DC Or Marvel? A Shift In Dominance

For the better part of 15 years that wave of success has belonged to the “superhero craze”, and to put it more specifically it belonged to Marvel and their assortment of superheroes. For 15 years they absolutely dominated the box office with their cavalcade of movies and TV series. They dominated so much that other genres of films started opting to use the same formula. Suddenly films were now being created with post credit sequences and setting up “universes”. That says a lot for the model Marvel (the MCU) was laying out. DC was trying to keep a horse in the race. After all, this was the company that brought us the great Christopher Reeve Superman films in the 70’s and the Michael Keaton Batman films in the 80’s. Not to mention their stellar animated films. Marvel’s shadow was just looming to large over everything else for DC to leave a sizable dent.

That was until recently when the law of diminishing returns started to set in as people tired of superheroes. Or at least of the formulaic superhero movies Marvel had begun putting out there. They were aching for something new. The cracks were starting to show in Marvel’s armor. As most people had given up on DC at this point, the company pulled a sleight of hand trick and brought on the incomparable James Gunn to revamp their movie universe. After Marvel had wrongfully fired James Gunn, who had crafted two of their biggest hits in Guardians Of The Galaxy 1 & 2 for some years earlier tweets made as a joke, DC swooped in and scooped Gunn up to infuse hi style into Suicide Squad. This was the first sign of life injected into a dying brand. Follow that up with Peacemaker, a series helmed by Gunn and based off Suicide Squad’s breakout character Peacemaker portrayed by John Cena, and you see the tide start to turn.

Marvel had tried to fix the mistake they made earlier by rehiring Gunn to head the forthcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy 3, but the damage was seemingly irreparable, and while the famed director did return for that he did sign on the dotted line to reboot the DC universe. He has come in to clean the slate and right the ship. Redirecting the company as he injects his style of storytelling and humor into the stale universe. There seems to be the perfect storm brewing as both Marvel is headed on a downward spiral just as DC is experiencing an upsurge. Only time will tell on who shall come out dominant in the end. Will it be the new look DC or the new big bad Kang The Conqueror in Marvel as he faces off against the next wave of Marvel superheroes like Moon Knight and the inevitable arrival of X-Men and Fantastic Four. I for one am an avid lover of comics, so the more the merrier when it comes to the big screen tales of these great characters. I say bring them all on.