For years, American teenagers (and adults, actually) have been locking horns over which superhero company (comic books, movies, etc) is superior. Is it Marvel, with its Avengers, or DC, with its newly rebooted Justice League?
Trust me, I'm just as much a Batman fan as anybody else; I even had a batman decorative plate on my car for a few years.
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Both Marvel (Spiderman, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, etc) and DC (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Harley Quinn, etc) offer extremely entertaining and deep universes, spanning multiple movie and comic book franchises. Both do an excellent job of connecting their characters across movies, and linking them together via plot points, Easter eggs, and recently, collaborative movies like “Avengers”(2012) and “Batman v Superman” (2016). While Marvel started this trend and has a larger shared universe, DC is quickly catching up with a full blown justice league. Both franchises have delved into television, Marvel with “Daredevil”and “Agents of Shield,” DC with “Flash”and “Arrow.”
I'm here to argue that Marvel is superior to DC in the area that counts.
Marvel struggled throughout the 1990s, before superhero movies became as big as they are today and comic books were the primary source of income for both companies. The company began with X-Men in 2000, distributing through Fox. This led to a number of releases contracted out to other studios, like the Spiderman Trilogy with Sony. As their profits grew, so did the movie expanded universe. Ironman, Hulk, Thor, Captain America and ultimately all four in Avengers and Avengers 2 made the Marvel expanded Universe one of the greatest fictional franchises since Star Wars. DC did well with Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy, but this lacked the expanded universe element, and took a rebooted Superman (Man of Steel) and a revamped Justice League (“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”) to try to catch up to Marvel and its rapidly expanding universe.
The major difference between Marvel and DC is the difference in perspective and theme. Marvel offers a lighter, pun-filled experience while DC movies, especially lately, have felt dark and heavy.
"Dark" isn't necessarily a bad concept to have in a superhero movie. DC actually went the more realistic route with this, and spent the first half of the three-hour “Batman v Superman” explaining how the real world would come to terms with superman if he actually existed. Congress would try to legislate regulation, there would be controversy among television talking heads and religion would fracture over how to categorize the "supers." The villains are two-faced and deep, and have a penchant for ultimate destruction. The Batman trilogy and later reboot into the justice league face the same issues, though reduced since batman doesn't have superpowers on his own. The revamped justice league franchise movies were long, three hours long, and due to this atmosphere of dark, brooding controversy, it was a fairly stressful watch.
Marvel's Avengers 1 and 2 are far more lighthearted, and because of this the viewer is better able to suspend reality during the film and enjoy it. The marvel expanded universe gives the viewer flying aircraft carriers, Norse gods from different dimensions, and over the top characters that are able to crack a joke in the most dire of situations. These are the elements that comic books thrived off of, and these are the most enjoyable parts of the movies, and work to both tone down and enhance the overarching ideology battle between good and evil.
After all, the point of a fictional expanded universe is to suspend reality, not interpret how reality would respond to the advent of super humans.
