Obvious question...

Jonesy3110

Surely this has been asked before, but Im asking anyway.

Marvel or DC? And why?

Mines Marvel, Iron Man/Tony Stark - My introduction to the whole comic book world and a total dreamboat *swoon*

ztoical

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Marvel or DC? And why?

those are my only choices? can i answer nither? Oni and SLG are putting far more interesting stuff at the mo.

ztoical

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Mines Marvel, Iron Man/Tony Stark - My introduction to the whole comic book world and a total dreamboat *swoon*

You'll have to fight Fysh for auld Tony, he claimed him first lol

Mr. K

Marvel, I started reading Spider-Man in 1996 and haven't stopped. In fact, it's just gotten worst, I've started reading loads of other titles since then.

spooydermot

I guess for me it'd be Marvel, never really followed DC - but since the whole Civil war disaster I've not really had much interest in any of the characters save for Spiderman and X-Factor...even Wolverine is hanging on by a thread.

The Vertigo line nearly always produces quality stuff, but it's not DC in the strictest sense i.e not in continuity

bombidol

out of those two id go to Marvel. DC havent done anything interesting in a while, bar ASS.

qwertplaywert

for quanity of good titles , it has to be marvel...look at thier line up now..the likes of runaway, astonishing x-men,etc.
but for pure fantasic comics, it has to be dc.....eg. titles like batman:dark knight returns ,watchmen, all star superman, all star batman, batman:the long holloween, v for vendetta ,road to partiton etc.
so proberbly marvel for runs of a comic, but dc wins,for the momerable mini-series'es/arcs

constitutionus

marvel for me. mainly because i found the characters far more interesting . good point about the minis for DC but in terms of ongoing characters marvel wins hands down.
the only DC characters i liked were firestorm and green lantern. both of which were relauched recently but i honestly couldnt stick with either of em. they were just handled apallingly. that said ive parred down big time on the titles i collect having come to the conclusion that theres feck all titles that are any good for any extended period of time. case in point : astonishing xmen. great comic but as soon as josh goes so do i. the time for being loyal to a title for me is long gone.

qwertplaywert

i thought whedon still had a few issues left?

the Shades

It's really funny all through the 90s DC were unquestionably the better company, with solid storytelling and really good artists, while Marvel were arsing around with lame events and the odd good story or great artist but nothing outstanding. Then Joey Q overhauled Marvel and turned it around cutting out most of the crap while DC decided to hire Dan Didio who is all but killing the company. Every awful idea that has come from DC recently has it's roots with Didio who is obviously just chasing sales and pimping the characters out to whatever Hollywood project is the most lucrative to tie in to.

bombidol

nail on the head. Joe Q has been great and bringing Marvel back up to speed. AND he drew Azrael so he is god.

ztoical

bombidol wrote:

nail on the head. Joe Q has been great and bringing Marvel back up to speed. AND he drew Azrael so he is god.

but a bit of a prick in person

qwertplaywert

ztoical wrote:

but a bit of a prick in person

seems to be the general opinon

bombidol

I'd well believe it.

Jonesy3110

You'll have to fight Fysh for auld Tony, he claimed him first lol

I would fight. Bring it on.

qwertplaywert

bombidol wrote:

I'd well believe it.

well does it really matter?

constitutionus

it does when he cancels a book you like because he doesnt like it.

i still miss X FORCE and that got canned because joey Q didnt like how dilluted the x books had become. been reading AVENGERS lately joe?:rolleyes:

Briony Noh

Some of you will probably remember as I do the unexpectedness of the fresh air that Marvel blew through the comics industry in the 1960s. For the next couple of decades they could do no wrong. They had the best artists and writers, so obviously they were going to turn out the best characters.

Then the creative teams got a bit of freedom and worked for either of the two companies and DC started to reap the benefits of some solid story-telling. For a while, Marvel and DC were indistinguishable from each other. In fact, Miller's Daredevil looked for all the world like a calling card for Batman.

But the solid stable of characters is once again, I think, winning the race for Marvel. Try as DC might to re-vamp and re-write their big hitters, Superman is just the Man of Steel, Green Lantern was more interesting as Hal Jordan, as was Barry Allen as Flash. They've fixed it till it's broken, in my limited and ever-so humble view.

