I don’t get DC comics. They’ve taken a few bizarre steps. Back in the day, it just used to be Superman flying around until he had to punch Lex Luthor in the face, break the laser, rescue Lois, and then repeat. But that doesn’t happen as much anymore.
For one thing, Lois has been kind of on and off with Superman after Lois-2 (That’s not our Lois, our Lois is Lois-1) died as a result of Lex-3’s manipulation of Superman-2 and Superboy-Prime (Did I mention there’s another Superboy?), and as it turns out Superboy-Prime was evil and killed the morally-conflicted Superboy-1 (Ours) and about thirty other characters that no one is ever going to care about. Did you follow that? No? Well, neither has anyone else.
DC has made things more complicated and smacked around with our childhood superheroes. That’s why I read Marvel. They are more direct and, I think, rooted in reality.
Take “Civil War,” their latest storyline. Superheroes were fighting each other over whether or not to register their secret identities with the government. Why? Because some of them thought it was a good idea and others thought it was a bad idea. Ta-da!
Character development in DC comics is weak. They make their heroes into virtual gods capable of doing whatever the hell they want. Superman is the ultimate living man, Wonder Woman is the ultimate living woman, and Batman can do anything.
Need proof? Well how about my own personal Batman Theory of Anything. It’s a simple principle, really: Batman can do anything, given preparation time. Master every form of combat, science and philosophy? Batman can do that.
If he were to, for example, fight God, Batman would need a little time to get ready. We’re talking at least twenty minutes here. But give the man (Bat-man?) his little prep period and I can guarantee you that the Batmobile would be doing burnouts in the Vatican after a matter of hours. That’s cute and everything, but COME ON, why even print the damn book? Why not just hand out a leaflet every month with “DC” in the corner and, “BATMAN WINS,” in bold print?
I don’t see this problem nearly as often with Marvel, because Marvel characters can’t do everything. They have difficulties and usually have to band together or something to prevent a tragedy, and even then it doesn’t always work. Captain America just died, after being assassinated on his way to court, after losing a fight against the United States government. This was carefully conceived. At a time of political strife in the United States, Captain America dies. Marvel gives its characters depth, which makes their stories more interesting.
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