Marvel VS DC

In the recent months DC has announced details about its soon-to-be-hopefully-let's-not-fuck-up-this-time movie universe akin to Marvel, who will be seeing its 11th release in May. Due to this, old fanboy lines are being drawn again as the biggest debate of the 80's is once again coming up, who is better Marvel or DC. (In the 80's it was Marvel btw, other than you know the DC movies coming out at the time)

Now as a veteran of the biggest fan-war of the past decade, the infamous Call of Duty-Halo War of 2007-2010, I've realized that fan wars are a lot like results of scientific studies involving the intelligence of goldfish, in that they are really dumb.

We lost many a man to the onslaught of low-quality YouTube videos and forum threads about "Gaylo" and "Call of Pooty: Modern Gayfuck Stupid" 

Anyway, we could chalk up the whole "what's the best FPS on the X-Box 360" debate to it being perpetuated by 12-year-olds (I know I was one). But comics, for all their child-friendly aspects, tend to skew to an older audience, in fact I would argue that if you were to make a movie out of any currently running title in comics today, it would at least be a PG-13 rating, add in a two instances of the word "shit" and it's on the way to being rated R. 

With the exception of Squirrel Girl.

And every comic movie that has come out since Superman (with the exception of Big Hero 6) has been rated PG-13, with even a cut of The Wolverine having an extend R rated cut on DVD and Blu-Ray, with rumors of the upcoming Deadpool moving doing the same. Comic book movies are really not made just for kids anymore, they're morally complex and have thematic overtones that will go over the head of any kid under 14 that I know.

It's really hard to analyze life in Post-9/11 America if you weren't even alive for 9/11 to being with.

Kids like comic book movies because they're cool. They don't care about the larger messages because they haven't experienced life enough to understand what the actual message is. The only exception I could think of in recent memory is maybe Guardians of the Galaxy, which A.) Has a joke about semen stains, and B.) Involves a person exploding on screen. This being the only exception because its message was about family and friendship, with more child-friendly characters. 

Granted one spends half of the film holding a gun the size of his torso and the other kills about a dozen guys by impaling them all and breaking their spines through the force of whiplash, which is then played off as a joke. 

And even when I went to go see Guardians of the Galaxy in theaters, out of the 80ish people in the theater, there was maybe four that we under the age of 13, one being my sister who had just turned 12 and didn't really seem all the interested in going anyway. 

And she didn't even know who this was.

My point being, we can't just chalk up the whole Marvel VS DC debate to being a bunch of kids on the internet calling each other gay for liking Superman more than Spiderman. No, you see these are young adults who are arguing over common artistic themes found in each universe, and who are also arguing over which fictional character would win in a fight.

It's always going to be Christopher Reeves Superman, due to poor writing, he can do anything.

Now as a diehard DC fan who loves all the MCU movies.

I even love you two, don't worry.

I feel like I can bridge the two universes and show that choosing one brand of superhero of the other really limits what you can get out of the medium. 

I'll be like Amalgam Comics if you will (I'm literally the only one who knows about this, seriously Google it I think I'm going insane)

The biggest difference between Marvel and DC is that Marvel is generally about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, while DC is about extraordinary people in extraordinary situations.  

Or extraordinary people in ordinary situations, on occasion.

You see, Spiderman is about Peter Parker being Spiderman, while Batman is about Batman ether being Batman or Batman being Bruce Wayne. You can see this now with the conversations about who will be starring in the new Spiderman movie, ether they're saying who is going to play Peter Parker, or they're saying should it be Peter Parker or Miles Morales as Spiderman. When Christian Bale hung up his cowl and discontinued his throat medication prescription, no one said, "Who should be the next Bruce Wayne?" it was all "Who should be the next Batman?". 

Now if you're asking for my opinion on the new SpidermanWoman movie

Because the story isn't about Bruce Wayne coming to terms with the death of his parents like how Spiderman comes to terms with the death of his uncle, it's about a man who dresses like a bat and punches people really hard because he has sworn vengeance on the concept of crime, because his parents died. 

Batman, if you can't tell, isn't exactly the image of mental stability. 

Now I can't find the original quote, but there is one floating around made by who I think is a literary professor who states that the modern fascination with superheroes is like the ancient fascination with powerful gods in ancient Greece and Rome. 

Which I agree with to a certain extent, in that DC is the tales about Gods, and Marvel is the tales about ordinary people overcoming the Gods, much like how Odysseus, a mortal man, overcomes powers outside of his control trying to kill him, and he prevails by using only his skills as a human. On the other hand there's stories of Zeus fighting Kronos and the casting out of Hades from Mount Olympus, which are all fantasy stories with powerful beings punching each other really hard.

Pictured: The story of The Odyssey if Neptune was actively trying not to kill Odysseus.  