Marvel characters, on the other hand, without exception, began their careers with back-stories, well-defined like-em-or-loath-em characters and interesting qualities (and defects). You can't tamper adversely with something so nearly perfectly formed. Except, possibly, by having them get married, settle down and raise a family of cutants that save the day - that sort of thing should be left to the cartoons, all right?

So, perhaps DC is trying too hard to make their characters real - re-casting is always, always, always a mistake on TV, after all (Doctor Who isn't TV, it's Life), so why should it work in print?

Meanwhile, I tend to follow writers and artists, whichever company they work for.

So until somebody finally puts that damned 'until somebody does something highly unlikely' cliche to rest, Make Mine - I can't believe I nearly did that ...

Fysh

As mentioned above, Iron Man is for whatever reason one of the few superheroes I've any interest in. However, since Marvel seem determined to just mess with the guy (either through shoddy writing, hitting him with everything they can - come on, he's had shrapnel in his heart, alcoholism, a debilitating neurological disease, poisoned by the mind of Kang the Konqueror, what else is left? death? -, and then suddenly deciding to have him act like King Monkey since Civil War) I can't quite say I like Marvel for it.

There again, I don't read DC superheroes at all on a regular basis, so perhaps I should just be quiet...

Briony Noh

Actually, yeah. The Iron Man story line just got waaaay too silly for me. Put him back in the grey armour, I say.

(Showing my age)

qwertplaywert

iron man imo has always been the best comic book charactor, too bad about the writing for the comics though

Jonesy3110

Aww poor Iron Man " Come here tony I'll make it aaall better,You'll be safe with Jonesy "
I like Iron Man way too much.

Fysh

Yeah, but then you'd blatantly get threatened with death by an over-jealous glitch in the code that made it self aware, or kidnapped by Ultron or, I dunno, murdered with a fridge or something. Getting into a relationship with a superhero is a risky business.

Whereas I'd just, you know, borrow the armour for...erm, errands. Yes. Errands. Certainly not for any world-conquest plans or anything.

*tries to look innocent*

*fails*

*scarpers*

qwertplaywert

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Aww poor Iron Man " Come here tony I'll make it aaall better,You'll be safe with Jonesy "
I like Iron Man way too much.

''WHO am i?!Im the frikin IRON MAN!''

oops....wrong comic........:D

the Shades

I've really never got it with Iron Man. It's just a guy in a tin suit.

Fysh

It's the character as much as the hero gimmick that got me - the character is this hugely flawed person, but he's a genius engineer and businessman who manages to keep himself rolling in cash and ends up building a world-class weapon system with which to try and do good deeds, because he feels he has to make up for all the evil done by other people using his technology. So you get this nice contrast between the armoured hero who is generally (depending on the writer) very powerful and extremely good at analysing his enemies to figure out how to take them down (but magically the superserum makes Captain America a better tactician than one of the, what, 12 most intelligent human beings on the planet? *pfffff*) and then there's the billionaire playboy human who's an alcoholic and has emotional problems stemming from his relationship with his father, as well as having had various physical problems.

I dunno, maybe it's just that I read the comics as a kid. But Warren Ellis's recent run was also very good, so I suspect it's more a case of what the character can be when he's written well...

Jonesy3110

I agree with Fysh 100% on this one :P I think Armor Wars is a really good example of how awesome and how much of a good-guy Iron Man is, he gets so messed up that his technology is being used for doing bad. I could go on and on about Iron Man, I'll just stop now :P

Earthhorse

How come Iron Man never does any ironing?

And why doesn't Batman dance anymore?

Shoop-shop-cheep-chop.

/dances out of thread

6th

Marvel for me, I think I first held a Marvel publication (1976 Iron Man annual featuring Man Thing afaik) back in about 1982.

Jonesy3110

How come Iron Man never does any ironing

Weird u say that, a while back I drew a picture on my bfs bebo of "Ironing Man" lol http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=929201343

Fysh

Earthhorse wrote:

How come Iron Man never does any ironing?

And why doesn't Batman dance anymore?

Those who have seen Iron Man : Hypervelocity #2 know that Iron Man doesn't do any ironing because he's too busy programming his armor to emulate his consciousness so that it can dance.

