15 – Something seems off here
I had planned a commentary based on an article I came across, but there was a last-minute change in my schedule. We’ll get to it tomorrow, but the article I’m linking to tonight actually fits in with this.
There was a time when DC Comics was the bright, shiny world. Everybody loved the heroes, who were almost all good friends willing to help new heroes become better ones. Marvel, on the other hand, was less optimistic. They’re heroes didn’t always get along and the world was scared of most of them. It wasn’t so much pessimistic (I’d put Watchmen on that list) as it was a bit more cynical. The heroes were still heroic, just not as beloved as the DC heroes. Read Kurt Buseik’s JLA/Avengers to see what I’m talking about.
We now live in a world where in part this has changed. In the comics Marvel’s as cynical as ever, but now the DC Universe is closer to Marvel’s style. Heroes are feared and they don’t always get along and too often fall short of the ideals of being a hero. This is called “depth” by the current power base while I see as just darkening.
In the movies, however, as my reviewing colleague Brian “Slay Monstrobot” Snell noted on Twitter this week, Marvel and DC have completely flipped styles. The Avengers movie, the Iron Man films, even the Hulk movie, are more light in tone, the heroes being heroic and the Avengers didn’t fight nearly as much as you’d think despite the requisite early disagreements. They came together fairly easily. If you want proof, Jim McLauchlin wrote a guest opinion piece for Comic Book Resources that says it better than I can, and you all know how much I’ve tried. It’s more proof that DC is loosing touch with what made it so good.
