Head to Head

Before I jump into this blog post, I would like to talk briefly about nerd culture. Or what I believe to be nerd culture. Nerd culture has gone mainstream in the past few decades with the rise of comic-con and popular culture mixing with traditional nerdy material (see Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter). Nerdy material includes most things science-fiction, fantasy, or intellectual. Nerds like to learn everything they can about what they are interested in and love to correct others. There is a great series on youtube called “Um…Actually”, which is based on this idea. 

What does nerd culture have to do with this week’s topic? Well, for this week’s blog, I would like to discuss the differences between Marvel and DC comics. 

As a bit of background, DC comics started as National Comics in 1934 after merging with several other comic publications. However, many people still called the comic company DC after the Detective Comics series. DC Comics officially changed its name in 1977. Marvel debuted in 1939 under Timely Comics. The comic company went under the name of Atlas Magazines for about a decade before changing to Marvel Comics in the early 1960s. I will discuss more about the early days of comics in a future blog post. 

Now back to my original narrative on nerd culture. As I said before, nerds love to learn everything that they can and, they love to debate. One debate that is prevalent in nerd (specifically comic book nerd) culture is: which is better, Marvel or DC? Some people will debate about the movies while others will choose to debate the source material, the comics. In fact, while doing some research for this blog post, I found multiple blog posts of people debating this exact topic. 

So, is there any merit to these arguments of which is better? In my opinion, no. Comics, like any other form of entertainment or art, is subjective. What one person enjoys may not be you enjoy but, that doesn’t make it any worse. If that is not a good enough answer, then perhaps a reminder that publications have collaborated in the past to release DC vs. Marvel, a miniseries that features both universes fighting each other. The series ends with the two superpowered brothers, personifications of the publishers, realizing that fighting each other is pointless.

If you would like more than my opinion on the matter, here is a link to a thorough examination of the comics, characters, movies, and comics. Although I will be touching on some of these topics in the coming weeks. 

Check back in next week, when I will be talking about the Golden Age of Comics and the birth of a modern superhero.