvel characters have real world problems. Perhaps it's the storytelling that's more relatable, rather than the characters?


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## Dire Bare (Mar 16, 2021)

Maybe at one point . . . .

But the two houses have been copying each other's successes for decades, to the point they aren't terribly distinguishable to me.

For every DC character, you can easily find a Marvel analogue, and vice versa.

I do think DC plays up more the mythic quality of it's heroes, and their "legacies". Superman is both an individual hero . . . . but his symbol represents a legacy of other heroes as well, Supergirl, the Superboys, Kal-El's kids, other allied Kryptonians and Earthers, and alternate universe incarnations of all of the above. The Justice League, at times, seems presented similar to the 12 Olympians . . . .

But you get into the actual stories about each hero, and they are no more or less "relatable" than their Marvel counterparts. IMO, of course.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> But the two houses have been copying each other's successes for decades, to the point they aren't terribly distinguishable to me.



Yeah, that's where I am. So much of it is carbon copies. The main difference these days is the cinematic universes, which go out of their way to play on those alleged differences, but I'm not convinced they actually exist.


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## CleverNickName (Mar 16, 2021)

@Dire Bare summed it up nicely.  Both have been copying each other for so long, I can no longer tell them apart.  NounMan, The Human Noun, IntensifierMan, whatever.  Just take my money and I'll see you at the box office.  Bring popcorn.


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## Umbran (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Superman more epic than Thor?




Broadly speaking, yes.  In various parts of Superman's history, he has reversed time, and moved _entire planets_ with only his own strength.  He routinely moves through the vacuum of space under his own power and without protection, and indeed fly faster than light to travel between galaxies.  He can melt steel by looking at it, and hear a whisper on the other side of the city.  He is nigh invulnerable, such that he has, in some stories, survived being at ground zero of a nuclear blast.



Morrus said:


> Flash more epic than Quicksilver?




Most definitely.  The Flash can run fast enough to travel in time (and, at times, "faster than teleportation"), and vibrate his body quickly enough to be able to move through solid matter, and processes thoughts in "under an attosecond".  Quicksilver is limited to about Mach 10.

In worrying about Green Arrow and Zatanna, you are leaving out a few of the other common DC heavy hitters - Green Lantern.  Wonder Woman.  The Martian Manhunter (who has all of Superman's powers, at similar levels, but is also a shapeshifter, and top level psionic as well).  Shazam (who is basically another Superman).  And, perhaps most importantly, Batman, who is so epic that he has canonicaly worked out ways in which he, a person without superpowers, can take out pretty much _every other superhero_ he's worked with.



Morrus said:


> I wonder if it's literally down to Marvel's biggest property is Spiderman (relatable) while DCs is Superman (epic). Is that why the comparison keeps getting used?




I think if you put back those top-level JLA-types, the point becomes more obvious.


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## billd91 (Mar 16, 2021)

Generally, yes, I think it's true. Marvel characters have been more relatable, in general, than the DC heroes. I think DC has come a long way since the Silver Age in relatability but they had to move there while Marvel staked out that territory early and continues to work it.

And it's not just Spider-Man. Marvel comics have tended toward having characters with regular foibles - Spider-Man worries about money, true, but the Fantastic Four bicker like family, Hawkeye's a pill when not in charge of things, the X-Men are the targets of prejudice and bigotry, and the people around them sometimes die because they fail (Gwen Stacy, I'm looking at you) or they commit suicide (Jean Grey v1.0) to save the world. Maybe it's because the Silver Age DC heroes soldiered through or originated in the cornball 1950s, but I think they had to play a lot of catch-up.

Even the two publishers seem to have some recognition of their differences and their impressions. Back when they did the JLA/Avengers crossover in the early 2000s, the various groups noticed the contrast between how supers are treated in their world vs how the other team is treated in their own. The DC heroes were larger than life and respected by the public, the Marvel heroes were considered with a much more jaundiced eye, their lives and images being much more complicated.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2021)

From those answers it sounds to me that the issue isn't one epicness vs relatability but one of realism. Not in the existence of superheroes, but in the way they'd be regarded or treated by the public. So it's not the heroes themselves, it's the _world_ that's relatable.


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## darjr (Mar 16, 2021)

Kinda like the Greek pantheon and the Roman? Which is which?


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## Ryujin (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> From those answers it sounds to me that the issue isn't one epicness vs relatability but one of realism. Not in the existence of superheroes, but in the way they'd be regarded or treated by the public. So it's not the heroes themselves, it's the _world_ that's relatable.



@Dire Bare was pretty on point about that, I think. It's the difference between looking up at Mount Olympus, or finding out that Joey down the pub is suddenly bullet-proof.


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## Marc_C (Mar 16, 2021)

I mostly agree with @Dire Bare, but with Hell's Kitchen TV shows DC has managed to create relatable characters such as Dare Devil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher. Teen Titans is also grounded in reality.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 16, 2021)

It depends on how much of the characters publication history you look at.  A lot of characters- even (especially?) major ones, get rewritten.  Multiple times.

The original Supeman literally leapt, and didn’t fly.  Some versions of the character could literally fly through the hearts of stars and move planets by himself.  Thor was NEVER like that., despite being the Asgardian god of strength, etc.

Flash?  Breaks the time barrier in almost every incarnation.  Quicksilver, not so much.  There’s this panel:





Quicksiver never- nor any other super-speedster from another publisher- makes claims like that.

So, yeah, DC has a tendency to have more epic built into their characters _at some point._


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## Umbran (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> So it's not the heroes themselves, it's the _world_ that's relatable.




For me, not so much.

The thing with heroes the power of DC's main stable is... with power that high, their _emotional lives_ are not terribly relatable.  Their lives _as people_ becomes alien to us.  

Now, the world being plausible is an aspect of this - if the world just generally says, "Yay!  You're the bestofthebest!  We loves you always!" all the time, that will set us up for an emotional experience we can't really understand very well.


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## MarkB (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> So it's not the heroes themselves, it's the _world_ that's relatable.



It's _also_ the world that is more relatable. And that is intrinsic to the settings themselves. DC heroes like Batman and Superman exist in fictional rough-analogues of real-world cities, Gotham and Metropolis being the most famous. Marvel heroes exist in real-world locales, a fair number of them being found in and around New York city. They feel more grounded in reality because they exist in real places that people have visited or seen in movies.


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## Morrus (Mar 16, 2021)

MarkB said:


> It's _also_ the world that is more relatable. And that is intrinsic to the settings themselves. DC heroes like Batman and Superman exist in fictional rough-analogues of real-world cities, Gotham and Metropolis being the most famous. Marvel heroes exist in real-world locales, a fair number of them being found in and around New York city. They feel more grounded in reality because they exist in real places that people have visited or seen in movies.



Only New York though? Maybe it's different for Americans, but I wouldn't recognize any other American city. I can't believe that the difference is simply that most Marvel heroes operate in a single city though.


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## Parmandur (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> So, let's not 'edition war' over our favourite billion dollar multinationals. But I wanted to zoom in on a particular difference I've seen repeated over and over for years.
> 
> "DC characters are more epic. Marvel characters are more relatable."
> 
> ...



I wouldn't say "epic," but I would say that originally  thatDC characters were more often archetypes playing out big tropes while Marvel characters were more often characters ( at least since the Fantastic Four started). For an example from your list, it isn't that Hawkeye is "more relatable" than Green Arrow, but Green Arrow is "Robin Hood, but in the Modern Age, but still with the tights and bow" whereas Hawkeye is a former circus performer informed by a complex series of soap opera background events and relationships...though in the end they are both crime fighters wearing ridiculous costumes who are very good archers ( a primeval power fantasy).

This got messy after the 80's, when DC hired all the Marvel writers they could and had them change everything with Crisis on Infinite Earths to follow more Marvel approaches to character.


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## Ryujin (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Only New York though? Maybe it's different for Americans, but I wouldn't recognize any other American city. I can't believe that the difference is simply that most Marvel heroes operate in a single city though.



Given how many of the superhero shows are shot in Vancouver or Toronto, Canada, I don't think many Americans recognize many American cities either 

'Oh, look! It's a skyline shot of Chicago!!" Next shot has the CN Tower in the background


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## FitzTheRuke (Mar 16, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Only New York though? Maybe it's different for Americans, but I wouldn't recognize any other American city. I can't believe that the difference is simply that most Marvel heroes operate in a single city though.



It's all of these things. Marvel's characters had real-world problems and "feet of clay" while DCs were impossibly impressive. Marvel's existed (for the most part) in real places (yeah, mostly New York) while DCs cities had aspects of real places, but were also fantastical.

This is historically true - and still "feels" that way, most of the time. 

There's a reason you're questioning it now though: Marvel quickly became more successful than DC, so DC tried to "Marvelize" their characters, making them more flawed and relatable (and generally less powerful). More recently, writers started to go crazy amping-up Marvel character's powers. (I think they were foolish to do so - now you have Spider-Man healing as fast as Wolverine used to do, while Wolverine can regenerate from a nuclear blast. It's a disservice to the characters, IMO.)

So yeah, they're closer than ever before. It's still _generally_ true that Marvels are relatable and DCs are epic, though. Which isn't to say that you can't make your DC characters more relatable (you're better of if you do) nor can you not find epic moments for your Marvel characters (but that shouldn't be done by making them overpowered, IMO.)


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## DonoZen (Mar 17, 2021)

Here is a montage of a few different ideas I've run across over the years and combined the best parts, and don't remember at all where I got these points but they totally reflect the difference, in my opinion.


"The main differences between the two universes of DC and Marvel is a kind of inverse logic, 
in that DC’s characters are more God-like but in the guise of humans, whereas Marvel characters 
are more human but given God-like superpowers. 

DC’s heroes are endowed with almost immutable virtue, whereas Marvel’s characters are often thrown 
into the superhero position by accident and still deal with their all-too-human condition.

DC generally utilizes fictional locations for its heroes such as Metropolis (for Superman), 
Gotham City (for Batman) Central City (for The Flash) and Coast City (for the Green Lantern).

On the other hand, Marvels heroes are usually fighting for cities that we know. 
They’re more grounded to reality in that aspect. We see New York City, Washington, D.C. 
and San Francisco threatened and destroyed, not some fantasy cities."


Stan Lee said himself he created the heroes to be exactly that from the start to be relatable.


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## Dire Bare (Mar 17, 2021)

Marc_C said:


> I mostly agree with @Dire Bare, but with Hell's Kitchen TV shows DC has managed to create relatable characters such as Dare Devil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher. Teen Titans is also grounded in reality.



Thanks for the nod, but . . . um, actually, the "Defenders" of Hell's Kitchen (Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and the Punisher) are all Marvel characters, not DC.

SEE!!! YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE!!


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## Dire Bare (Mar 17, 2021)

FitzTheRuke said:


> It's all of these things. Marvel's characters had real-world problems and "feet of clay" while DCs were impossibly impressive. Marvel's existed (for the most part) in real places (yeah, mostly New York) while DCs cities had aspects of real places, but were also fantastical.
> 
> This is historically true - and still "feels" that way, most of the time.
> 
> ...



The success of the MCU is definitely at play here, but . . . again, both houses have been copying each others success for decades now. Is DC trying to match Marvel's success on both the big screen and on television? Oh yes! But, nothing really new here.

The current Superman show, Superman & Lois, is the most relatable Kal-El I've ever seen! Every episode I feel so bad for the guy as he blows his "dad skills" saving throws at every opportunity!


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## Levistus's_Leviathan (Mar 17, 2021)

As I said in the WandaVision thread, I believe that this is generally true, but there are big exceptions to this standard. To me, the Flash is more relatable than Doctor Strange, Batman is more relatable than Falcon, and Wonder Woman is a better made character than Captain Marvel (going by the movies). Besides those glaring outliers of this rule, I think this is mostly true. 

Spider-Man has more real-life problems than Superman. Superman's "real life problems" are so non-existent that the only disguise he needs to hide his identity are a pair of glasses. The most relatable thing about Superman are his relationship problems, but even those seem to be easily solved and less relatable than those that Spider-Man has, who has to balance work, school, and a girlfriend with his crime-fighting. 

Iron Man's origin story is more relatable than Batman's. Though they were both able to get their "powers" from being born into incredibly wealthy families that met an untimely end early in the heroes' lives, Iron Man's origin of being able to escape from terrorists with the help of a mentor using their natural skills in order to help the world just feels more drawing than that of Batman's, where he just decided to fight crime because he still hadn't gotten over his parents' deaths and fear of bats. 

The X-Men are discriminated against because of their powers that they received at birth, which is very relatable to a ton of people that suffer discrimination in the modern world. This is just hands-down more compelling of a story than that of Aquaman (IMO, of course). Though Aquaman is Half-Atlantean, Half-Human which has caused him to face discrimination from both Humans and Atlanteans, he easily overcomes this and is able to become the King of Atlantis and get "everyone" to love him. The most compelling part of the X-Men is a better plot point because it is not easily resolved, and both sides have good points. Mutants are dangerous and can cause huge catastrophically disastrous events that have the potential to destroy the world, but they didn't choose to be born that way and should not be discriminated against because of how they were born. 

These are just a few examples to support my point, but I could bring up others if I needed to. On the scale of "Epic-ness" and 
"Relatable-ness", I feel that Marvel heroes generally leans more towards being relatable while DC heroes lean more towards being epic. (That is not to say that these are incompatible characteristics. There are indeed very "epic" characters that are also very relatable, like Wanda, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Post-Ragnarok Thor, the Flash, and others.) 

So, I guess my answer is "Sometimes no, but usually yes".


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## FitzTheRuke (Mar 17, 2021)

The movies are a slightly different beast than the comics, as they (all of them!) were made _after_ the "great shifts" where DC became more like Marvel, and Marvel more like DC. 

Though it's still a bit true of the movies, but that's only because you have "big moment" directors like Zack Snyder doing DC movies, vs character-driven directors like Taika Waititi  and James Gunn. Sure, there's exceptions (and we'll see how much better Suicide Squad 2 will be over the first one). But I think that has less to do with Marvel vs DC than it does to do with studios and who they hire.



AcererakTriple6 said:


> Flash is more relatable than Doctor Strange




Now, Doctor Strange was always one of Marvel's LEAST relatable characters, so that makes sense, but Flash has only been relatable in relatively recent years (Barry Allen was pretty boring - the Barry you see in the TV show is far, far more like the comics version of Wally West than he is like Barry, although the comic version of Barry has changed in that direction as well.)


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## MNblockhead (Mar 17, 2021)

I keep mixing up which characters are part of which Universe, much to my sons' occasional bemusement and frequent annoyance.  So, for a non-hardcore-fan, I don't think the epic/relatable differences are that obvious. 

FWIW, I find Superman to be one of the most relatable characters in the genre. Maybe its growing up in the midwest with family who are farmers, but what makes a character relatable is not so much limitations on their powers but how their backgrounds and experiences shape how they see those powers, what sense of responsibility or lack thereof they have, and how they struggle with the fact that even god-like powers are limited when you are not god.


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## Tonguez (Mar 17, 2021)

I think its about the prevailing zeitgeist when were created. DC properties were imagined in the pre-WW2 era as larger than life new mythology, so Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman were largely modeled on Greek gods. DC’s identity is that of Superpowered beings living in a human world.

