In the world of the cinematic universe, where massive blockbusters rule the silver screen and superheroes have never been more heroic, two entertainment titans battle it out for the future of film. These gargantuan companies have been at war for more than half a century, fighting to win the hearts and minds of movie and comic lovers worldwide. They are, of course, Marvel and DC.
There’s no doubt that Marvel has pulled ahead substantially in its race against DC comics in the last ten years, due almost entirely to the success of its cinematic universe. One of the most successful film franchises in the history of time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has made marvel studios billions of dollars and launched them to the forefront of pop culture. Meanwhile, DC’s attempts at replicating this success have gone unrewarded. So why has the MCU been received so well while DC’s cinematic universe has been met with such criticism?
There are a lot of contributing factors, but I’ll start with the most relevant one. Marvel has had a very well-developed plan since day one. They planned the release of their films in phases and had guidelines in place about the plot of each movie years into the future. They hired Kevin Feige, a man who knows the comic book stories the films are based on inside and out and asked him to maintain the big picture. If individual films are orchestrated by directors, then Feige is the one orchestrating the MCU as a whole. This continuity and consistency is part of what draws fans to the theater even ten years after the beginning of the story, and it’s something that DC never had.
In addition to consistency, there’s something about watching a Marvel movie that just feels better than watching DC. It’s in the color scheme, it’s in the writing, it’s in the way the characters are developed. The DC films that have been released have been far darker than their Marvel counterparts, not only in terms of subject matter, but also literally. Side by side comparisons of almost any DC scene with almost any Marvel scene tells this tale well. Marvel movies are just more colorful.
The stories of Marvel films also seem to be more carefully crafted than DC plotlines. While Marvel has spent 10 years detailing the origins and backgrounds of their characters, DC jumped straight in, seemingly in an effort to catch up to the Marvel movie machine. While Marvel followed the character development of Tony Stark for years, our first glimpse of DC’s Batman was of a broken man, exhausted from years of crime fighting that were never depicted on screen. DC was late to the party, and they tried to catch up by cheating their audience out of the character development that the MCU had trained them to expect. Needless to say, it hasn’t worked for them.
The MCU has embraced fan service, realizing that the same people who read the comic books their films are based on will be their most loyal customers. Through ample use of easter eggs and hilarious cameos, the late Stan Lee’s insistence that die-hard fans should be rewarded for their loyalty has ensured that those in the Marvel camp will stay there. DC, on the other hand, has largely abandoned its source material with unpopular moves like Jared Leto’s Joker and a Batman that uses machine guns instead of batarangs.
The MCU is unarguably more successful than DC’s cinematic universe. Through clever tactics, fan service and quality filmmaking, Marvel has taken characters that were almost entirely unknown and made them into cultural phenomenon. DC, on the other hand, is floundering. Marvel still has years of material planned, while DC is frantically trying catching up to their longtime rival. It’s unclear if DC will ever be able to match the smash success of the MCU. Only time will tell.