(If you dont know what I mean, there's a livejournal community that has scans of the relevant page which will show up in google, if you search for something like Iron Man Hypervelocity...)

Earthhorse

Jonesy3110 wrote:

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=929201343

Ir-on Man, Ir-on Man, does whatever an Iron can...

Fysh wrote:

Those who have seen Iron Man : Hypervelocity #2 know that Iron Man doesn't do any ironing because he's too busy programming his armor to emulate his consciousness so that it can dance.

Hmmm, that was...interesting.

I recently read Orson Scott Card's Ultimate Iron Man and thought it was pretty bad.

Can anyone recommend a decent place to start with this character?

As for the original question, DC have Batman but Marvel have X-Men. It's all about the writing though. Maybe at the moment Marvel are in the ascendant but give it time and it'll all swing back again.

Fysh

Well, it all depends on what sort of introduction you want to the character. There's not a great deal of Iron Man stuff available in TPB format and the current Marvel thinking with the character has led to the phrase "irondickery" being bandied about to describe Tony Stark's mere presence...

Warren Ellis's "Extremis" is a decent reboot/introduction to the character, and is out in TPB for about 20 euro. The Armor Wars saga is also in print now as a TPB. I'd say between those two you'd get a decent idea of the character, plus the Extremis story has some utterly lush artwork from Adi Granov, particularly for the origin story...

qwertplaywert

Earthhorse wrote:

Ir-on Man, Ir-on Man, does whatever an Iron can...




man...what does that page have to do with iron man.......

Earthhorse

qwertplaywert wrote:

man...what does that page have to do with iron man.......

Jonesy3110 wrote:

Weird u say that, a while back I drew a picture on my bfs bebo of "Ironing Man" lol http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=929201343

There you go.

galactus

Marvel or DC - its what you're used to i suppose but no contest for me.

I think Marvel always attracted the better writers and artists (Harlan Ellison, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Walt Simonson, George Perez, Todd McFarlane and many many more) and they don't call him Stan The Man for nothing.

Yeah, Batman is way cool but a total exception IMHO. Aquaman, Green Lantern...gimme a break. OK, Green Lantern is cool in a Captain Marvel kind of way but so what. Maybe I haven't read enough GL?

Your best test: the super-villlans: Doc Ock ,Red Skull, Green Goblin /Hobgoblin, The Destroyer, Loki are some of my faves (I am too modest to mention Galactus here). Also re-prints of the original "Tomb of Dracula" are well worth a look. On the DC side: uhh...The Joker is a bit freaky.

A funny on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rp2f2OcCpQ&mode=related&search=

That said i have a good time for Supes and BM but The Avengers kick Justice League ass any day. Roll on Thor, Iron Man and the Avengers movies.

the Shades

galactus wrote:

Marvel or DC - its what you're used to i suppose but no contest for me.


Your best test: the super-villlans: Doc Ock ,Red Skull, Green Goblin /Hobgoblin, The Destroyer, Loki are some of my faves (I am too modest to mention Galactus here). Also re-prints of the original "Tomb of Dracula" are well worth a look. On the DC side: uhh...The Joker is a bit freaky.

Seriously? Batman's entire rogues gallery are better than any Marvel villains. Lex Luthor is an archetype for bad guys. The Flash's villains while quite eh... colourful are usually sick, twisted bastards. The Justice League has far better villains than anything the Avengers have faced and don't need to keep relying on the same aliens/gods/robot.

I mean are Marvel's villains really that wonderful? Spider-Man alone has Rhino, Lizard, Scorpion and half a zoo following him around. Then there's Modok, Mojo, Typeface, The Blob, Mole man... Their list of ridiculous villains is as big if not bigger than any other company's.

Fysh

In fairness, a lot of the villains have the same problem the heroes do - fluctuating quality of writing. The Joker has, on occasion, been written as a fantastic nemesis for Batman, but other times he's just been a daft caricature of a person. I imagine this applies to a lot of the DC villains, tho since I rarely read the mainstream DC books I can't say for certain.

Marvel, though...Marvel struggles with decent villains. The Red Skull is one of the crappest villains I've ever seen (to the point where the villain revealed at the end of Nextwave was more convincing than he's ever been), and Modok/Modam were never properly used, but Dr Doom and Doc Oc have occasionally been written well enough to work as formidable rivals. The Mandarin has been used as a decent Iron Man villain a good few times, presenting a proper nemesis rather than just recurring enemy.