Marvel on the other hand was created in the counter culture 1960s and did just that - create superheroes with flaws who stand as counter culture icons that the rebellious youth of the 60s can relate to. You get the likes of mentally unstable Hulk, alcoholic warmonger Iron Man, poor struggling teen Spiderman, disabled Donald Blake - they are Human beings who gain superpowers.

that was initially, but it may not apply anymore - DC keeps trying to give Superman some human foibles and Marvel keeps ramping up Spidermans powers


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## Umbran (Mar 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Only New York though? Maybe it's different for Americans, but I wouldn't recognize any other American city. I can't believe that the difference is simply that most Marvel heroes operate in a single city though.




You seem to be missing the point - the point is not, specifically, NYC.  The point is _REAL PLACES_.  That includes NYC.  But it also includes Chicago, LA, Washington DC. It is New Orleans, Jersey City, and so on...

When a story is placed in Metropolis, you can't really assume much - we only know what the author specifically tells us about Metropolis, and that typically isn't much.  In doing so, the author is positioning their story such that the location doesn't really matter.  Metropolis becomes code for "abstract clean large city" and Gotham is code for "abstract gritty large city", but the particulars beyond that are not relevant.  

We know a lot more about NYC, and the author can use that understanding to great effect, if they know what they are doing.  To see an extreme example of this, see Amazing Spider-Man #36, from 1999.  Fans may recognize the cover:






The characters lived there, and so their emotions about their home became relevant, and connected to ours.  To have this happen in Metropolis includes a layer of abstraction that gets in the way of relating to the story.

There's a genre point here - the original technical difference between "high fantasy" and "low fantasy" was not how much magic was in the world, or how epic the storyline.  It was location.  Low fantasy took place in our world, high fantasy took place on some other world.


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## Morrus (Mar 17, 2021)

Umbran said:


> You seem to be missing the point



I assure you I'm not. I understand the point fully and exquisitely, and comprehend it in its entirely; it's not a difficult concept to grasp.

I just don't really agree with it. I accept that that is how you feel about it. I personally don't find that list of real locations more relatable than the fictional ones, other than NYC because it's just _so_ recognisable. Maybe London would have a similar effect for me, but I can't think of anywhere else that might.

So yeah, for me, it's just NYC. _That's_ the point -- I'm describing my personal relationship with the fiction, not yours.


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## Umbran (Mar 17, 2021)

Tonguez said:


> that was initially but it may not apply anymore




Miles Morales (Spider-Man, biracial).  Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel, Pakistani Muslim).  America Chavez (latin-American, LGBTQ). Wiccan and Hulkling (perhaps the highest profile LGBTQ relationship in Marvel comics).  The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.  Ironheart.  The Unstoppable Wasp.

Marvel continues creating relatable characters - but the middle-aged white guys probably aren't reading much of them, because they are no longer aimed at relating to middle aged-white guys.


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## Umbran (Mar 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I just don't really agree with it. I accept that that is how you feel about it. I personally don't find that list of real locations more relatable than the fictional ones, other than NYC because it's just _so_ recognisable. Maybe London would have a similar effect for me, but I can't think of anywhere else that might.




Yes, well, I'm terribly sorry if an American media company doesn't set the majority of its comics in the UK.  Though, Excalibur may do for you, as it is nominally set in Britain.



Morrus said:


> So yeah, for me, it's just NYC. _That's_ the point -- I'm describing my personal relationship with the fiction, not yours.




You may not realize, but... You asked everyone about their relationship to the fiction.  But, the positioning on your responses is to _argue_ with our relationship - telling us you "can't believe" our experience, and focusing on single items when folks have mentioned several that impact how relatable things are, effectively creating a strawman. 

I get that the locations I mentioned may not make them more relatable for you. But you asked what makes them more relatable _to us_. If they are more relatable to more people (the audience being primarily American), then they are more relatable in general, even if they don't connect to you.


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## trappedslider (Mar 17, 2021)

Umbran said:


> You may not realize, but... You asked everyone about their relationship to the fiction.  But, the positioning on your responses is to _argue_ with our relationship. I get that the locations I mentioned may not make them more relatable for you. But you asked what makes them more relatable _to us_. If they are more relatable to more people (the audience bieng primarily American), then they are more relatable in general, even if they don't connect to you.



For a short time there was the 50-State Initiative in Marvel's main earth 616, which was pretty cool since the idea was that each state would have it's own team of heroes.

There's a joke floating around that the only Hero who really knows how to manage stuff is Daredevil because instead of attempting to save a world or city, he's micromanaging the hell out of 10 blocks in midtown Manhattan.


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## Carlsen Chris (Mar 17, 2021)

aco175 said:


> Like most things fantasy (movies, books, characters, etc...) it comes down to relatability and character development.  Some of my favorite PCs are ones that have the best story and bits of roleplay that come through.  Movies are better when the character are defined and have development.
> 
> Marvel feels more developed to me.  I know that there are examples in DC, but this is just me.  I relate to the heroes better and feel them.  Not sure how this is defined.



I've never understood why character development is so important for internet fiction consumers.  Do you like Crime and Punishment because of how well developed and relatable Raskolnikov is?


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## Morrus (Mar 17, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Yes, well, I'm terribly sorry if an American media company doesn't set the majority of its comics in the UK.  Though, Excalibur may do for you, as it is nominally set in Britain.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



OK. As usual, not what I said. Never mind.


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## Imaculata (Mar 17, 2021)

Spider-man has always appealed to me, because despite his super powers, Peter Parker's life kinda sucks. He's constantly juggling jobs, relationships, and other real life responsibilities, along with super villains making his life miserable. Spider-man also has quite a lot of antagonists that know his real identity, which must suck!

Being Spider-man is not easy. He has to sacrifice a lot to protect people, and then gets blamed for it in the newspaper. He can't form a relationship with anyone, without putting them in peril. His work is a terrible thankless one, and that makes him likeable. I like seeing characters be put through the wringer like that.

That is not to say that Superman has an easy life. But at least people appreciate his heroics. In comparison, I find Superman a bit bland and boring. For me, a compelling superhero is one with an interesting unique power, a struggle to keep their identity a secret, weaknesses, and a lot of hardship. Superman's only weakness seems to be one invented for the comic, and it seems like he has ALL of the powers. Not very compelling.

Batman is more relatable, although his vast fortune clearly is not. But what I like about him, is that in the end he is a vulnerable human being. He relies not on super powers, but on gadgets, martial arts, and detective work. His villains therefor don't need to rely on super powers either, and this adds a thin layer of realism to his adventures. Sure, 'some' of Batman's villains have super powers, but his best antagonists don't. They are 'normal' human beings, with a quirk that counters one of Batman's weaknesses. And to me, it is especially this last detail that makes his adventures intriguing.


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## Ryujin (Mar 17, 2021)

When I was a young kid, my guy was Superman. As I approached my teenage years, it was Batman (maybe a little Green Arrow). As I hit my teens and 20s I found those two not particularly nuanced (Sun God, Night God) and drifted to the rock-solid morality of Captain America who was, for all intents and purposes, still just human and the X-Men, for their political commentary.


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## ART! (Mar 17, 2021)

I think saying one is more relatable than the other is actually saying one or the other is more relatable _to/for you_. I don't see how either could be more _inherently_ relatable, given the subjectivity of relatability - "enabling a person to feel that they can relate to someone or something". Lots of things can do that, and degrees or kinds of verisimilitude is only one factor.

The "epic" thing is also very loosey-goosey. I mean, how can Superman be more epic than Thor, a character intimately connected to Norse mythology? Are Superman's powers "more epic"? Is "epic" synonymous with "power"? I'm confused. I think epic scales - Spider-man can have epic stories without leaving NYC and without encountering any cosmic beings.


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## Janx (Mar 17, 2021)

if by "epic" you mean "munchkin", sure.  the only reason Batman can beat everybody is because he's written that way.  Superman can eyebeam Bruce at will.  Flash can zoom by and jam a fork in his eye.

DC has a lot of capes. I'm surprised there's not more injuries and accidents due to them.

I'm not a fan of DC.  Their sales # reflect that others aren't as well.  'Nuff said.

Make mine marvel.


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## MarkB (Mar 17, 2021)

ART! said:


> The "epic" thing is also very loosey-goosey. I mean, how can Superman be more epic than Thor, a character intimately connected to Norse mythology?



Well, as mythologies go, Norse mythology is on the less-epic and more-relatable scale. It's the Marvel to Greek mythology's DC.


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## Shadowedeyes (Mar 17, 2021)

Nowadays the two are pretty similar. When Marvel was new on the scene the characters definitely have flaws and more varied personalities than DC did, and Marvel was put together as a shared universe compared to DC sorta doing it after the fact. But after time, not so much difference. Which makes sense, given writers, artists and editors would often go to the other company at times.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 17, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Miles Morales (Spider-Man, biracial).  Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel, Pakistani Muslim).  America Chavez (latin-American, LGBTQ). Wiccan and Hulkling (perhaps the highest profile LGBTQ relationship in Marvel comics).  The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.  Ironheart.  The Unstoppable Wasp.
> 
> Marvel continues creating relatable characters - but the middle-aged white guys probably aren't reading much of them, because they are no longer aimed at relating to middle aged-white guys.



Wasn’t Northstar (Alpha Flight) also revealed to be gay?  And I believe Marvel retconned one of their cowboy characters as gay as well.  All back in the 1990s, as I recall.


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## billd91 (Mar 17, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Wasn’t Northstar (Alpha Flight) also revealed to be gay?  And I believe Marvel retconned one of their cowboy characters as gay as well.  All back in the 1990s, as I recall.



Yes, Northstar was one of their earliest gay characters, I believe. The story of him coming out was back in 1992.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I assure you I'm not. I understand the point fully and exquisitely, and comprehend it in its entirely; it's not a difficult concept to grasp.
> 
> I just don't really agree with it. I accept that that is how you feel about it. I personally don't find that list of real locations more relatable than the fictional ones, other than NYC because it's just _so_ recognisable. Maybe London would have a similar effect for me, but I can't think of anywhere else that might.
> 
> So yeah, for me, it's just NYC. _That's_ the point -- I'm describing my personal relationship with the fiction, not yours.




I grew up in NYC. I've been here all my life. 

This page is from THE PULSE #3 by Bendis and Bagley
The setup is a reporter is going to meet one of her contacts who works in the city morgue. She knows where he's going to be because she knows where he takes his breaks, in a alley behind the building where he works. At one point during the conversation she asks him why does he keep looking at his watch. He just says: "Wait for it..." 

Then you get this page. 






 I'm not daft. I've lived here all my life and NOPE no superheroes. But NY is a real place and when I was a kid as far as I knew I just wasn't in Manhattan enough to see THE AVENGERS or SPIDER-MAN. On the other hand, Metropolis and Gotham might as well have been Narnia. They werent real places and as silly as this sounds? It created a bit of a disconnect for me for a long while as a kid. (I got over it). 

I used to work not too far from the building where the Quinjet crash landed in the first AVENGERS movie. Hell, one of those huge beasts from the movie nearly sideswipes the building I used to work in on Park Avenue. 

My point is for some of us? This is where these heroes were created. Hell, I used to LIVE in Forest Hills where Peter Parker is from. They a part of NY as much as Grand Central or Yankee Stadium or Madison Square Garden. I get that it's not the same for everyone, especially if you don't live stateside or even in NY. Just needed to put this POV out there. A romanticized POV admittedly but a POV nonetheless.


----------



## Morrus (Mar 17, 2021)

ShinHakkaider said:


> I grew up in NYC. I've been here all my life.
> 
> This page is from THE PULSE #3 by Bendis and Bagley
> The setup is a reporter is going to meet one of her contacts who works in the city morgue. She knows where he's going to be because she knows where he takes his breaks, in a alley behind the building where he works. At one point during the conversation she asks him why does he keep looking at his watch. He just says: "Wait for it..."
> ...



You literally just made my point for me. You have a personal resonance with the depicted locations, and 75% of the time they’re NYC. Thank you. It was getting tiresome being berated for saying exactly that.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 17, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Wasn’t Northstar (Alpha Flight) also revealed to be gay?  And I believe Marvel retconned one of their cowboy characters as gay as well.  All back in the 1990s, as I recall.



Yup THE RAWHIDE KID for Marvel's MAX line in 2000(?)


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## Ryujin (Mar 17, 2021)

ShinHakkaider said:


> I grew up in NYC. I've been here all my life.
> 
> This page is from THE PULSE #3 by Bendis and Bagley
> The setup is a reporter is going to meet one of her contacts who works in the city morgue. She knows where he's going to be because she knows where he takes his breaks, in a alley behind the building where he works. At one point during the conversation she asks him why does he keep looking at his watch. He just says: "Wait for it..."
> ...



I work on the street that was thoroughly trashed by The Hulk and The Abomination, That Batman chased The (crappier version of) Joker on, and that The Suicide Squad fought pseudo zombies on.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 17, 2021)

Re: cities

I think how we interact with cities in fictional works depends on the individual.  Personally, I have slightly different expectations between fictionalization of real cities- even those I’ve never been to- vs those made up from whole cloth.  I think it’s because even the relatively unfamiliar ones are still going to be more familiar than those made of whole cloth.

I mean, while a lot of truly ginormous critters can be found in various sci-fi/fantasy/horror fiction settings (Dune, Star Wars), real kaiju stories are almost ALL set on Earth.  And I think it’s because a majority of the audience relates more to a critter towering over Tokyo, NYC or the like as opposed to how they’d react to similar action occurring on Tatooine.

See also alien invasion stories.  I can only think of a few good ones- like Avatar & that one episode of Twilight Zone- in which the invaders were terrans on alien soil.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 18, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It depends on how much of the characters publication history you look at.  A lot of characters- even (especially?) major ones, get rewritten.  Multiple times.
> 
> The original Supeman literally leapt, and didn’t fly.  Some versions of the character could literally fly through the hearts of stars and move planets by himself.  Thor was NEVER like that., despite being the Asgardian god of strength, etc.
> 
> ...



Thor actually can move planets by himself, IIRC. There was a video about whether Hulk or Thor is stronger that features it. 

And of course in some comics Thor can open portals through reality, and is just...literally an actual god.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Thor actually can move planets by himself, IIRC. There was a video about whether Hulk or Thor is stronger that features it.
> 
> And of course in some comics Thor can open portals through reality, and is just...literally an actual god.



I never saw Thor exhibit that level of strength, It all depends on the writers.  In the original Secret Wars, even Thor was amazed that the Hulk was holding up a billion ton mountain that had been dropped on them.  And in their own cataloging of their characters, Marvel listed Thor as being able to lift 100+ tons.



> Adam Warlock has stated that he considers Thor as one of the physically strongest beings in the universe.[221] He has been stated to be at the 95-ton level,[184] then at 100 tons.[11][177] However, his Power Grid also indicates a capacity to lift well over 100 tons.[156][157]




But leaves how much more than that unclear.

Of course, there a couple other characters like that in Marvel.  Besides the aforementioned Hulk (with no known upper limit), there’s also Guardian of the Shi’ar Imperials, who can psionically augment his strength to levels as yet unknown.

His dimensional travel ability goes back a ways- at least to the 1970s, if not the earliest days of the character- but AFAIK, is always limited by the requirement that he use Mjolnir to open the portals.


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## Shadowedeyes (Mar 18, 2021)

Pretty much all the "Class 100" characters have gone way past 100 tons by a ton. Heck, The Thing is, what, Class 70? He has also gone past 100 tons at times. Probably in part by comic writers not going out of their way to find out how much stuff weighs for the cool story they are writing, but still.