You see it's not based on if a story structure is fundamentally better, it's based on personal preference. Yes the human stories are always going to be more relatable, we can see ourselves as Peter Parker getting on the school bus and seeing the girl he has a crush on flirting with the high school jock who stuffs him in lockers. Because that's the point of his character, it's not saying "this is what people with superpowers should do" it's asking "what would you do with superpowers?" On the other hand Superman is an all powerful being who has taken on the role of protecting those who are not as powerful as himself even though he is completely capable of taking over the world if he wanted to.

Also we all look like this when we cry, so also relatable.

Here's a little comparison. Both DC and Marvel wrote a story in their respective universes about their heroes trying to take control of a mass of unregulated younger heroes, which quickly turns into a conversation about security and personal freedom.

On Marvel's side it was 2006-2007's Civil War story, which saw Iron Man creating an interdimensional prison to store heroes that refused to be trained and overseen by the US Government, and Captain America leading a resetence force to stop him. On DC's side it was 1996's Kingdom Come which saw Superman creating a not-interdimensional prison to store heroes that refused to be trained by him and overseen by the UN, and Batman leading a resitence force to stop him. 

The main difference between the two is one ends with a bro hug and the other ends with Captain America being shot and killed as the entire country turns their backs on him.

Both stories explore the kind of responsibility that comes with great power (if only there was some way to phrase that), and the cult of personality that would also come with the public being saved by heroes on a daily basis. Also lots of talk about government regulation and conservative vs liberal politics. 

Though Civil War didn't include the US Military nuking Kansas to kill almost every superhero.

Though Kingdom Come goes out of its way to draw parallels with how powerful the DC heroes are and the Gods of old mythology, and even sprinkling in some good'ol Book of Revelations to boot. Civil War on the other hand is about Peter Parker trying to chose between two of his personal heroes and coming to terms with now being a public figure after he told the world he's Spiderman, and Susan Storm (The Invisible Woman) trying to remain with her husband (Mr. Fantastic the stretchy guy) as their personal politics about the crisis pull them apart and what seems to be Mr. Fantastic's abandonment of his morals. 

Both stories are really good and worth a read, and I think that summarizes how I would answer a question about what is better Marvel or DC. They're both good, and worth a read. 

Yes some would argue that Marvel is making better movies, and I would agree, yes if you asked me what would I rather watch The Dark Knight or The Avengers again, I would say The Avengers because it's a much more fun movie. Yes The Dark Knight is probably the only Superhero movie made that could deserve an oscar, but Marvel makes fun movies and DC makes dramas. Drama isn't enjoyable in the same way action and comedy is. And drama is enjoyable in a way completely different than comedy is. It took Chris Nolan three movies to finally start cracking jokes in his Batman Trilogy, and the funniest one was lifted directly from Kingdom Come. 

(Marvel as in DC's Captain Marvel, not the entire company of Marvel planning a prison break in the DC universe) 

I'm not saying that drama has some sort of higher prestige than comedy, movies are made to make ridiculous amounts of money, and both Marvel and DC are really, really good at that. 

Pictured: More money than any human has ever seen in one place.

Granted you can fanboy out and claim that Marvel makes more box office money on average than DC, and to that I say, 1.) Since when does box office money reflect which movie is better? and 2.) This is the tenth highest grossing movie adjusted for inflation. 

Snow White, truly the greatest hero of them all.

Also when it comes to these companies, is that one has to look at all of the aspects of their franchises than just the movies, which granted, is hard because the movies are so far at the forefront of what is advertised. In saying that DC has a much better website than Marvel in terms of being able to find things, like you know, a comic release calendar. I had to get that off of my chest, continuing on. 

So in terms of comics, it's really depends on what you're looking for. The tone in the movies are usually reflected in the comics, DC is usually darker and Marvel is usually more lighthearted. But that usually is up to the writer. DC had a story about Batman getting a spaceship stuck in his brain giving him a blood clot and Superman and The Atom team up to shrink down and go all Fantastic Voyage on the situation. While Marvel had a story about Thanos tracking down all of his illegitimate children and killing them, while strong arming alien societies into turning his kids over to him by killing and deacaptitaing all of the population's children, and then delivering their leader's a box full of the decapitated heads.

Currently DC is ripping off Terminator with a story about Terry McGinnis, the future Batman, going back in the time to stop machines from taking over the world, and Marvel is currently having Iron Man, Professor X, Mr. Fantastic and friends, blowing up alternate Earths so that their Earth isn't destroyed in a dimensional collision, and in this process killing billions of people from alternate universes. 

Because when Marvel goes dark, they go dark. The currently running Magneto series is essentially the TV show Dexter, if the titular character could control metal and is killing superpowered racists.

