Avengers Movie Poster from Marvel on marvel.com
It has been interesting to see how DC and Marvel have been handling taking their franchises into other mediums. Marvel has felt much more purposeful about their direction and intentions. Now I do not know when the decision was made to make the movies in this particular order, but the whole concept of Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III is brilliant. It gives you time to introduce the characters in a meaningful way and to give access to information that can lead to a larger threat. There is so much that they have done well, but then Marvel Agent’s of Shield has not had that same level of purpose.
Unlike with DC where there seems to be this feeling that a Justice League movie could just happen and they would not have to put the work in to it. It will be really interesting to see how the new Batman versus Superman movie comes out, but it just feels sort of hodgepodge. Then you have them starting down an incredible path with Arrow where we have been introduced to a multitude of potential spinoffs. It is probably one of the more successful translations of the DC universe that I have seen. It is interesting to see how these two companies have chosen to market and sell their intellectual properties outside of the comic book world.
Marvel
Marvel has done an incredible job building all the movies upon each other. Now there are other characters outside of the main phase project, but there are a lot of characters that are going to be introduced in these projects. These movies will introduce people to characters that if you have never read the comics you might not know about them. They did this brilliantly by starting with some characters that are a little bit more well known from the comics. Then as we move forward we are going to be introduced to some lesser known characters that the average person might not have heard of; Black Panther, Ant Man, Doctor Strange, Inhumans, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. Now not all of these are confirmed, but even just the rumors are exciting.
Now this feels like the exact opposite of what is happening with the TV show Agent’s of Shield. It almost feels like the TV show was thrown in as an after thought because people enjoyed the Avenger movie so much. They are introducing all of these characters and ideas in the movie, but there is a serious lack of these same elements in the show. They introduced Hydra in the movie, couldn’t they introduce AIM or some other organization from the comics. It is just so interesting that the movies seem to be engaging the public really well and the TV show had such potential because they had a built in audience, but I just do not think they have utilized some of the pre-existing information from the comics enough.
DC
Image from DC Comics at dccomics.com
DC on the other hand seems to have gone an entirely different direction with their franchise. The movies that have involved the DC universe feel disjointed and not like they are taking place in the same world as each other. The only two characters that they seem to be able to successful create movies for are Batman and Superman and even those are not always the best. Again, the defining moment for DC and their movie franchises is going to be the Batman versus Superman movie. Here we will get to see how they handle combining two of their characters together because so far I have not seen how the movies can work as one universe.
On the other hand I think they have a great start with Arrow to just take over the TV show market with superheroes. Already Arrow is a huge success and we already know that they are planning a spinoff for The Flash, which I am super excited about. They teased just a little bit by introducing us to the main character and hearing news coming out of Central City. The other part is that they are introducing the Suicide Squad, which could potentially become something larger maybe even its own spinoff. Then there is thoughts of introducing the Birds of Prey on the show itself (already have Black Canary and the Huntress). All of these introductions get fans excited and can be intriguing for people who may not know the universe as well as others. The TV show market is where DC seems to have the potential to succeed.
Exciting Time for Superheroes
The important thing about this is probably that it is an exciting time for superheroes and comic book movies. The popularity of superheroes and comic books right now is incredible and many have the opportunity to benefit from this popularity. Marvel and DC have chosen very different paths when it comes to their franchises and I do not necessarily think there is anyone who is winning, more they are doing better in different areas. I think Marvel has the movies pretty well cornered and I am not sure if DC can compete there. At the same time DC has the potential to really break open with new TV shows that could be incredible.
Comparative Geeks 