Power wise nowadays I don't think DC characters outclasses Marvel's in any real appreciable way.


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## Campbell (Mar 18, 2021)

The biggest difference in my eyes is who the characters see when they look in the mirror. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen, Dick Grayson, Arthur Curry et. al. are all most themselves in their heroic personas. Their secret identities are their real masks. Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, T'Challa, and even Steve Rogers are people before they are heroes. Their heroic identities are part of their lives, but not their whole lives.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2021)

Definitely some truth to that.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 18, 2021)

Campbell said:


> The biggest difference in my eyes is who the characters see when they look in the mirror. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen, Dick Grayson, Arthur Curry et. al. are all most themselves in their heroic personas. Their secret identities are their real masks. Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, T'Challa, and even Steve Rogers are people before they are heroes. Their heroic identities are part of their lives, but not their whole lives.



A lot of the best writers of those character speak of them by their first names, however. Especially Clark, but even Bruce. The whole thing in Batman Beyond where he thinks of himself as Batman, and similar moments in some comments, is a total failure to write the character, IMO. It robs Bruce of any growth over the entire course of his life, and is just there to poke at the reader and give them something to go “oooooo” at.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2021)

IDK- becoming Batman is growth of a sort.  Not _healthy_, perhaps but there definitely is evolution from helpless (wealthy) orphan to the world’s greatest detective, one of DC’s most formidable martial artists, and all-around doomsday-prepped vigilante.

The fact that he’s kind of on the path to being a Nietzschean monster hunter makes him sort of an anti-hero in the making, but DC pretty much CANNOT do that story arc as canon is beside the point.


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## pming (Mar 18, 2021)

Hiya!


Morrus said:


> So, let's not 'edition war' over our favourite billion dollar multinationals. But I wanted to zoom in on a particular difference I've seen repeated over and over for years.
> 
> "DC characters are more epic. Marvel characters are more relatable."
> 
> ...




Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Maybe?

Why is the comparison used? Generally speaking, Marvel Heroes deal with "earth threats" or "planet sized threats". There are some exceptions...like the Infinity Gauntlet storyline (or Infinity War for the MCU), and various Silver Surfer or Fantastic Four stories, or the Dark Phoenix Saga. But usually, it's "Galactus is going to eat the earth!", or "Rhino is on a rampage in Manhattan!", or maybe "The Skrull have infiltrated most of the governments in the world!".

With DC...that's more of a "day in, day out" type of story line, from what I gather; full disclosure, I'm not a huge DC fan...I know only a bit here and there. After Batman and maybe Green Arrow, you kinda jump straight into Heroes/Villains that can manipulate time and space like you manipulate your toothbrush; without much effort or thought. I mean, Dr. Manhatten, Dr. Fate, Superman, Brainiac, Darkseid... they're not just saving/ threatening "earth". They are working on a solar system at the SMALLEST scale, and "all realities and time...everywhere...!" at the top. 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Imaculata (Mar 18, 2021)

ShinHakkaider said:


> I used to work not too far from the building where the Quinjet crash landed in the first AVENGERS movie. Hell, one of those huge beasts from the movie nearly sideswipes the building I used to work in on Park Avenue.




I have similar feelings about the Dutch comic Franka, which often takes place in the Netherlands, and accurately portrays real locations. Many of the female sleuth's adventures take place in and around Amsterdam, and the artist drew real locations that I used to visit on a weekly basis during my student years.






While the events in the comic are of course entirely fictional, I like imagining the artist of the comic sitting in the very same location where I'm walking and drawing his comicbook panels. The artist especially had a passion for drawing these huge establishing shots of locations, full of detail. 

Having a comic be set in a real location gives it an extra layer of realism and relatability. Especially if you're closely familiar with the location.


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## turnip_farmer (Mar 18, 2021)

Umbran said:


> For me, not so much.
> 
> The thing with heroes the power of DC's main stable is... with power that high, their _emotional lives_ are not terribly relatable.  Their lives _as people_ becomes alien to us.
> 
> Now, the world being plausible is an aspect of this - if the world just generally says, "Yay!  You're the bestofthebest!  We loves you always!" all the time, that will set us up for an emotional experience we can't really understand very well.



I've recently been reading the Neil Gaiman Miracleman comics. Miracleman, which was of course based on DC comics, really played up the unrelatability, such that by the end of the books (the Alan Moore ones, that is), he has completely shed his humanity and become this alien figure. Gaiman's continuation of the story deals with this by not actually featuring Miracleman very much. It's all about what it's like for ordinary people living in the shade of Olympus.

Shame this series was never finished.


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## billd91 (Mar 18, 2021)

turnip_farmer said:


> I've recently been reading the Neil Gaiman Miracleman comics. Miracleman, which was of course based on DC comics, really played up the unrelatability, such that by the end of the books (the Alan Moore ones, that is), he has completely shed his humanity and become this alien figure. Gaiman's continuation of the story deals with this by not actually featuring Miracleman very much. It's all about what it's like for ordinary people living in the shade of Olympus.
> 
> Shame this series was never finished.



Yeah, unrelatability is kind of a thing for Moore. 
But with respect to Gaiman's continuation, Marvel did something kind of similar with the limited series *Marvels* - focusing on the perspective of a normal guy on the superhero things going on around him in the Marvel universe.


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## Morrus (Mar 18, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> I have similar feelings about the Dutch comic Franka, which often takes place in the Netherlands, and accurately portrays real locations. Many of the female sleuth's adventures take place in and around Amsterdam, and the artist drew real locations that I used to visit on a weekly basis during my student years.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is a gorgeous piece. I feel like I'm there!


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## ART! (Mar 18, 2021)

turnip_farmer said:


> Miracleman, which was of course based on DC comics



This is actually not true at all.

The creation of the "SHAZAM!" Captain Marvel character was definitely _inspired_ by the popularity of Superman, a DC character. 

The history of that Captain Marvel - and it's relation to Marvel Man, a name which was changed to Miracleman for the Alan Moore, etc. comics - is _long and complicated_, but per your comment: DC effectively had nothing to do with the character (except for filing suits against Fawcett Publications for 15 years or so, arguing that CM was too much like Superman - sour grapes, since for most of that time CM was more popular than Superman) until the '70s (maybe the very late '60s?).


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## billd91 (Mar 18, 2021)

ART! said:


> This is actually not true at all.
> 
> The creation of the "SHAZAM!" Captain Marvel character was definitely _inspired_ by the popularity of Superman, a DC character.
> 
> The history of that Captain Marvel - and it's relation to Marvel Man, a name which was changed to Miracleman for the Alan Moore, etc. comics - is _long and complicated_, but per your comment: DC effectively had nothing to do with the character (except for filing suits against Fawcett Publications for 15 years or so, arguing that CM was too much like Superman - sour grapes, since for most of that time CM was more popular than Superman) until the '70s (maybe the very late '60s?).



It wasn't just sour grapes - some of the court testimony indicated that at least some Fawcett personnel had been instructed to copy Superman strips in the Captain Marvel ones.


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## Ryujin (Mar 18, 2021)

ART! said:


> This is actually not true at all.
> 
> The creation of the "SHAZAM!" Captain Marvel character was definitely _inspired_ by the popularity of Superman, a DC character.
> 
> The history of that Captain Marvel - and it's relation to Marvel Man, a name which was changed to Miracleman for the Alan Moore, etc. comics - is _long and complicated_, but per your comment: DC effectively had nothing to do with the character (except for filing suits against Fawcett Publications for 15 years or so, arguing that CM was too much like Superman - sour grapes, since for most of that time CM was more popular than Superman) until the '70s (maybe the very late '60s?).



All this talk of the original name for "Shazam" has me wanting to watch the old Republic Studios "Adventures of Captain Marvel" from the 1940s. It's available on Tubi.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 18, 2021)

Saw it years ago on A&E.  Interesting.


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## Doug McCrae (Mar 18, 2021)

turnip_farmer said:


> I've recently been reading the Neil Gaiman Miracleman comics. Miracleman, which was of course based on DC comics, really played up the unrelatability, such that by the end of the books (the Alan Moore ones, that is), he has completely shed his humanity and become this alien figure. Gaiman's continuation of the story deals with this by not actually featuring Miracleman very much. It's all about what it's like for ordinary people living in the shade of Olympus.




These panels, from Miracleman #2 (early on in Moore's run), capture the difference between human and superhuman very well.


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## billd91 (Mar 18, 2021)

Doug McCrae said:


> These panels, from Miracleman #2 (early on in Moore's run), capture the difference between human and superhuman very well.



They do - but in a way that I think Moore biases - a way that deliberately drives the disconnect between human and superhuman. Miracleman has a lot of power to affect the world around him and that can skew his perceptions as it did with Kid Miracleman over the years. But here, is there any real reason to expect someone with Miracleman's superhuman power to have stronger emotions or thoughts like poetry - other than Moore defining him that way?
I like the way Moore handled Doctor Manhattan's superhumanity a bit better. Jon grows progressively emotionally detached from the people around him and much of it seems to be because of his altered perception - his psychology changes as a direct result of the powers he gained to perceive/experience all times at the same time. It's not defined for him with no specific justification as Miracleman's seems to be.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 18, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> I have similar feelings about the Dutch comic Franka, which often takes place in the Netherlands, and accurately portrays real locations. Many of the female sleuth's adventures take place in and around Amsterdam, and the artist drew real locations that I used to visit on a weekly basis during my student years.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I LOVE Amsterdam. I've been there twice relatively recently. Once in 2018 and then again in 2019. It's a beautiful city and great for just walking. On my second trip I ventured out to Haarlem and Utrecht by train (loved both trips).


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## Rob Kuntz (Mar 18, 2021)

Well.  I dunno about the comparisons.  I see Batman as both relatable and epic.  Individually (not with JLA) he is the most iconic of the lot as he speaks to the "normal" man amid his quest against the dark side of human nature.  Story-wise he is epic; he takes up his Crusade many years after his parents are killed and this includes his past history as it goes forward -- that is the definition of epic. His writers have given him the most iconic villains (though Lex Luther, who just won't die of old age, is still hanging around for Superman). I feel that DC has better story lines, especially with their origin Joker movie.  Snyder's JLA cut might open a can of unexpected worms, however, as it moves in the direction of saving the world, as did its shorter theatrical release, of course (and, once again, with the same back-n-forth trope used by Marvel and DC over the years).  So my bet is on DC and it is heavily influenced by what they did with Joker.


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## Ryujin (Mar 18, 2021)

Rob Kuntz said:


> Well.  I dunno about the comparisons.  I see Batman as both relatable and epic.  Individually (not with JLA) he is the most iconic of the lot as he speaks to the "normal" man amid his quest against the dark side of human nature.  Story-wise he is epic; he takes up his Crusade many years after his parents are killed and this includes his past history as it goes forward -- that is the definition of epic. His writers have given him the most iconic villains (though Lex Luther, who just won't die of old age, is still hanging around for Superman). I feel that DC has better story lines, especially with their origin Joker movie.  Snyder's JLA cut might open a can of unexpected worms, however, as it moves in the direction of saving the world, as did its shorter theatrical release, of course (and, once again, with the same back-n-forth trope used by Marvel and DC over the years).  So my bet is on DC and it is heavily influenced by what they did with Joker.



I see it a different way. When I was younger, I saw Batman as you do. Still do sometimes and enjoy the stories. But then I think of this rich guy who could wipe out poverty in his city with the stroke of a pen, or fund the medical research that could save Mr. Freeze's wife, and wonder what that says overall. Renovate Arkham Asylum and treat Edward Nigma, The Joker, Harlene Quinzell... Instead he buys million dollar toys and punches people in the face.


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## Rob Kuntz (Mar 18, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> I see it a different way. When I was younger, I saw Batman as you do. Still do sometimes and enjoy the stories. But then I think of this rich guy who could wipe out poverty in his city with the stroke of a pen, or fund the medical research that could save Mr. Freeze's wife, and wonder what that says overall. Renovate Arkham Asylum and treat Edward Nigma, The Joker, Harlene Quinzell... Instead he buys million dollar toys and punches people in the face.



Sure.  But it's an equal comparison.  Superman could have done all of the above for the whole world.  Not many sustained story lines in that course or the need for "other" super-heroes either, eh?  We have already accepted the inconsistencies in many things greater than Wayne's supposed indifference (for story purposes, of course).  Given everything being equal his story will always remain the most human one out of DC's stable, no matter the same inconsistencies that exist in all of these stories, overall.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 18, 2021)

Rob Kuntz said:


> Sure.  But it's an equal comparison.  Superman could have done all of the above for the whole world.  Not many sustained story lines in that course or the need for "other" super-heroes either, eh?  We have already accepted the inconsistencies in many things greater than Wayne's supposed indifference (for story purposes, of course).  Given everything being equal his story will always remain the most human one out of DC's stable, no matter the same inconsistencies that exist in all of these stories, overall.



And Superman being another DC character. I finally realized what their comics remind me of: Rifts RPG. I once made the mistake of playing a "mere" human psionic, in a campaign dominated by mega damage player characters. Despite having what was a fairly capable character I constantly felt like he might accidentally get stepped on. That "Mount Olympus" vs. "Joey down the pub" comparison again.


----------



## Tonguez (Mar 19, 2021)

Rob Kuntz said:


> Well.  I dunno about the comparisons.  I see Batman as both relatable and epic.  Individually (not with JLA) he is the most iconic of the lot as he speaks to the "normal" man amid his quest against the dark side of human nature.  Story-wise he is epic; he takes up his Crusade many years after his parents are killed and this includes his past history as it goes forward -- that is the definition of epic. His writers have given him the most iconic villains (though Lex Luther, who just won't die of old age, is still hanging around for Superman). I feel that DC has better story lines, especially with their origin Joker movie.  Snyder's JLA cut might open a can of unexpected worms, however, as it moves in the direction of saving the world, as did its shorter theatrical release, of course (and, once again, with the same back-n-forth trope used by Marvel and DC over the years).  So my bet is on DC and it is heavily influenced by what they did with Joker.




Yeah I deliberately left Batman out of my comparison because Batman is a unique case of a gritty pulp action hero who became a fixture in Super hero stories and is written in such away that he was able to shine alongside them. 
Batman has also caught the zeitgeist of the decline of Western society and the grittier darker world we live in - which is probably why Snyder keeps wanting to turn Superman into Batman ;(  (that said I am looking forward to seeing the Snyder cut, I expect it to be dark, violent and epic)


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## Shadowedeyes (Mar 19, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> I see it a different way. When I was younger, I saw Batman as you do. Still do sometimes and enjoy the stories. But then I think of this rich guy who could wipe out poverty in his city with the stroke of a pen, or fund the medical research that could save Mr. Freeze's wife, and wonder what that says overall. Renovate Arkham Asylum and treat Edward Nigma, The Joker, Harlene Quinzell... Instead he buys million dollar toys and punches people in the face.




True, but that pretty much applies to most superheroes to some degree. Besides the Superman example, over at Marvel you've got Reed Richards who should have been able to fix major world problems with his inventions.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 19, 2021)

Shadowedeyes said:


> True, but that pretty much applies to most superheroes to some degree. Besides the Superman example, over at Marvel you've got Reed Richards who should have been able to fix major world problems with his inventions.