Which is to say, it's awesome. 

And for those who are wondering, I looked up sales figures, could only find them from August of last year. 

With Batman taking eight different spots, because he's Batman.

Though everyone should read the current Scott Snyder run of Batman, it is in fact the greatest piece of literature put to paper in the past half-decade. 

And it has pictures, with that literature. 

Point being, read both Marvel and DC comics based on your tastes in artist and writers, don't limit yourself to just one company. 

That's true for everything though. Experience as much as you can in the limited time you have on this planet. Don't let something as stupid as brand loyalty limit your media consumption. Unless it involves seeing a Shyamalan film. Don't see Shyamlan films. 

Oh please god no. 

Though in terms of animation, DC has Marvel beat. The three currently running Marvel series are pretty good (granted I haven't watched the Hulk one) but they're nothing compared to DC's animated universe, which managed to put eight different shows together in one universe and still have some semblance of continuity from 1992-2006. Which is insane and incredibly awesome. And without it we wouldn't have characters like Harley Quinn or Terry McGinnis (the aforementioned time traveling Batman of the future) or the Condiment King. 

 

♪♪One of these things are not like the other♪♪

So what I want you the reader to walk away with from this is: 

1.) Don't bash on DC because they're different 

2.) Read as many comics as possible and watch as many superhero movies as possible 

3.) Don't watch anything involving M. Night Shayamalan 

4.) Seriously Emma Stone should be the next SpidermanWoman

Imagine this, but web-slinging above the streets of New York.

Clickbait

If there's one thing that's destroying western civilization, it's ether a new rise in extreme political views, a lack of drive-thru Panda Expresses, or clickbait articles.

Or climate change, whatever Bill.

Personally I'm leaning towards the second option, but this about the third one and not the first two, hence the title.

So clickbait for those not in the know are a new fad of getting easy online revenue by buying ad space on popular websites and then posting A HEADLINE THAT IS THE BIGGEST GREATEST DISCOVERY OF MANKIND IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD AND YOU MUST CLICK NOW TO LEARN WHAT IT IS WHILE IGNORING THE FACT THAT ANY OTER NEWS OUTLET EXPECT FOR THIS WEBSITE YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF HAS NOT REPORTED ON IT AT ALL. 

Did the grammar seem a little off? Doesn't matter, your clicks matter. 

For example.

Depends on your body

Wasn't about a currency law.

Just plain bullshit

That's a photoshop.

That's just weird.

You know kids see these websites right?

Yeah it's called eating pure protein and doing nothing expect weight training.

It's called "exercise on a regular basis"

I doubt that it would involve throwing her over your shoulder and walking off with her.

You may be noticing a few trends

Yes, mostly they're about 1.) Some new bullshit food you can eat 2.) Some new bullshit exercise you can try 3.) Some new bullshit law that you have to learn about or 4.) How to get your ex back 

In "researching" this "article" (I would consider this blog and my habit of writing poorly written borderline insane rants on it as being of a more reputable source than the average clickbait website, therefore I shall compromise and use elevating adjectives in quotations) I chose to ignore the average run of the mill "how to fix your body and your problems" baits and instead go for the more interesting lures of something truly weird and out there. 

I'm a classy-ass fish.

So I then stumbled upon this little nugget.

hmmm.

Now this stuck me as interesting. Because never have a I really considered the financial techniques discussed in the Bible. I was always too busy looking into how half of it was stories of loving your neighbors and treating everyone equally and making the world a better place, and how the other half is just fucking weird. 

That is a quote from the King James Bible saying that women must bring their local priest two turtles on the eighth day after their period to be considered a part of the community again. 

So anyway my interest was piqued. I clicked the article, and for what happened next the only way to describe it is in the form of the illustration of an old Chinese tale about how old ideas conflict with new teachings in a way that may seem foolish at first, but you can come to realize the simplicity of the old ways may in fact be beautiful in their own perceptions.

It's "turtles all the way down" is what I'm alluding to.

First I was introduced to a relatively clean website with this headline. 

I know right?

As the story goes, a guy who talks about finances on Fox Business report and such bought a bunch of Best Buy stock when it was on the low end, and made a bunch of money when it went back up. Like how every piece of stock as ever done in the history of capital trading. 

Granted I'm no expert but those lines are showing something.

Purportedly the hot stock tip came from King Solomon himself, but the article isn't ready to give up the secret yet as to how to judge the ups and downs of the stock market and buy risky stocks only for them to serendipitously pay off when you have millions of dollars to play with in the first place.

But Sean here needs some street cred, he ain't no high end country club owner, he's a poor-ass middle-class American like the rest of us. Because he was only making $15,000 a year, and now he's making so much money he can give away $50,000 a year!

See! The words say it! Therefore it is true!