Loki is an interesting one, but I find Marvel's cosmic villains to suck fat hairy donkey. Galactus, Thanos, and all the rest of them They all suck. One minute they're practically invincible, the next minute someone basically kicks them in the nads and they're out for the count. Utterly and completely dull, and consequently renders the stories they're used in irrelevant.

constitutionus

hang on man. thanos kicked some serious arse in "the infinity gauntlet". in fact the villians are where marvel win hands down. ok supes has lex luthor. but who the hell else? when you look at spidey alone youve got doc ock, venom, lizard, sandman, electro etc. DC dont have anything to come close to magneto or apocalypse let alone phoenix. and thats before you get to doctor doom and galactus.

sad fact is compared to marvel DC's villians are abit lame.


but i do agree with the writing thing though.i always saw a good character in how i'd like to write em if i got the chance and how much they inspired me to come up with my own take on em. i liked iron man but for the life of me i wouldnt have a clue how to write the guy now. he's just been ****ed around too much. it reminds me of 90's xmen. it took ennis and whedon to remind me just what makes those characters tick so i reckon i could do something with em now but back then it was justl like "who the hell are you people now?".

still i did like the civil war thing, even if it feels like its just the staging ground for the next years stories of other books and reads a hell of a lot better if you buy the tie ins (got the new avengers civil war tie in. probably my last of that book seeing as i dont like any of the new new avengers) the cage story in particular was very good. which is some statement cause i dont like the guy.

Fysh

No, Thanos did the usual thing in Infinity Gauntlet of kicking a load of arse, becoming hugely powerful, and then losing his gauntlet for no very good reason to someone who by rights shouldn't have been able to get anywhere near him...
but there again this always seems to happen with the villains for both universes, you get a short stretch of any given character being interesting and well-written, then it all goes back to "Mwhahahaha, I have staged this elaborate bank job just to distract you from my real plan, to build an Interdimensional Tuning Fork with which I will make everyone in the world crap themselves!" or such like...

I'd say someone like Darkseid could be considered equivalent to Thanos, but I don't know or, well, care really. Fundamentally there's no single character from the Big 2 who's been consistently written well, and that in itself is a bit of a problem for me...

galactus

Fysh wrote:

Snip..snip...snip...
Marvel, though...Marvel struggles with decent villains.

Who dood, what parallel universe are you in / what are you smoking.

/ - respect = Fysh

Fysh

Well, I'm reading the comics presenting a universe where the Red Skull can somehow, in a world that is suddenly concerned with realism enough to have the whole Civil War scenario play out, pretend to be a normal human being and be the secretary of defense of the usa.

What can I say? Every single marvel villain has, at one point or another, been crap. The nicest way I can put it is that, in many cases, the writing is "of its time" (where the time concerned involved absolutely no quality standards for writing in comics). But there's just too many crap villains in general for me to pick either company and say "this one's better". Spiderman has, as Murra pointed out, a friggin' menagerie chasing him at various points. Iron Man has had armored rivals named after most metals going. Captain America...well, let's face it, when you're a nationalistic character you're gonna get crap straw-man enemies that embody values your nation hates so he gets to fight incompetent nazis and communists. The fantastic four have Dr Doom, who's not far off being an evil analogue of Iron Man who, despite being a genius and having huge amounts of money available to amass an army with, never gets beyond controlling Latveria.

They're all just a bit crap. I mean, if even one of them ever lived up to the potential they're described to have, they'd be running the world. But no, about the most they can usually manage is to steal This Weeks Irrelevant MacGuffin (be it an Infinity Gem/Ring Of Power/Sphincter of Great Justice or what the hell ever), then have it taken off them by the equivalent of a four year old on a tricycle. There's only so many times you can read this sort of thing happen before you want to punch someone in the face, preferably Stan bloody Lee for having started off the whole bloody theme...

the Shades

Oh I dunno, Magneto quite often lives up to the hype. But admittedly he's had some crap moments as well like turning good, then bad again, then good again, then losing his powers, then getting them back, then dying, then coming back, then turning good again, then leading the X-men, then turning bad, then getting indigestion...