Perhaps, except that he didn't have the funding of a Bruce Wayne. Hell, I don't think that even Tony Stark has Bruce Wayne money.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 19, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Perhaps, except that he didn't have the funding of a Bruce Wayne. Hell, I don't think that even Tony Stark has Bruce Wayne money.



Nah, they’re pretty apples to apples in that regard.  The man was an international arms dealer/military contractor with numerous companies and patents.

According to a 2013 Forbes fluff piece, Wayne came in at just under $10B net worth, while Stark topped $12B.  However, building on that, Money‘s 2015 list used some of Marvel’s writing to point out that the richest superhero of either company was T’challa*, based on his control of his country’s technology AND (more importantly) its mineral wealth.  Hence, _his_ wonderful toys.








						These Are the 5 Richest Superheroes
					

The wealthiest superhero is worth over $90 trillion.




					money.com
				





* they pegged him at _$90T._


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## Shadowedeyes (Mar 19, 2021)

Yah, Stark definitely is on par with Batman. He has the money to build hoards of suits of armor while still funding the Avengers. Reed probably has less money than Wayne, but still has enough for his family to live in the Baxter Building while being able to build his inventions, which are generally way more impressive than Batman's usual gear.


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## Dire Bare (Mar 19, 2021)

Arguing which wealthy comic book hero is more wealthy . . . . it's like their powers, who'd win in a fight? Whomever the writer wants to, as their powers, relative strengths, and relative wealth are all flexible in service to the story.

And who'd read comic stories about rich people starting effective philanthropic efforts?!?! Or inventing amazing technology to cure disease and . . . that's it!?!?

Rich people haven't solved the real world's problems with their oodles of money. Some have tried. Bill Gates comes to mind, he works pretty hard at various philanthropic endeavors, and hasn't enjoyed tremendous success in doing so.

Money can't solve the world's problems, in the real world or in the comic-book world. Of course, it can certainly HELP . . . .


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## Ryujin (Mar 19, 2021)

Solve? No. Reduce? Most assuredly.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 19, 2021)

Shadowedeyes said:


> True, but that pretty much applies to most superheroes to some degree. Besides the Superman example, over at Marvel you've got Reed Richards who should have been able to fix major world problems with his inventions.



During Jonathan Hickman's epic Fantastic Four run that DID become a major focus for Reed.



Unfortunately he got side tracked because the Council of Reed's (a bunch of Reed Richards from alternate timelines) showed why one man (or in this case men) trying to solve all the world's problems was...problematic.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 19, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Solve? No. Reduce? Most assuredly.



Yup during Matt Fraction's IRON MAN run one of the subplots IIRC was Stark attempting to develop a renewable energy source that could be mass produced. I think to an extent that Idea made it over to the very beginning of the 1st Avengers movie, as far as creating a renewable energy source. When we first see him in the movie he's in the process of attaching a power module to an underwater cable that effectively takes Stark Tower off of NY's power grid and using an offshoot of his arc reactor to power the building. 

Interesting side note, I think it was my 2nd or 3rd rewatch of THE AVENGERS that I caught that the energy source that Howard Stark had been attempting to replicate his entire life and that Tony succeeded in doing (with the arc reactor) was the power of the Cosmic Cube aka the Tesseract.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 19, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> Arguing which wealthy comic book hero is more wealthy . . . . it's like their powers, who'd win in a fight? Whomever the writer wants to, as their powers, relative strengths, and relative wealth are all flexible in service to the story.
> 
> And who'd read comic stories about rich people starting effective philanthropic efforts?!?! Or inventing amazing technology to cure disease and . . . that's it!?!?
> 
> ...



The degree to which Bill Gates actually tries all that hard to spend his fortune helping people is...debatable.


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## Dire Bare (Mar 19, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Solve? No. Reduce? Most assuredly.



Again, we don't really see that happening in the real world, not on the scale we seem to be expecting of Bruce Wayne and other rich comic-book heroes here. You also seem to be moving the goal posts a bit too.

People with lots of money CAN put that money towards good causes and make a difference . . . and Wayne does that in a lot of the Batman stories. Wayne is known as a playboy, and as a philanthropist. Naturally, this side of the character takes a backseat to the punching of bad guys . . . .

Inventors and engineers, wealthy or otherwise, can make significant impacts as well . . . but again, not on the scale folks seem to be expecting here. Granted, the kind if things Bruce Wayne and Reed Richards invent are fantastical . . . but so are their superpowers.


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## Dire Bare (Mar 19, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> The degree to which Bill Gates actually tries all that hard to spend his fortune helping people is...debatable.



Oh, he tries hard. As hard as he could? Maybe, maybe not. Is he disconnected from reality somewhat, hindering his ability to put his money towards effective philanthropy? I'd argue yes to that! Gates was a super-nerd who came into his success rather early . . . and has been ridiculously wealthy for the majority of his adult life. He earned it, but . . . I don't trust his understanding and empathy for the common man, although I do think his heart is in the right place.

I'm a teacher, and I'm familiar with several of Gates philanthropic works in education. It's all very well-meaning, and gets a lot of resources put into it . . . but often misses the mark and barely moves the needle on anything. But I have a lot more respect for him that I do for billionaires obsessed with space travel and taking humans to Mars. I mean, that's cool and all, but we've got some more pressing issues on this planet I'd rather have my wealthy philanthropists focus on . . . .


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## MarkB (Mar 19, 2021)

ShinHakkaider said:


> Yup during Matt Fraction's IRON MAN run one of the subplots IIRC was Stark attempting to develop a renewable energy source that could be mass produced. I think to an extent that Idea made it over to the very beginning of the 1st Avengers movie, as far as creating a renewable energy source. When we first see him in the movie he's in the process of attaching a power module to an underwater cable that effectively takes Stark Tower off of NY's power grid and using an offshoot of his arc reactor to power the building.



Yep. As Tony says in the movie, he's the world leader in renewable energy at the time, which throws shade on SHEILD's stated goals to do the same thing with the Tesseract.


ShinHakkaider said:


> Interesting side note, I think it was my 2nd or 3rd rewatch of THE AVENGERS that I caught that the energy source that Howard Stark had been attempting to replicate his entire life and that Tony succeeded in doing (with the arc reactor) was the power of the Cosmic Cube aka the Tesseract.



That was my take on it at the time, but I believe it's been subsequently clarified that it was actually the power of Vibranium. The way it goes as I understand it is that Howard Stark knew the atomic structure of Vibranium from when he worked with that one sample of it back in WWII to make Captain America's shield, but it wasn't until years later, by which time what he thought was the one available sample was lost, that he worked out that it was the ideal material to use in the Arc Reactor.

He lacked the technology to create it artificially, so he bequeathed that problem to his son. When Tony forges the alternate material for his personal Arc Reactor in Iron Man 2, he's actually forging Vibranium - which means that he's probably the only person in the world outside of Wakanda with ready access to the material.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 19, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> Rich people haven't solved the real world's problems with their oodles of money. Some have tried. Bill Gates comes to mind, he works pretty hard at various philanthropic endeavors, and hasn't enjoyed tremendous success in doing so.



Actually, he and his wife have funded some pretty important research and organizations fighting all kinds of issues that strike hardest in developing nations.  His reward?  Being cast as a RW Lex Luthor by gaslighters and the misinformed.


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## Dire Bare (Mar 20, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Actually, he and his wife have funded some pretty important research and organizations fighting all kinds of issues that strike hardest in developing nations.  His reward?  Being cast as a RW Lex Luthor by gaslighters and the misinformed.



You don't believe he's working with Fauci to put chips in the COVID vaccines? Sheep! 

(_totally kidding, if that's not clear_)

Yeah, I'm probably focused on Gates philanthropy I'm most familiar with, in the education field. With which I have not been impressed. But he does support a lot of work in a lot of different fields, for sure.


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## Cadence (Mar 20, 2021)

I thought Busiek and Perez's JLA-Avengers did a beautiful job of comparing and contrasting the two, at least back when it was written and before.

The DC heroes are more consistently looked up to in there world, shape it more, and often outclass their opponents by more.

The differences are microscopic now compared to the 1960s though.
opponents by more.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 20, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> Oh, he tries hard. As hard as he could? Maybe, maybe not. Is he disconnected from reality somewhat, hindering his ability to put his money towards effective philanthropy? I'd argue yes to that! Gates was a super-nerd who came into his success rather early . . . and has been ridiculously wealthy for the majority of his adult life. He earned it, but . . . I don't trust his understanding and empathy for the common man, although I do think his heart is in the right place.
> 
> I'm a teacher, and I'm familiar with several of Gates philanthropic works in education. It's all very well-meaning, and gets a lot of resources put into it . . . but often misses the mark and barely moves the needle on anything. But I have a lot more respect for him that I do for billionaires obsessed with space travel and taking humans to Mars. I mean, that's cool and all, but we've got some more pressing issues on this planet I'd rather have my wealthy philanthropists focus on . . . .



Yep. He mainly needs to have a wake up call that his intellect isn’t going to solve the worlds problems, and he needs to put resources directly into the hands of actual experts. But he has also done things like help stop vaccine research from becoming open source, and instead making deals to get a company he owns stock in get to buy that research privately. 

So, he may mean well a lot of the time, but the developing world would likely be better off with a 10 billion dollar grant given to Worldbuilders and other organizations that already work in those countries.


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## Dire Bare (Mar 20, 2021)

Just finished Snyder's "Justice League" and also the first episode of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" tonight . . . . at least in the competing big screen universes, the Marvel heroes are way more relatable! The new 4-hour long Justice League brings a lot more to Cyborg and the Flash than the theatrical cut, but . . . . I got way more relatable and interesting character drama in ep 1 of Marvel's new show tonight.

Then again, I'm really loving the struggling dad/husband Superman of the new CW show, "Superman & Lois" . . . . so, back-and-forth . . .


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## Flamestrike (Mar 20, 2021)

It's hard to have any investment in a story about a gonzo OTT protagonist.

They dialed the power up to 11 in DCEU with Aquaman on the same power level as Thor from the MCU, Cyborg able to control the economy (and nukes) of the planet with a thought, Golden Age flying Wonder Woman, Flash able to reverse time, and Superman at his prime.

Meanwhile they chronically underplay Batmans strengths (detective work, planning, strategy, stealth, tactical genius), having him charge in headfirst in to battles, and leaving him looking even more of either a Mary Sue with Plot armor up the wazoo, or a guy struggling to take down paradaemon mooks, and spending the rest of the fight getting out of the way.

The movies for me are just spectacle, with the occasional fear for Batmans safety and questioning his sanity as a dude in a cape hanging around with actual Gods as a 'peer'.

All the DCEU protagonists (even Batman, in his power armor) have been hurled through concrete buildings and several hundred Kms per hour and survived without even a broken bone, or any noticeable damage.

Marvel handled the differing power levels of the heroes much better, with even niche protagonists like Ant man getting a solid treatment, the characters arcs being better thought out (Iron Man, Thor and Cap), most characters being relatable, and actually having notable flaws.

If only Disney could have done the same thing with Star Wars Sequels instead of just ad hocing them. A coherent story-line, relatable protagonists not drenched in plot armor, and clear arcs for each character.


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## Imaculata (Mar 20, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> I see it a different way. When I was younger, I saw Batman as you do. Still do sometimes and enjoy the stories. But then I think of this rich guy who could wipe out poverty in his city with the stroke of a pen, or fund the medical research that could save Mr. Freeze's wife, and wonder what that says overall. Renovate Arkham Asylum and treat Edward Nigma, The Joker, Harlene Quinzell... Instead he buys million dollar toys and punches people in the face.




Is Gotham's biggest problem poverty though? The way Gotham City is usually portrayed, its biggest problem is crime. There's little point in trying to solve Gotham's poverty, when the city is so corrupt. Gotham needs someone like Batman. It is written that way on purpose.

Gotham already has an asylum where Batman's villains can be treated, but they have to be caught first. It is never suggested that Arkham Asylum needs a renovation. Batman's villains just keep escaping due to plot convenience. Better security and higher walls wouldn't solve that problem; the place is already a fortress. 

As for Mr Freeze's wife, he already had funding originally. Bruce does try to help Freeze any way he can, by providing him with a team of specialists. But then Freeze's wife is killed (depending on the continuety). Could Bruce help Mr Freeze further by funding his research? Probably. But after the death of his wife, Freeze chooses crime and revenge. He's not entirely blameless, even if he is sympathetic.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 20, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Is Gotham's biggest problem poverty though?



Yes. You can’t have that many muggers and muscle-for-hire types ready to throw in with psychopaths without some pretty grim living conditions, and a population that is desperate.

edit: also homelessness seems to be a major issue in Gotham. Which Bruce is wealthy enough and connected enough to solve.


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## Imaculata (Mar 20, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yes. You can’t have that many muggers and muscle-for-hire types ready to throw in with psychopaths without some pretty grim living conditions, and a population that is desperate.




However, one could argue that those conditions are created by crime lords like Falcone. Several comics have expanded on the history of Gotham, but all depict it as a city that has always had crime. Some even imply the infuence of the occult in regards to the darkness that hangs over Gotham.

Plus, it's not like psychos such as Riddler or Scarecrow would suddenly give up their life of crime if there was no more poverty. Gotham is a city with many problems, and poverty is just one of them. Whether it is Gothem's main problem, is open to debate. Batman doesn't seem to think so.

In the Nolan verse, the Wayne family has actually tried to improve the living conditions of Gothams citizens, but the city got swallowed by crime none the less. In part due to the work of Raz al Gul and his League of Shadows.

I think Gotham's problems are so deeply rooted, that simply waving some dollar bills at the problems will not make them go away. I don't think real life thinking applies here, since Gotham is a fictional city obeying by fictional rules. Even if you solved all poverty in Gotham, there would still be crime and corruption, which then creates new poverty.


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## Ryujin (Mar 20, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Is Gotham's biggest problem poverty though? The way Gotham City is usually portrayed, its biggest problem is crime. There's little point in trying to solve Gotham's poverty, when the city is so corrupt. Gotham needs someone like Batman. It is written that way on purpose.
> 
> Gotham already has an asylum where Batman's villains can be treated, but they have to be caught first. It is never suggested that Arkham Asylum needs a renovation. Batman's villains just keep escaping due to plot convenience. Better security and higher walls wouldn't solve that problem; the place is already a fortress.
> 
> As for Mr Freeze's wife, he already had funding originally. Bruce does try to help Freeze any way he can, by providing him with a team of specialists. But then Freeze's wife is killed (depending on the continuety). Could Bruce help Mr Freeze further by funding his research? Probably. But after the death of his wife, Freeze chooses crime and revenge. He's not entirely blameless, even if he is sympathetic.



Poverty leads to increased crime. Reduce poverty and, presumably, you reduce crime. Reduce the number of ready-to-hire henchmen and you reduce the impact of the major criminals. No, you don't eliminate them, because psychopaths, but they become less of an issue.

And with fewer henchmen, there's less chance of the major criminals escaping from Arkham. Bring in more security, therapists (hopefully not ones that fall in love with their patients), and staff. Arkham has always struck me as being under funded for what it's asked to do.

And, depending upon the continuity, Freeze's wife is still alive. You just have to wait for DC to do their next reboot. That's what these days; every 5 years or so?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Mar 20, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yep. He mainly needs to have a wake up call that his intellect isn’t going to solve the worlds problems, and he needs to put resources directly into the hands of actual experts. But he has also done things like help stop vaccine research from becoming open source, and instead making deals to get a company he owns stock in get to buy that research privately.



