For rather a long time, I’ve been a stalwart Marvel comics fan but upon seeing the Watchmen movie trailer, I find myself re-evaluating my stance a little. I’ve always liked the X-Men; Thanos, Galactus and Magneto are awesome villains; Superman is super lame; and there are so many other reasons to love Marvel, like all the cartoons. However, all that neglects some of the great things D.C. has been involved in, for instance, pretty much everything Batman except the movies between Batman Returns and Batman Begins. The Batman books are gold, the Batman cartoons have all been gold, Jack Nicholson’s Joker was gold, Batman Begins was gold and I am so psyched about The Dark Knight that it’s not even funny. On top of that, there’s a bunch of other things D.C. has done right, including Watchmen and Transmetropolitan, probably the two greatest graphic novels of all time.
Marvel, however has been putting out movies best classified as bad followed by worse, with the notable exception of Iron Man, which was pretty ok. Why then does Marvel deserve my praise? Their comics are still pretty decent but they certainly aren’t Dark Horse, though really, nobody else is. Are the X-Men really that great or is it that they were really cool when I was a kid and I haven’t come to realize how simple they really are?
You know, I think I’m switching my allegiances. As of now, I officially like D.C. more than Marvel, though I still prefer Image, Dark Horse and a few indie publishers more. Seriously though, The Dark Knight looks awesome as all get up and so does Watchmen.
Ok, I’m going to watch the Watchmen trailer one more time and then I’ll be done geeking out.
I think you’ve probably blocked out “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin.” Both are substantially worse than “Batman Returns.” Moreover, other than being maybe a bit slow in parts, Batman Begins was quite good.
Dark Knight is hands down the best comic book movie ever made, though. Close seconds are Iron Man and Spider-man 2 in some order.
I agree with your assessment of the indie comics versus the mainstreams, but you only have to look at the crossover events to realize how fucking awful the DC editorial staff is. 52 and Countdown blew, and then they completely fucked the plot of Final Crisis by spoiling half of it in a bridge series that was only necessary because they fucked up Countdown. On the other hand, Civil War was well done, if a bit preachy. World War Hulk is a sad disappointment, but Secret Invasion is VERY cool. Overall, Marvel has a far better run universe than DC. Don’t let the few good DC titles (Batman plus epsilon) throw you—the true character of DC is suck through and through.