Anyway, short little side-note here. $15,000 is barely livable, if you're a single adult. So apparently this full grown man, who I'm assuming has a family, managed to find some extra cash to start playing the stock market, and is now giving away $50,000 a year? 

Which is probably more than O'Trumpette gives.

Ok I guess it's all about perspective. 

Continuing on, nothing in the article explains what the biblical secret is. But as you continue on it explains a blueprint of sorts that will, if you buy this limited offer, start making you money as the same day as purchasing. I guess if you wait until midnight you get a full 24 hours. I don't know it wasn't fully explained. So then we come to the video. Oh dear, the video. It begins as such.

"I'm counting this as my community service hours"

The video begins with a three-minute long monologue from a guy who needs to learn how to match the color of his shirt to the rest of his shirt. Honestly I really don't know where you can get a shirt like that. It's like his head is superimposed onto someone else's body and the director of visual effects forgot to make sure the wardrobe matched and the the SFX guys where too lazy for a post-production color match.

The three-minutes of talking head syndrome consists of the guy reading the entirety of the article you just read as an introduction to the video you are about to watch. 

At this point we have read an introduction to an introduction to the introduction. But it gets much worse. The man of the hour then begins speaking.

And all his cheap default fonty goodness

He then begins speaking for five more fucking minutes about his secret. In which he restates all of the "facts" already in the article, and the video intro, and his own intro to his intro, not once, not twice, but fucking three more times. 

I have now read the article, and have watched 8 minutes of video in which I have been told the same information half a fucking dozen times. 

So eventually he introduces his money making secret. In that it's still a secret and he's only introducing, by once again, telling us how he was making 15K and year and how he's giving away 50K a year.

He does this by presenting the idea of love of money, and money, and how it's only a tool and how men corrupt or something, I just, I can't.

Honestly the whole "Do guns kill people or people kill people" debate makes me want to put a gun in my mouth less than the the video did.

Here's a few screen caps from his narrated PowerPoint, for full effect, read "This is how I had gone from making $15,000 a year to giving a way $50,000 a year" Since by this point I had lost track of how many time he had said that.

Anyway, now 15 minutes in, my brain had become numb as he continuously teased me by saying that he will soon be discussing the biblical secret to go from making $15,000 a year to giving a way $50,000 a year. 

But what Sean Hyman didn't know was that I'm a film student, and if there's one thing I'm good at, it's figuring out where a movie is going, and his poorly executed story of financial gain was about to become undone. 

I realized that what he was trying to explain all a long, was to study to company you're buying stocks in and make informed decisions while choosing what company to buy stock in. You see King Solomon discussed how you must find the value in your money, and according to Paul you must learn not to love your money. 

See where I'm going with this? No? Well let me tell you how I went from making $15,000 a year to now giving away $50,000 a year. You see I made my father's $40,000 retirement plan into $396,000, and if that doesn't show that the secret that I discovered works, than I don't know what will. Other than the fact that I went from making $15,000 a year to now giving a way $50,000 a year. And you see....

"Your financial tips and anecdotal stories shall become a part of our collective, you shall become US, resistance to the IRS is FUTILE"

Moving on, let's get a quick brainwash from that madness.

Spoilers: the animal in the picture isn't real, nor in the article.

Funny thing about that one is that it lists botflies as one of the animals on the list, and apparently this ruffled some feathers in the comment section. 

Truly a hero for the ages.

Then there's just the weird stuff. 

Yeah uh, his vision is the least of his problems.

From the picture listed, I'd say I'm good.

I think you're missing a noun.

It's called the MVD here in Surprise, so pass.

Well they failed that.

If you do read some of these articles. And I really, really recommend that you don't, you may notice a trend. They're all written so that they say a lot (as in a lot of words) without saying anything. It's just paragraphs upon paragraphs of just restating the same thing over and over without any point, and some how it always ends up with a link to another website with the same content, yet written differently. 

Touché

I know there's a musical term for a looping crescendo that sounds like it is rising in volume or pitch but not actually rising but looping, (for example Turn Down for What right before the bass drop), but I can't seem to find the proper term, so instead, in layman's terms, reading Clickbait articles is like being that dog from the opening of Mulan. 

You know the one.

I guess what my frustration comes from is that there's people out there who writes the articles, and are paid some amount of money to do so, and I think I might be a little jealous of that, and two, that it's a sustainable source of income for the businesses running them, which means that people are clicking on them enough to generate ad revenue. 

And I honestly don't know what kind of people would do that. 

Other than me for the purpose of writing this. 

Ohhh those kinds of people. 

Ohh I'm now understanding who's in this demographic now. 

Yep, the internet will never be the same. Mainly because this is the last season of Parks and Recreation 

Please tell me...