IIRC, the argument against making it open source was that there with vaccines, people need to trust them. And if anything, debate about Corona-Virus vaccines but also persistent myths like "vaccines cause autism" remind us that this isn't wrong. If anyone can make them, then there will also be people making them that are less than competent, if not outright maliciously trying to make a quick buck. And that will damage the reputation of vaccines.
I guess the question is what happens next - if guess if you could still get a license to produce a vaccine provided without fees, if you provided reasonable quality assurance measures (which will still cost money), it would seem that it's not about someone making money, but really about ensuring trust. Unfortunately I don't know enough about that case.

Fundamentally however, the problem with this approach is that its all up to a small number of people to decide stuff that will affect thousands to millions to billions - without the ones being affected - having invested such decision power in them. There is neither social consensus nor content involved in the decision making process.


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## nevin (Mar 20, 2021)

My opinion is Marvel has heroes.  DC has gods who step on people and destroy cities while they fight.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 20, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Actually, he and his wife have funded some pretty important research and organizations fighting all kinds of issues that strike hardest in developing nations.  His reward?  Being cast as a RW Lex Luthor by gaslighters and the misinformed.



Nah. Firstly, the Friendliest Oligarch does not need your protection from the mean Internet critics. 

 He literally has the resources and connections to put every homeless person in the US in a permanent home. His funding of people building toilets that don’t rely on large-scale water infrastructure is cool, but a few billion could be spent actually building that infrastructure in many of those nations. Most of them don’t actually havepsycho leaders who would stop him. 

No. People with so much wealth that they’d still be considered extremely rich if they gave away 95% of their fortune don’t get a pass because they spend a few percent per year on good PR efforts.




Imaculata said:


> However, one could argue that those conditions are created by crime lords like Falcone. Several comics have expanded on the history of Gotham, but all depict it as a city that has always had crime. Some even imply the infuence of the occult in regards to the darkness that hangs over Gotham.
> 
> Plus, it's not like psychos such as Riddler or Scarecrow would suddenly give up their life of crime if there was no more poverty. Gotham is a city with many problems, and poverty is just one of them. Whether it is Gothem's main problem, is open to debate. Batman doesn't seem to think so.
> 
> ...



I mean, this is why people don’t connect much with Batman anymore, but it’s also a larger issue with comics. The world needs to make some sort of sense in the parts that aren’t magic or x-genes or whatever, for readers to reliably give a damn.

By placing a guy with essentially limitless money in a city that is shown on panels to have a major homelessness problem, and saying, “poverty isn’t Gotham’s problem”, you create a disconnect that just doesn’t work.

Like, even if Gotham is under some magical influence, Batman isn’t spending his time finding that out, while using his billions to improve living conditions in the slums (the city has slums, therefor poverty is at least A major issue in Gotham ).

Also, if it’s crime lords causing the crime (which is completely absurd), then why isn’t Batman focusing his nighttime drop bear impersonations on...the crime lords?
There is no possible model of crime in which putting individual muggers and burglars in the hospital meaningfully reduces crime. It’s just revenge for a trauma, directed at the entire lower class. The poors killed his mom, so he is gonna run around at night in a costume punching as many as he can find, and gather a cult of personality around him that he has convinced of his meaningless “crusade”.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 20, 2021)

There’s a difference between “He’s not doing enough.” and “He is actively seeking to harm us.”


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## nevin (Mar 20, 2021)

Actually go back and watch all of the dark knight movies.  Batman puts more effort in one fight saving innocent bystanders than superman does in any movie starting with man of steel


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## Shadowedeyes (Mar 20, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I mean, this is why people don’t connect much with Batman anymore, but it’s also a larger issue with comics. The world needs to make some sort of sense in the parts that aren’t magic or x-genes or whatever, for readers to reliably give a damn.



Batman remains pretty popular though. So I'm not sure I'd say most people have a problem with it.


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## Eric V (Mar 20, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Perhaps, except that he didn't have the funding of a Bruce Wayne. Hell, I don't think that even Tony Stark has Bruce Wayne money.



That really shouldn't be an issue.  In the Marvel Universe, it's canon that Wakanda has the cure for cancer; Reed really should have been able to find it by now, to say nothing of curing AIDS, renewable clean energy, etc.

Tony must have Wayne level money if the cost of each of his armours is to be believed.


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## Ryujin (Mar 20, 2021)

Eric V said:


> That really shouldn't be an issue.  In the Marvel Universe, it's canon that Wakanda has the cure for cancer; Reed really should have been able to find it by now, to say nothing of curing AIDS, renewable clean energy, etc.
> 
> Tony must have Wayne level money if the cost of each of his armours is to be believed.



There's the comparative thing though. In Stark's world there are many people who have his level of funding. In Batman's world you have to look to one of Superman's foes, Lex Luthor, to find that kind of money.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 20, 2021)

Shadowedeyes said:


> Batman remains pretty popular though. So I'm not sure I'd say most people have a problem with it.



I’ve never met a Batman fan who didn’t both love Batman and have a problem with this. People can have major criticisms of a thing they love. 

IME most Batfans either head-canon/fan-fic the problem away, or try to ignore it and just assume that Bruce is doing more than we see on-panel.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 20, 2021)

One thing I’d love to see in a Batman comic or tv show or whatever is a long term strategy that bears fruit and makes life better.

they’re gonna reboot in 5 years anyway, so why bother telling stories where nothing really changes? Why not tell the 5 year story where Bruce and his found family _win?_


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## Shadowedeyes (Mar 20, 2021)

I think most people assume Bruce does stuff off panel. The comics are just focusing on the interesting superhero stuff, not the fund raisers, boardroom meetings or uninteresting patrols where nothing happens. Even the comics mention that Bruce is a big philanthropist.

Superhero comics in general try to hold popular characters in stasis, for the trademarks and so they don't have to retire popular moneymaking characters.


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## Eric V (Mar 20, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> One thing I’d love to see in a Batman comic or tv show or whatever is a long term strategy that bears fruit and makes life better.
> 
> they’re gonna reboot in 5 years anyway, so why bother telling stories where nothing really changes? Why not tell the 5 year story where Bruce and his found family _win?_



That's the Nolanverse, no?


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## Eric V (Mar 20, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> There's the comparative thing though. In Stark's world there are many people who have his level of funding. In Batman's world you have to look to one of Superman's foes, Lex Luthor, to find that kind of money.



What does that have to do with the issues I brought up in the MU?


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## Ryujin (Mar 20, 2021)

Eric V said:


> What does that have to do with the issues I brought up in the MU?



you responded to my Bruce Wayne v. Tony Stark post. I was continuing in that vein.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

nevin said:


> My opinion is Marvel has heroes.  DC has gods who step on people and destroy cities while they fight.



What DC comics hero has accidentally destroyed a city? (Hal did it on purpose, even if he was insane at the time)


Shadowedeyes said:


> I think most people assume Bruce does stuff off panel. The comics are just focusing on the interesting superhero stuff, not the fund raisers, boardroom meetings or uninteresting patrols where nothing happens. Even the comics mention that Bruce is a big philanthropist.
> 
> Superhero comics in general try to hold popular characters in stasis, for the trademarks and so they don't have to retire popular moneymaking characters.



Eh, DC doesn’t do stasis so much as 5-year stretches and then a reboot, these days. Might as well actually use that structure to do soemthing interesting. 


Eric V said:


> That's the Nolanverse, no?



Egads no. What strategy?


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## GreyLord (Mar 21, 2021)

I think originally, the difference was how the Superheroes in each comic got started.

DC was making HEROES with epic stories...or, icons that kids could look up to.  These were sort of like Heroes beyond belief that did extraordinary things.

DC was still making these types of Comic books when Marvel started up.  DC's heroes at the time were supposed to exemplify heroic good, being larger than life and in some ways inspirational to the young readers that read them.

On the otherhand, Marvel said...what if we made these characters more relatable.  Rather than have icons for the kids to look up to, have characters which they can relate to.  Thus, most Marvel characters have problems relatable in some way to how kids in the 60s and early 70s may have had to deal with.   There is poverty, racism, discrimination, disability, emotional problems, and various other things that people may have had in real life.

I'd say in the 60s and 70s the Marvel characters were definitely more relatable because that's how they were designed and it was a different philosophy than what DC and some other comics were having.

This changed in the 80s.  Marvel, rather than staying relevant to kids, started to become more of a soap opera type idea which you followed from month to month.  I'm not sure why this change occurred, but now it wasn't really dealing with the problems which limited them before, though they still had problems...you were now wondering who was Jean Grey going to end up with, who was Peter Parker dating and would he have heartbreak in a month or two, could he keep that relationship going without having major drama...etc..etc...etc.

DC at the same time moved to a darker attitude around the mid-80s.  The Characters were no longer such perfect icons of heroic fantasy, but rather flawed dynamics which had weaknesses that were constantly explored whether that was some physical weakness, emotional or other such weakness.  It was comparing and contrasting what MADE them heroes rather than that they just WERE heroes.  It was showing that in many of the comics the Villains were actually very similar to the Hero of the comicbook, but it was the difference of CHARACTER that made the hero a hero and a villain the villain. 

This is sort of the dynamic that we have today and that they are tryigng to recreate in the movies.  For DC, I'm not sure they have been as successful in some ways with the modern DC MCU, though I think Nolan did a GREAT series of Batman films that examines that exact dynamic of DC comics from the 80s and 90s.  It's that which appeals to the parents of kids today because those are the DC heroes they grew up with.

Meanwhile, in Marvel most villains (with the exception of Thanos) only lasted a movie, but you don't keep watching the movies for the metaplot of Thanos...it's more of how will Captain America deal with the modern world with his old fashioned habits...Will Tony Stark EVER pop the question to Pepper Potts and live happily ever after...will Thor ever make up and be good brothers with Loki?  In this, I think Marvel has done a better job at recreating the Marvel comic dynamics of the 80s and 90s than DC has recently.

However, comicbooks have moved on (no idea if the current ideas will be accepted, as the sales are down quite a bit from earlier decades).  Marvel has moved more to interpersonal conflicts now, where the conflict is not so much a soap opera (it's still there though) but one where the exploration of can a hero also be a villain, or can one hero be the villain of another hero at the same time, can we let the privileges we have be the same things that are making it harder for others in life? 

DC has, on the otherhand tried to make their comics more akin to a cross between Marvel of the 90s with more of a soap opera feel at times and a combination of more relatable characters with a bigger focus on personal lives rather than heroics. 

Perhaps in 30 years the Comic Book movies will also reflect these current trends rather than how they try to reflect the trends of the 80s and 90s that they try to recreate today.


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## Eric V (Mar 21, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Egads no. What strategy?



His conversation with Rachel in _Batman Begins_ makes him see that pursuing people like Joe Chill is pointless when people like Falcone run virtually everything.  The Nolan Batman doesn't go out "on patrol" or the like; everything is about taking the mob down to give Gotham a chance, sans corruption.

Egads.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

Eric V said:


> His conversation with Rachel in _Batman Begins_ makes him see that pursuing people like Joe Chill is pointless when people like Falcone run virtually everything.  The Nolan Batman doesn't go out "on patrol" or the like; everything is about taking the mob down to give Gotham a chance, sans corruption.
> 
> Egads.



Sure, but I wouldn’t say he had any cohesive strategy or multi-year plan. He likely did less good than Gordon and Dent, IMO. 

And even if we accent the overrated Nolan Batman as a good example of what I want, it should be the _norm_, not something that one trilogy does kinda okay.


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## WayneLigon (Mar 21, 2021)

The big difference I've noticed between the two is that Marvel has always felt more planned out, while in the DC universe, things 'just happen'. In Marvel, we have vastly better and more detailed world-building. For instance, once we have SHIELD, there's no real need for another _global _spy agency. Various editors and authors just use SHIELD, which incidentally adds to the entire SHIELD mythos and background. You mention Project Pegasus. and later on someone remembers to use that in their story.  

DC, on the other hand, just willy-nilly creates one-shot stuff that we never hear from again unless you have some minutia-loving writer that unearths it later. Instead of a SHEILD, for instance, they eventually had so many independent international spy agencies running around that they had a mini Crisis on Infinite Earths to pare them down.


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## Eric V (Mar 21, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Sure, but I wouldn’t say he had any cohesive strategy or multi-year plan. He likely did less good than Gordon and Dent, IMO.
> 
> And even if we accent the overrated Nolan Batman as a good example of what I want, it should be the _norm_, not something that one trilogy does kinda okay.



He brought them back Lau, which enabled Dent to go after their money.  He worked _with _Gordon and Dent as part of the strategy. Between the three of them, organized crime in GC got busted up badly. 

But hey, if you think it's overrated, I'll gladly drop out of this conversation.


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 21, 2021)

nevin said:


> Actually go back and watch all of the dark knight movies.  Batman puts more effort in one fight saving innocent bystanders than superman does in any movie starting with man of steel




I mean, Clark saves those kids in the bus as well as all those oil workers from the flaming platform. I totally get the criticisms of the last fight, but people forget the earlier stuff.



WayneLigon said:


> The big difference I've noticed between the two is that Marvel has always felt more planned out, while in the DC universe, things 'just happen'. In Marvel, we have vastly better and more detailed world-building. For instance, once we have SHIELD, there's no real need for another _global _spy agency. Various editors and authors just use SHIELD, which incidentally adds to the entire SHIELD mythos and background. You mention Project Pegasus. and later on someone remembers to use that in their story.
> 
> DC, on the other hand, just willy-nilly creates one-shot stuff that we never hear from again unless you have some minutia-loving writer that unearths it later. Instead of a SHEILD, for instance, they eventually had so many independent international spy agencies running around that they had a mini Crisis on Infinite Earths to pare them down.




I _really_ disagree with this, because I find both companies to be roughly of the same consistency: sometimes they are consistent, sometimes they just make more stuff up.

For example, using S.H.I.E.L.D. for everything just gives rise to a number of problems as to what the agency's focus, who runs it, and a bunch of other stuff. The movies really have this problem, where S.H.I.E.L.D. is simultaneously a US agency but also has international oversight? It's quite weird. At a certain level the jumble of different agencies that DC occasionally has like S.H.A.D.E, D.M.O. and the D.E.O. feels real to how damned clumsy and scattered the US Government can be.

But honestly, the best fictional spy organization in comics is basically Greg Rucka's version of Checkmate. S.H.I.E.L.D. can be good, but nothing ever came close to the proper politicking that Rucka and Trautmann had in that book.

But if you want one of the worst-integrated parts of Marvel, it's mutants. The hatred of mutants comes off as weird because it doesn't really extend to other metas, which doesn't really make sense. People just seem to _know_ who are mutants and who aren't, so no one really hates the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man doesn't really get anti-mutant hate despite no one knowing his origin. It's part of why I think the MCU feels so much cleaner in that regard, though I wonder how the hell they are going to be able to integrate mutant hate in a universe where metas have been around forever and are generally viewed as heroic.

If I find anything really different, it's that structurally the DC setting is more dispersed, but the hero community is much more centralized, while the Marvel setting is much more centralized but the hero community is dispersed.

In DC, most heroes do not live in the same city: generally-speaking, most cities have a single hero or team who are the focus of a city. Gotham, Star City, Ivytown, Metropolis, etc... everyone has their own sort of "playground" to play in. However, the hero community itself in DC is much, _much_ more closely organized, with the Justice League at the center of it. You certainly have more teams, but ultimately it feels like there's a relatively central hero authority that has most heroes linking up to it directly or indirectly.

In Marvel, while there are other cities that are in play the classic setting is New York City: you can have teams out in Los Angeles, or the X-Men moving out to San Francisco, but for the most part the action in Marvel is going down in NYC. However, there's not quite the same strong sense of community that DC has: the Avengers have kind of become the top team at Marvel, but they still compete with the X-Men at a power level, and it wasn't until recently that everyone started joining the Avengers team. The hero community itself feels like it's broken up into a lot of small sub-divisions, but there's no central organizing figure or group like DC has.

Personally, I like both: they present different flavors that manage to work really well in their respective universes.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

nevin said:


> Actually go back and watch all of the dark knight movies.  Batman puts more effort in one fight saving innocent bystanders than superman does in any movie starting with man of steel



Sure. The Snyder Superman is very clearly not the Clark of the comics. Snyder either completely fails to understand who Clark is, or is too far up his own vision of reinventing the characters to just make a good Superman movie.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

Eric V said:


> He brought them back Lau, which enabled Dent to go after their money.  He worked _with _Gordon and Dent as part of the strategy. Between the three of them, organized crime in GC got busted up badly.
> 
> But hey, if you think it's overrated, I'll gladly drop out of this conversation.



IMO the movies do a poor job of actually showing that any of it mattered, though. It’s like Nolan felt beholden to the forever-crusade of the comics, even though he was making a complete story in 3 parts, not an ongoing serial.


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 21, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Sure. The Snyder Superman is very clearly not the Clark of the comics. Snyder either completely fails to understand who Clark is, or is too far up his own vision of reinventing the characters to just make a good Superman movie.




Given how his Watchmen adaptation went, I'd say a bit of both.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> Given how his Watchmen adaptation went, I'd say a bit of both.



Yeah honestly I think I’d have more respect for his body of work if he focused on new ideas and taking archetypes in new directions and stuff like that, rather than adapting comics. 

I mean, he’s an edgelord so I still wouldn’t love most of his work, probably, but I don’t think he’d get nearly as vehement criticism in general.


----------



## billd91 (Mar 21, 2021)

Eric V said:


> That really shouldn't be an issue.  In the Marvel Universe, it's canon that Wakanda has the cure for cancer; Reed really should have been able to find it by now, to say nothing of curing AIDS, renewable clean energy, etc.



Except Reed's tried... and failed. And that was with a LOT of help from other qualified Marvel supers.
But, ultimately, superhero geniuses should generally avoid trying to tackle real world problems like cancer and HIV because it risks trivializing real world problems which are pretty much always more complex than beating up a supervillain will solve - giving Wakanda a cure for cancer was probably a mistake on Marvel's part because it then imparts a responsibility onto the Wakandans to use it or try to explain why they didn't (which almost ever goes over well).


----------



## Eric V (Mar 21, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Except Reed's tried... and failed. And that was with a LOT of help from other qualified Marvel supers.
> But, ultimately, superhero geniuses should generally avoid trying to tackle real world problems like cancer and HIV because it risks trivializing real world problems which are pretty much always more complex than beating up a supervillain will solve - giving Wakanda a cure for cancer was probably a mistake on Marvel's part because it then imparts a responsibility onto the Wakandans to use it or try to explain why they didn't (which almost ever goes over well).



Yeah, it is just weird that time travel, interdimensional travel, and basically all sorts of other crazy stuff gets accomplished but curing AIDS?  Nah.


----------



## Eric V (Mar 21, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> IMO _the movies do a poor job of actually showing that any of it mattered_, though. *It’s like Nolan felt beholden to the forever-crusade of the comics,* even though he was making a complete story in 3 parts, not an ongoing serial.



I genuinely don't understand how you saw the bolded part above when Bruce actually retires at the end of the third film (technically the beginning, too).

As for the italicized part, getting Lau was the key part to letting them beat the mob. They come right out and say it.


----------



## turnip_farmer (Mar 21, 2021)

Eric V said:


> Yeah, it is just weird that time travel, interdimensional travel, and basically all sorts of other crazy stuff gets accomplished but curing AIDS?  Nah.



And, of course, Reed Richards can cure the average alien-introduced plague, functioning as it doe in a way completely novel to all known medical science, in an afternoon.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 21, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> I mean, Clark saves those kids in the bus as well as all those oil workers from the flaming platform. I totally get the criticisms of the last fight, but people forget the earlier stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Part of the issue, here, is that most of these characters were created to play in their own little sandbox, with little to no plan on how they would fit into the greater universe. Probably because they were initially considered to be the be-all, end-all of their own universe. With popular characters cross-over events were inevitable, in order to boost flagging sales and, ultimately, entire histories were created to try and bond disparate characters together in a single universe. Which led to multiple universes. Which led to major events to thin out those multiple universes. And so on...


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

Eric V said:


> I genuinely don't understand how you saw the bolded part above when Bruce actually retires at the end of the third film (technically the beginning, too).
> 
> As for the italicized part, getting Lau was the key part to letting them beat the mob. They come right out and say it.



And yet they don’t seem to have reduced _organized crime_, only really accomplishing a reduction in police corruption, which is mostly down to Dent and Gordon. Who cares if they got some mobsters, if it doesn’t actually improve life in Gotham?

And Bruce retires...and leaves the cowl for someone else, because he knows Gotham will still need a Batman. Thus, the forever-crusade continues, even though Bruce retires from it.


----------



## Justice and Rule (Mar 21, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Part of the issue, here, is that most of these characters were created to play in their own little sandbox, with little to no plan on how they would fit into the greater universe. Probably because they were initially considered to be the be-all, end-all of their own universe. With popular characters cross-over events were inevitable, in order to boost flagging sales and, ultimately, entire histories were created to try and bond disparate characters together in a single universe. Which led to multiple universes. Which led to major events to thin out those multiple universes. And so on...




That's certainly part of it. Crises and Wars only started in the 80s, after all.


----------



## Eric V (Mar 21, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> And yet they don’t seem to have reduced _organized crime_, only really accomplishing a reduction in police corruption, which is mostly down to Dent and Gordon. Who cares if they got some mobsters, if it doesn’t actually improve life in Gotham?



Wait, TDK makes it clear that the mob is on the ropes due to the efforts of Batman, Gordon, and Dent.  It's why they turn to the Joker.  Then, by the time TDKR begins, they clearly state how there's no organized crime...


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 21, 2021)

Eric V said:


> Wait, TDK makes it clear that the mob is on the ropes due to the efforts of Batman, Gordon, and Dent.  It's why they turn to the Joker.  Then, by the time TDKR begins, they clearly state how there's no organized crime...



Okay, I may have missed that statement in TDKR (by far my least favorite Nolan Batman movie).
And yet, Bruce is still completely convinced that a Batman will be needed. Why, if Gotham is free of organized crime, police corruption, etc? Surely Batman isn’t needed in a normal, healthy, city?

As for TDK, they may say that, but they sure as hell don’t show it. A bunch of gangs and other factions that are now trying to fill a power vacuum, with no apparent decrease in the number of people perfectly willing to join an organized crime ring, isn’t actually an improvement. 

The shop owner being threatened for protection money doesn’t care who the boss is of the guy threatening him.


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## Imaculata (Mar 22, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Okay, I may have missed that statement in TDKR (by far my least favorite Nolan Batman movie).
> And yet, Bruce is still completely convinced that a Batman will be needed. Why, if Gotham is free of organized crime, police corruption, etc? Surely Batman isn’t needed in a normal, healthy, city?




At the start of TDK, Batman is still rounding up renegade threats such as Scarecrow, but it is not implied that there is much crime left. However, Gotham police can't touch a criminal like Lou, because China doesn't extradite. Batman is the only person who can bring them in, and thus Dent can round them all up. But a large part of TDK's plot revolves around Batman feeling he is no longer needed, and that Dent can take over. I don't really understand how you can come to the conclusion that Batman feels he is needed, when a large part of the plot of TDK revolves around the opposite.


_(Pay EXTRA attention to his exchange with Rachel at the end of the video.)_

Remember, Bruce retires as Batman after TDK. At the start of TDKR, he IS retired. When he reappears at the start of TDKR, the police are surprised because its been a while since they've seen him.



doctorbadwolf said:


> As for TDK, they may say that, but they sure as hell don’t show it. A bunch of gangs and other factions that are now trying to fill a power vacuum, with no apparent decrease in the number of people perfectly willing to join an organized crime ring, isn’t actually an improvement.




They pretty much do show it. We have a few criminals having their meeting in broad daylight, and then being mocked by the Joker for doing so. The Joker points out that they are afraid of the Batman.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 22, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> At the start of TDK, Batman is still rounding up renegade threats such as Scarecrow, but it is not implied that there is much crime left. However, Gotham police can't touch a criminal like Lou, because China doesn't extradite. Batman is the only person who can bring them in, and thus Dent can round them all up. But a large part of TDK's plot revolves around Batman feeling he is no longer needed, and that Dent can take over. I don't really understand how you can come to the conclusion that Batman feels he is needed, when a large part of the plot of TDK revolves around the opposite.
> 
> 
> Remember, Bruce retires as Batman after TDK. At the start of TDKR, he IS retired. When he reappears at the start of TDKR, the police are surprised because its been a while since they've seen him.
> ...



Okay. 

You are much more willing than I to take the movies at face value.


----------



## Imaculata (Mar 22, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Okay.
> 
> You are much more willing than I to take the movies at face value.




Face value has little to do with it. That is what the plot of The Dark Knight is about: 

Batman has reduced crime severely at the start of TDK. The criminal underworld, or what remains of it, cowers in fear. Bruce Wayne realizes Batman may no longer be needed, and he is looking for Harvey Dent to step in, so he can retire. That is when the Joker steps in and confronts the gangs of Gotham during their group therapy session with Lou, warning them that Lou is untrustworthy and not as untouchable as they think. Because as he points out, Batman has no need for jurisdiction, he can get to anyone anywhere. This turns out to be true, because Batman flies to China and delivers Lou on Gotham's doorstep. With Harvey stepping up, Bruce is ready to retire the cowl.

And then the plot of the Dark Knight Rises: 

Bruce IS retired as Batman, and severely out of shape. That is literally how the movie starts. Gotham no longer needs Batman. Batman is now a wanted criminal, and Dent is a hero, all based on a lie.

Now, whether any of this is realistic is besides the point. This is a fictional city, set in a fictional universe, obeying by laws that make the superhero the good guy and not the villain. In Batman's Gotham, Batman makes a difference and reduces crime. And he does so effectively in the Nolan movies.

In real life, a person like Bruce Wayne could probably dramatically reduce poverty, and thereby reduce crime. But in his own universe, the real issue in Gotham is crime and corruption. Gotham needs Batman, and Batman eventually is able to reduce crime to the point where he is no longer needed.


----------



## Eric V (Mar 22, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Okay.
> 
> You are much more willing than I to take the movies at face value.



???

What other value is there?  It's the actual story the movies are telling...


----------



## Eric V (Mar 22, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Face value has little to do with it. That is what the plot of The Dark Knight is about:
> 
> Batman has reduced crime severely at the start of TDK. The criminal underworld, or what remains of it, cowers in fear. Bruce Wayne realizes Batman may no longer be needed, and he is looking for Harvey Dent to step in, so he can retire. That is when the Joker steps in and confronts the gangs of Gotham during their group therapy session with Lou, warning them that Lou is untrustworthy and not as untouchable as they think. Because as he points out, Batman has no need for jurisdiction, he can get to anyone anywhere. This turns out to be true, because Batman flies to China and delivers Lou on Gotham's doorstep. With Harvey stepping up, Bruce is ready to retire the cowl.
> 
> ...



This demonstrates one of the things I loved about the Batman as delivered by Nolan: He's _not _psychotically obsessed with an unrealistic, never-ending mission.  He's one of the most emotionally and mentally healthy versions of the character we've ever seen, willing to take a chance on happiness like his parents would have wanted.  A welcome change from "It's a life I would not wish on anyone."


----------



## Imaculata (Mar 22, 2021)

Eric V said:


> This demonstrates one of the things I loved about the Batman as delivered by Nolan: He's _not _psychotically obsessed with an unrealistic, never-ending mission.  He's one of the most emotionally and mentally healthy versions of the character we've ever seen, willing to take a chance on happiness like his parents would have wanted.  A welcome change from "It's a life I would not wish on anyone."




Indeed. And unlike other portrayals of Batman, we also finally see his crime fighting take a toll on him. The Bruce Wayne we see at the start of The Dark Knight Rises is not just out of shape, but also suffering severely from all the injuries he's sustained over the years. Bane is already a formidable foe, but Bruce has not donned the cowl for so long, that he does not stand a chance against him. TDKR is all about Bruce wanting to stop being Batman. He longs for a time when Gotham no longer needs him, and at the start of the movie, he hasn't been Batman for quite a while. The movie is basically about a superhero being dragged out of retirement.


----------



## nevin (Mar 22, 2021)

Eric V said:


> Yeah, it is just weird that time travel, interdimensional travel, and basically all sorts of other crazy stuff gets accomplished but curing AIDS?  Nah.



Not really aids research opened up the cell.  Billions of dollars later we can clone life have started to experiment on artificial wombs, have DNA altering treatments for a few disorders and we still dont have a cure for AIDS, or the common cold for that matter.  But all the research for aids has dramatically  advanced what we can do at a cellular level.  While conversly space travel isnt much different that in the 60's


----------



## Imaculata (Mar 22, 2021)

And just because you can build an Ironman suit, does not mean you can cure AIDS. Someone like Tony Stark can of course invest a lot of his money in medical research, but success is by no means guaranteed.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 22, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Gotham needs Batman, and Batman eventually is able to reduce crime to the point where he is no longer needed.



Except all he has done is broken the current organized crime organizations, and he explicitly doesn’t think Gotham will not need Batman again. 

I’m not interested in continuing this discussion further. Y’all clearly have an attachment to a trilogy I see as fairly middling in quality, and agree with Nolan that his ideas make some amount of sense. We aren’t going to reconcile our views on the “Nolanverse”.  

IMO they do a poor job of actually showing Batman enacting a rational and believable strategy to reduce crime in Gotham and genuinely making life better there long term. You aren’t going to change my mind by pointing out that the films yell “we did the thing” at the audience and expect the audience to just accept it as true.


----------



## nevin (Mar 22, 2021)

turnip_farmer said:


> And, of course, Reed Richards can cure the average alien-introduced plague, functioning as it doe in a way completely novel to all known medical science, in an afternoon.



Yeah but Reed Richards and all the genius heroes are playing whack a mole protecing the universe from villains


----------



## Imaculata (Mar 22, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Y’all clearly have an attachment to a trilogy I see as fairly middling in quality, and agree with Nolan that his ideas make some amount of sense.




As much attachment as I have to any movie. I own the movies on DVD, but I don't watch them that often. I did see them all at the cinema and enjoyed them a lot when they came out. But I've never read a Batman comic in my entire life, and haven't watched all of Nolan's films. I like Nolan as a director, but that's about it.



doctorbadwolf said:


> You aren’t going to change my mind by pointing out that the films yell “we did the thing” at the audience and expect the audience to just accept it as true.




Well lets be reasonable here, how else do you want the movies to show that Batman is making a difference? There's dialog where Bruce explicitly says Gotham needs a different hero in the clip I linked earlier. Plus Gotham looks visually very different and less grim in The Dark Knight than in Batman Begins. And we are shown Harvey Dent bringing a ton of criminals to justice all at once, after Batman turned in Lou. So we are told visually and in dialog that Batman has pretty much succeeded at his mission. What else do you want?

I don't understand why you are so unwilling to change your position on this.


----------



## ART! (Mar 22, 2021)

Cadence said:


> I thought Busiek and Perez's JLA-Avengers did a beautiful job of comparing and contrasting the two, at least back when it was written and before.
> 
> The DC heroes are more consistently looked up to in there world, shape it more, and often outclass their opponents by more.
> 
> ...



JL/A also points out that DC Earth is slightly larger than Marvel Earth. 



WayneLigon said:


> they eventually had so many independent international spy agencies running around that they had a mini Crisis on Infinite Earths to pare them down.



COIE has almost if not absolutely nothing to do with international spy agencies. 


Justice and Rule said:


> I mean, Clark saves those kids in the bus as well as all those oil workers from the flaming platform. I totally get the criticisms of the last fight, but people forget the earlier stuff.



I think the complaint is he does no rescues or those kinds of heroics in costume, _as Superman_. I think there's one soldier he whooshes out of the way of gunfire in Smallville. 


doctorbadwolf said:


> Sure. The Snyder Superman is very clearly not the Clark of the comics. Snyder either completely fails to understand who Clark is, or is too far up his own vision of reinventing the characters to just make a good Superman movie.



I think Snyder basically doesn't like Superman as-is, thinks he's corny, and sees him as _other_. There's a lot of xenophobia in Snyder's work.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 22, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> I don't understand why you are so unwilling to change your position on this.



Why would I, when you’ve produced no evidence or argument I find compelling? 

It’s not like my position is “Nolan’s Batman didn’t do the thing at all, and is just like the comics”. Rather it’s quite specifically, as I stated explicitly in my first post on the subject, that they didn’t do it particularly well, and that there isn’t a clear through line of _Bruce_ devising and executing a cohesive plan, making life better as a result, and then moving on (either to help other places or from hero work).

Nolan showed Bruce retiring, and he’s a healthier person than animated Batman (great show, but it has some failures wrt Bruce as a character), but otherwise I don’t think it did what I want from a Batman particularly well. 


ART! said:


> I think Snyder basically doesn't like Superman as-is, thinks he's corny, and sees him as _other_. There's a lot of xenophobia in Snyder's work.



That’s a fair criticism, for sure.


----------



## Eric V (Mar 22, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> And just because you can build an Ironman suit, does not mean you can cure AIDS. Someone like Tony Stark can of course invest a lot of his money in medical research, but success is by no means guaranteed.



Tony, I get not being in his wheelhouse.  Reed and Hank, though...


----------



## Justice and Rule (Mar 22, 2021)

ART! said:


> I think the complaint is he does no rescues or those kinds of heroics in costume, _as Superman_. I think there's one soldier he whooshes out of the way of gunfire in Smallville.




Eh, I feel like that's way more specific than the complaint is usually made. 

At a certain level I think people react viscerally to the ending and end up painting with a broad brush. I mean, there are few movies I've seen the internet have such a knee-jerk reaction to as _Man of Steel. _It's a flawed movie, but I find most of the time people really go beyond what they need to trying to make a point.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 22, 2021)

Eric V said:


> Tony, I get not being in his wheelhouse.  Reed and Hank, though...



Yeah, this is why I prefer distinct complete stories, and wish they’d make the next reboot a _true_ reboot, at least in the case of DC. 


Justice and Rule said:


> Eh, I feel like that's way more specific than the complaint is usually made.
> 
> At a certain level I think people react viscerally to the ending and end up painting with a broad brush. I mean, there are few movies I've seen the internet have such a knee-jerk reaction to as _Man of Steel. _It's a flawed movie, but I find most of the time people really go beyond what they need to trying to make a point.



Yeah the ending is viscerally bad.
However, the focus of Superman is that he saves people.

I have a fanfic project that I’m sure I’ll never finish, involving the main players of the DCU, starting on “Day One”. Bruce returns to Gotham, Clark starts at the Daily Planet, Diana returns from several years of recovery and refocusing in Paradise, and a few old heroes (here we recast the Justice Society of America as Alan Scott, Wonder Woman, Lucius Fox, Alfred Pennyworth, Steve Trevor, and most of the normal JSA team, now very retired) manipulate them and a few others toward heroism. 

In that set of stories, the plan is to never even show Superman hit anyone until the end of “year one” when Zod finally shows up. He just saves people, and inspires others toward heroism.


----------



## billd91 (Mar 22, 2021)

Eric V said:


> Tony, I get not being in his wheelhouse.  Reed and Hank, though...



It's not in Reed's wheelhouse either. He's a weird space and dimensional tech scientist. Hank Pym is a weird biological science and you'd think that Pym particles might be useful in shrinking tumors if they can be localized enough. And yet all the smart guys in the Marvel universe can't cure Captain Marvel's cancer with their technology, nor their magic (since Dr. Strange and Thor are both involved in the attempt to try to cure Mar-Vell's cancer). 
Cancer, like other *real*, major problems were defined, at one time, as problems that superpowers, even super intelligence, simply can't fix. And, honestly, they should remain that way.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 22, 2021)

ART! said:


> I think Snyder basically doesn't like Superman as-is, thinks he's corny, and sees him as _other_. There's a lot of xenophobia in Snyder's work.



I think that you may have hit on why so many of us don't like BvS. Maybe it isn't that Snyder doesn't like Superman as much as he was trying to show us all why Batman saw him as a danger, but went overboard. He set up the visuals in a way that gave us a brooding Superman, looking down from on-high, instead of the benevolent alien god amongst men that is his general portrayal. The grim-dark really doesn't suit (I know I've perhaps used this analogy too much) a sun god. Maybe Snyder just got too far up his own butt, to see?


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## ART! (Mar 22, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> Eh, I feel like that's way more specific than the complaint is usually made.
> 
> At a certain level I think people react viscerally to the ending and end up painting with a broad brush. I mean, there are few movies I've seen the internet have such a knee-jerk reaction to as _Man of Steel. _It's a flawed movie, but I find most of the time people really go beyond what they need to trying to make a point.



The movie doesn't care about the destruction and loss of life in Metropolis _at all_. After Zod is dead, we get a scene with Superman telling a general not to track him and a soldier saying he's hot, and then he's Clark Kent riding his bike to work all hunky-dory _in Metropolis_. At best, Snyder just doesn't care about the violence and destruction.


doctorbadwolf said:


> In that set of stories, the plan is to never even show Superman hit anyone until the end of “year one” when Zod finally shows up. He just saves people, and inspires others toward heroism.



I'm sure I've said this on these forums before, but I have this theory that all people really want in a Superman movie is to see him rescuing people and mitigating or even stopping disasters.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Mar 22, 2021)

ART! said:


> I'm sure I've said this on these forums before, but I have this theory that all people really want in a Superman movie is to see him rescuing people and mitigating or even stopping disasters.



Yep. 100%. My theory is that you could make a successful Superman movie without a villain at all.


----------



## Justice and Rule (Mar 22, 2021)

ART! said:


> The movie doesn't care about the destruction and loss of life in Metropolis _at all_. After Zod is dead, we get a scene with Superman telling a general not to track him and a soldier saying he's hot, and then he's Clark Kent riding his bike to work all hunky-dory _in Metropolis_. At best, Snyder just doesn't care about the violence and destruction.




I... I'm not going to go _that_ far (given that he kills Zod specifically before he can evaporate a family), but I don't disagree with the critique of the carelessness in how that fight was done. Conceptually speaking having that thing be an insanely traumatic event could potentially be interesting, but Snyder doesn't have the storytelling chops to do it. Also the coda for that thing is incredibly tone-deaf; there's a such a weird sense of victory and moving on when an introspective ending that is somewhat bittersweet but also hopeful could have really alleviated some of the problems with the ending.



ART! said:


> I'm sure I've said this on these forums before, but I have this theory that all people really want in a Superman movie is to see him rescuing people and mitigating or even stopping disasters.




You're not wrong, though I think I'd settle for having an indirect villain (which Superman has plenty of) causing havoc and Superman saving the day.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 22, 2021)

I'd settle for going back to Golden Age Superman levels of power, so destruction of cities (or even worlds) isn't really a thing anymore


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## trappedslider (Mar 23, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> I'd settle for going back to Golden Age Superman levels of power, so destruction of cities (or even worlds) isn't really a thing anymore




*Super Strength:* The character was depicted as having the ability to move large vehicles, including cars, trains, and ships.
*Super Speed:* Superman could run faster than an express train.
*Enhanced Leaping:* could leap over an 8th of a mile or over a tall building.
*Super Durability:* Superman was highly resistant to injury. However, he was not so invulnerable as in his modern depictions; although immune to conventional firearms, heavy artillery could injure and possibly kill him.
*Super Senses:* Superman’s eyesight and hearing were far in excess of a human being’s.

then we can see if a M109A7 will kill him or if you'll need a Hellfire missile or just a few AC-130s maybe a nuke.


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## MarkB (Mar 23, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> Eh, I feel like that's way more specific than the complaint is usually made.
> 
> At a certain level I think people react viscerally to the ending and end up painting with a broad brush. I mean, there are few movies I've seen the internet have such a knee-jerk reaction to as _Man of Steel. _It's a flawed movie, but I find most of the time people really go beyond what they need to trying to make a point.



It wasn't the ending that killed it for me. It was when he let his father die to preserve his secret identity. No Superman I can respect would place that secret above the life of even a complete stranger, let alone a loved one.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 23, 2021)

MarkB said:


> It wasn't the ending that killed it for me. It was when he let his father die to preserve his secret identity. No Superman I can respect would place that secret above the life of even a complete stranger, let alone a loved one.



Quite different from his father having a heart attack in a field.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 23, 2021)

billd91 said:


> It's not in Reed's wheelhouse either. He's a weird space and dimensional tech scientist. Hank Pym is a weird biological science and you'd think that Pym particles might be useful in shrinking tumors if they can be localized enough. And yet all the smart guys in the Marvel universe can't cure Captain Marvel's cancer with their technology, nor their magic (since Dr. Strange and Thor are both involved in the attempt to try to cure Mar-Vell's cancer).
> *Cancer, like other real, major problems were defined, at one time, as problems that superpowers, even super intelligence, simply can't fix. And, honestly, they should remain that way.*



(Emphasis mine)

I can appreciate that.  But I can also see a comic book universe in which the logical, probable consequences of superheroic powers and super-science WAS able to affect things like global hunger or things like cancer.

It just wouldn’t work for established settings like the main Marvel or DC  universes.  Such changes would have HUGE effects in reshaping global human society.

I mean, we live in a world where people (rightfully) ask why wealthy people don’t do more for society in general- see the Chloé Kardassian kerfuffle over the GoFundMe she set up for a friend’s $60k surgery.  So imagine what kinds of questions would be floating on the internet about beings who can create man-portable power plants that can generate gigawatts of power, plow a field in seconds, bring mineral rich asteroids safely to earth, or create new alloys with astounding properties...but then don’t.

Inquiring minds would want to know.  So might governments.


----------



## Ryujin (Mar 23, 2021)

Once again reminded of the movie "The Specials", specifically the quote about how all of the heroes with stretching powers seem to die of cancer.


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 23, 2021)

MarkB said:


> It wasn't the ending that killed it for me. It was when he let his father die to preserve his secret identity. No Superman I can respect would place that secret above the life of even a complete stranger, let alone a loved one.




I mean, his father sacrificed himself because that's specifically what he wanted. But I also get that people weren't a fan of that, so I'm not really going to argue that all that hard. Pa Kent in those movies has potential as someone who isn't a saint but still trying to be a dad, but again Snyder doesn't have the storytelling chops to tell something that nuanced.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> (Emphasis mine)
> 
> I can appreciate that.  But I can also see a comic book universe in which the logical, probable consequences of superheroic powers and super-science WAS able to affect things like global hunger or things like cancer.
> 
> ...




I'm reminded of when Mark Millar took over the FF over a decade ago and his first arc literally dealt with Earth being evacuated to a _new Earth. _I'm a fan of big stuff, but sometimes you can go _too big._

I feel like Richards is almost unique in that regard, though I suppose how Iron Man has evolved he certainly could be revolutionizing life as we know it. Feels like less of a problem on the DC side given how many of the notable geniuses are generally focused in one area and/or evil (the and/or part is pretty important, depending on how Will Magnus is feeling that day), and I feel like most of Batman's genius is wrapped up in his planning ability, even though he does have some great gadgets. Though it'd be cool to see Mr. Terrific actually changing the world a bit, or at least at war with Lex Luthor, who would be trying to monetize such things.


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## trappedslider (Mar 23, 2021)

If you take sups down to his golden age powers,you're also gonna have to have him go back to fighting the same bad guys as he did back then,otherwise sups is in real danger of getting killed permanently.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 24, 2021)

MarkB said:


> It wasn't the ending that killed it for me. It was when he let his father die to preserve his secret identity. No Superman I can respect would place that secret above the life of even a complete stranger, let alone a loved one.



Yeah. 

Let me just say, when I first saw MoS, I didn’t even _like_ Superman. 

Then after a YouTube video about Clark by a garbage person who is good at words, I started to like Superman, read more Supes comics, and eventually later rewatched MoS. 

First viewing, I liked it. It was fine. 

Second viewing, strongly disliked it. Completely fails at any very very basic understanding of the character on nearly any level.


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## MoonSong (Mar 24, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Spider-man has always appealed to me, because despite his super powers, Peter Parker's life kinda sucks. He's constantly juggling jobs, relationships, and other real life responsibilities, along with super villains making his life miserable. Spider-man also has quite a lot of antagonists that know his real identity, which must suck!
> 
> Being Spider-man is not easy. He has to sacrifice a lot to protect people, and then gets blamed for it in the newspaper. He can't form a relationship with anyone, without putting them in peril. His work is a terrible thankless one, and that makes him likeable. I like seeing characters be put through the wringer like that.
> 
> ...



To me Spiderman starts at a more relatable level, but Superman ends up feeling more of a real person. -At least going by the comics-. Over the years, Clark has managed to create a family, to grow up from young teen, to young man, to a father. He is very powerful, but he remains a farm boy who wanted to be a journalist at the core. He is a very developed and relatable character. Then I see Spiderman, and he is forever stuck between his early twenties and his mid teens. He isn't allowed to grow up beyond that, just when he was about to cross that bridge, he forgot all lessons and sold out his character growth to the Devil. No matter how much changes, everything goes back to the same status quo at the end. He is a static character, and at some point that ends up making him fell less like a real person and more like a character in a play. And the same for many Marvel characters, they keep rehashing the same story beats over and over for all eternity.    


doctorbadwolf said:


> Eh, DC doesn’t do stasis so much as 5-year stretches and then a reboot, these days. Might as well actually use that structure to do soemthing interesting.



Something I find relatable from DC is the notion of constant change. Character development doesn't really go away.


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## Ryujin (Mar 24, 2021)

I don't know about that. I would say that Martha Wayne's pearls have hit the ground in an alley just as many times as Uncle Ben has been shot.


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## Imaculata (Mar 24, 2021)

So I suppose it depends on which comics you read. Surely there are comics where Peter Parker moves on and Miles Morales takes on the role of Spiderman? And surely there are Superman comics that keep him the same familiar Superman?


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## ART! (Mar 24, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yeah.
> 
> Let me just say, when I first saw MoS, I didn’t even _like_ Superman.
> 
> ...



I think the stuff with Clark as a kid is pretty good - if ham-fisted in parts - and I mostly like the stuff with Clark wandering, getting odd jobs, and trying to figure out what to do with himself. In a world with no super-heroes (yet, that he knows of), that makes great sense. It's just once he becomes _Superman_ that Snyder doesn't seem to get him. I think there might be a movie in there somewhere that Snyder would rather make, or be better suited to make, that isn't a Superman movie.


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## embee (Mar 24, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> Eh, I feel like that's way more specific than the complaint is usually made.
> 
> At a certain level I think people react viscerally to the ending and end up painting with a broad brush. I mean, there are few movies I've seen the internet have such a knee-jerk reaction to as _Man of Steel. _It's a flawed movie, but I find most of the time people really go beyond what they need to trying to make a point.



I think people also have this preconceived notion of Superman based on really hazy memories of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies - which were pretty bad. 

And yes, they were bad. 

With the exception of some very good scenes, the movie itself is mediocre. For every "You've got me?! Who's got you?!" from Lois, you get idiocy like "How many Rs in massacre?" You've got Superman telling a reporter about his weaknesses. You've got a frankly stupid plot to flip a real estate investment in Nevada? The comic relief is, by and large, dad jokes ("Bad vibrations?"). Then there's the cringey fact that Superman has one POC with any lines in it - a "jive-talking" Black stereotype.

Superman II is pretty bad. The progenitor of Marvel bloodless destruction in scenes like the fight in downtown Metropolis coupled with clumsy writing. Not to mention that not only does Superman straight up murder Zod in the end, he's happy to do so. Go back and watch it. Superman depowers Zod and then happily drops him into a bottomless pit. And then Lois murders Ursa. After doing all this, Superman then goes back to a diner to get revenge on someone. That's the Christopher Reeve Superman that people claim to prefer - a murdery Superman who beats the crap out of humans. 

Superman III is a live-action cartoon. Not to mention that it's dated and riddled with plot holes. 

And Superman IV: The Quest For Peace... well, it's Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. It's only "redeeming" point is that it finally addresses the fact that Superman has the power to do more than rescue kittens from trees and can actually make a lasting difference. 

Superman Returns tries to retcon away III and IV and succeeds in making Superman into a mopey stalker. 

From what I can tell, when people say that they don't like Man of Steel or Henry Cavill's Superman, what they're really saying is that they prefer silly and stupid Superman movies.


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 24, 2021)

embee said:


> I think people also have this preconceived notion of Superman based on really hazy memories of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies - which were pretty bad.
> 
> And yes, they were bad.
> 
> ...




The Reeve movies are silly, yes, but that fits the style: they are Silver-Bronze age stories, which feel very different from what we have today. I still love them (At least 1 & 2), but I also love all different flavors of Superman.


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## ART! (Mar 24, 2021)

embee said:


> I think people also have this preconceived notion of Superman based on really hazy memories of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies - which were pretty bad.
> 
> And yes, they were bad.
> 
> ...



It's easy to make things sound silly and stupid by listing the silliest and stupidest details.


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## Imaculata (Mar 24, 2021)

embee said:


> From what I can tell, when people say that they don't like Man of Steel or Henry Cavill's Superman, what they're really saying is that they prefer silly and stupid Superman movies.




Or, they say that they really like previous takes on Superman. Yes, the Christopher Reeve Superman movies are pretty hokey. But the man also has a lot of charisma, and his portrayal of the character is very likable.

If I had to choose which of the two Supermen to hang out with, it wouldn't be grim dark Snyderverse Superman.


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## Ryujin (Mar 24, 2021)

embee said:


> I think people also have this preconceived notion of Superman based on really hazy memories of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies - which were pretty bad.
> 
> And yes, they were bad.
> 
> ...



Superman 1 had some hokey and tone deaf parts.

Superman 2 suffered from a helm change, which made OK into bad.

Superman 3? GAK!

The on-screen Superman of my formative years was a different Reeves: George.


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 24, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> Superman 1 had some hokey and tone deaf parts.
> 
> Superman 2 suffered from a helm change, which made OK into bad.
> 
> ...




If I remember correctly, the Donner cut is a bit better compared to the original.

Personally, while Reeve was part of my introduction to Superman, George Newbern and Tim Daly were my iconic version.


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## ART! (Mar 24, 2021)

Just for the record:

Christopher _Reeve_

George _Reeves_


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 24, 2021)

ART! said:


> Just for the record:
> 
> Christopher _Reeve_
> 
> George _Reeves_




Sorry, Michigander in me can't help but come out.


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## embee (Mar 24, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> Sorry, Michigander in me can't help but come out.



No problemo. The Marylander in me puts in Rs where there are no Rs. 

Which is why the capital of the United States is, in actuality, Warshington, DC.


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## embee (Mar 24, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Or, they say that they really like previous takes on Superman. Yes, the Christopher Reeve Superman movies are pretty hokey. But the man also has a lot of charisma, and his portrayal of the character is very likable.
> 
> If I had to choose which of the two Supermen to hang out with, it wouldn't be grim dark Snyderverse Superman.








You mean Hard-Drinkin' Kal?


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## ART! (Mar 24, 2021)

embee said:


> View attachment 134605
> 
> You mean Hard-Drinkin' Kal?



Hard-drinkin' Red (?) Kryptonite-influenced _evil_ Superman - so evil he breaks mirrors with peanuts!


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## Ryujin (Mar 24, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> If I remember correctly, the Donner cut is a bit better compared to the original.
> 
> Personally, while Reeve was part of my introduction to Superman, George Newbern and Tim Daly were my iconic version.



I can understand that. DC Animated has done amazing work that I wish their live action teams could match.


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 24, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> I can understand that. DC Animated has done amazing work that I wish their live action teams could match.




Two of my three favorite extended superhero universes are animated DC projects.


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## ART! (Mar 24, 2021)

Lego Batman is my favorite Batman, and I mean that post-ironically.


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## doctorbadwolf (Mar 24, 2021)

Honestly I think the best Supersman have been live action TV.


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## trappedslider (Mar 24, 2021)

Ryujin said:


> The on-screen Superman of my formative years was a different Reeves: George.



Which was in the words of Howard Stark "Limited by the technology of its time"


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## Ryujin (Mar 24, 2021)

trappedslider said:


> Which was in the words of Howard Stark "Limited by the technology of its time"



You want "limited by the technology of its time"? I'm currently watching the 1941 Republic serial "The Adventures of Captain Marvel: Curse of the Scorpion." Flying was done with a mannequin, on a wire.


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## Doctor Futurity (Mar 30, 2021)

Morrus said:


> You literally just made my point for me. You have a personal resonance with the depicted locations, and 75% of the time they’re NYC. Thank you. It was getting tiresome being berated for saying exactly that.



As a slight contrast, I have always assumed that both Gotham and Metropolis are just two different versions of New York, or maybe one is Boston and the other is New York (which is which is up for discussion), but this chiefly because I live in the southwest and have never visited New York, so the real New York is about as "real" for me in the comic fiction as Metropolis and Gotham.


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## Doctor Futurity (Mar 30, 2021)

My own take: I personally was very in to Marvel in the early eighties then jumped ship largely to DC in the mid to late eighties, and embraced the Image comics movement of the early nineties before getting out of comics until around 2012 when I jumped back in feet first and have been avidly collecting a mixture of DC, some Marvel and indies ever since. Most of the chararcters I like are the more "grounded" ones, the humans with skills over powers (Batman, Green Arrow, Nightwing) which ironically is a majority of DC's offering these days (they have plenty of iconic demigods, but the most popular DC comics seem to remain the Batman and his associates types). Marvel's got fewer "normal" characters but their superheroes tend to be balanced with flaws and troubles....they would work well in a GURPS Supers campaign because they are all pretty balanced on average, and as a result I tend to pursue Wolverine, Moon Knight (when he's got a book) and Daredevil. I used to love X-Men but the X-Men of today are barely recognizable from the X-Men of my youth as Claremont wrote them.

The biggest distinction I personally see between Marvel and DC, though, is the extent to which a character's identity is tied to the story or legacy of that character. Many Marvel characters change, sometimes dramatically, over time. As I mentioned, X-Men is hard to follow today if you're used to X-Men from twenty years ago; the current storylines and feel of the book is so off kilter from the X-Men I grew up with that I just find it oddly alienating. But Batman, in contrast, remains very much the same character for better or worse; changes they occasionally make to the character (and they are experimenting with such changes right now in Future State as an example) are rarely permanent as it is the iconic nature of Batman that is the draw....the consistency of the character's mythos, if you will. Change it too much and it no longer feels like Batman. X-Men, in contrast, are insanely mutable to the point where even though I don't recognize the X-Men of today as being even close to the majority of characters from when I followed them in the 80's and 90's, they are still stories of mutants. 

A big component of why DC characters change infrequently and remain iconic with their mythology is because DC frequently reboots. Since Crisis on Infinite Earths it is common (and even canon in their own storyline it was recently revealed) that the DC universe periodically resets the clock for its characters to continue. Marvel however has long maintained that its own continuity is always crammed into the last ten years or so of "real time" and occasionally revisits older themes and attempts to clarify anachronistic elements.....this means that the characters of Marvel's books today are technically the same exact characters as Marvel 30 or even 50 years ago, just with "updates" to fix anomalies based on when the original stories appeared. In DC....Batman of 50 years ago is literally an alternate prior universe, one of the many alternate universes in the DC continuity, and the current Batman is not the same guy. Ironically that means DC tells a lot more "alt history" what-if stories that are technically considered canon "somewhere" in the DC multiverse.

TLR - to me, the more relatable "skilled crimefighters" are the most interesting on both sides of the DC/Marvel spectrum, and the key differences between the two are actually in how they handle continuity. But I'm a comic junkie and YMMV.


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## Doctor Futurity (Mar 30, 2021)

MarkB said:


> It wasn't the ending that killed it for me. It was when he let his father die to preserve his secret identity. No Superman I can respect would place that secret above the life of even a complete stranger, let alone a loved one.



This is why I also intensely disliked that movie (plus the overly long, panic-inducing fight scenes).


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## ART! (Mar 30, 2021)

Doctor Futurity said:


> As a slight contrast, I have always assumed that both Gotham and Metropolis are just two different versions of New York, or maybe one is Boston and the other is New York (which is which is up for discussion), but this chiefly because I live in the southwest and have never visited New York, so the real New York is about as "real" for me in the comic fiction as Metropolis and Gotham.



As a kid I imagined Gotham as Chicago, to Metropolis' NYC, but I knew Chicago decently well even then, and it seemed more gothic than what I knew of NYC


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## Justice and Rule (Mar 30, 2021)

Doctor Futurity said:


> As a slight contrast, I have always assumed that both Gotham and Metropolis are just two different versions of New York, or maybe one is Boston and the other is New York (which is which is up for discussion), but this chiefly because I live in the southwest and have never visited New York, so the real New York is about as "real" for me in the comic fiction as Metropolis and Gotham.





ART! said:


> As a kid I imagined Gotham as Chicago, to Metropolis' NYC, but I knew Chicago decently well even then, and it seemed more gothic than what I knew of NYC




I think Denny O'Neil had a great summation of Gotham and Metropolis:

"Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below 14th Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November, and Metropolis is Manhattan between 14th and 100th Streets on the brightest, sunniest July day of the year."

Nolan's Gotham is very Chicago, which makes sense given that he literally _used_ Chicago for his filming.


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## Ryujin (Mar 30, 2021)

Doctor Futurity said:


> As a slight contrast, I have always assumed that both Gotham and Metropolis are just two different versions of New York, or maybe one is Boston and the other is New York (which is which is up for discussion), but this chiefly because I live in the southwest and have never visited New York, so the real New York is about as "real" for me in the comic fiction as Metropolis and Gotham.



My head canon was always that Metropolis was NYC and Gotham was Boston. Metropolis felt like a bustling and alive city ("The City That Never Sleeps" = NYC) and for Gotham the dark and foreboding nature, and the name "Arkham", always had a New England/Lovecraftian feel for me, so Boston. I've been told on this forum that I'm wrong, but I can't fight something I've felt since the mid-late 1960s


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## embee (Mar 30, 2021)

Doctor Futurity said:


> My own take: I personally was very in to Marvel in the early eighties then jumped ship largely to DC in the mid to late eighties, and embraced the Image comics movement of the early nineties before getting out of comics until around 2012 when I jumped back in feet first and have been avidly collecting a mixture of DC, some Marvel and indies ever since. Most of the chararcters I like are the more "grounded" ones, the humans with skills over powers (Batman, Green Arrow, Nightwing) which ironically is a majority of DC's offering these days (they have plenty of iconic demigods, but the most popular DC comics seem to remain the Batman and his associates types). Marvel's got fewer "normal" characters but their superheroes tend to be balanced with flaws and troubles....they would work well in a GURPS Supers campaign because they are all pretty balanced on average, and as a result I tend to pursue Wolverine, Moon Knight (when he's got a book) and Daredevil. I used to love X-Men but the X-Men of today are barely recognizable from the X-Men of my youth as Claremont wrote them.
> 
> The biggest distinction I personally see between Marvel and DC, though, is the extent to which a character's identity is tied to the story or legacy of that character. Many Marvel characters change, sometimes dramatically, over time. As I mentioned, X-Men is hard to follow today if you're used to X-Men from twenty years ago; the current storylines and feel of the book is so off kilter from the X-Men I grew up with that I just find it oddly alienating. But Batman, in contrast, remains very much the same character for better or worse; changes they occasionally make to the character (and they are experimenting with such changes right now in Future State as an example) are rarely permanent as it is the iconic nature of Batman that is the draw....the consistency of the character's mythos, if you will. Change it too much and it no longer feels like Batman. X-Men, in contrast, are insanely mutable to the point where even though I don't recognize the X-Men of today as being even close to the majority of characters from when I followed them in the 80's and 90's, they are still stories of mutants.
> 
> ...



You know what I want to see? 

An Amalgam Comics crossover event that ends with Superman punching Mephisto.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 30, 2021)

Justice and Rule said:


> I think Denny O'Neil had a great summation of Gotham and Metropolis:
> 
> "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below 14th Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November, and Metropolis is Manhattan between 14th and 100th Streets on the brightest, sunniest July day of the year."
> 
> Nolan's Gotham is very Chicago, which makes sense given that he literally _used_ Chicago for his filming.



And I'm guessing that was in the 70's and 80's NYC as now it's a VERY different city as it was then. Nowhere as dangerous or exciting as it was in the 70's and 80's. It's ALL pretty bland now.


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## embee (Mar 30, 2021)

ShinHakkaider said:


> And I'm guessing that was in the 70's and 80's NYC as now it's a VERY different city as it was then. Nowhere as dangerous or exciting as it was in the 70's and 80's. It's ALL pretty bland now.



The Palladium is now an NYU dorm and CBGB's is a John Varvatos boutique. 

Pretty much sums up the state of the city.


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## ShinHakkaider (Mar 30, 2021)

embee said:


> The Palladium is now an NYU dorm and CBGB's is a John Varvatos boutique.
> 
> Pretty much sums up the state of the city.




EXACTLY.


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