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Marvel vs DC: Who has the better villains?

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Future evil Batman (Tim Drake) beat Captain Marvel by playing a recording of him saying "Shazam":

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Which was weird, because I thought Marvel has to say it himself and a recording would have no effect....I'm not an expert on how it works though.

So is this DC's 'Red Hulk wields Mjolnir' moment?

 
I'm pretty sure Geoff Johns wrote that issue

Shocking.

I'm gonna nominate a lesser-known DC villain group that I think should get more love at some point: The Reach.


More specifically, the pre-Flashpoint Reach. (Yeah, I know, wrong image, but they did aight in Young Justice too)

Their whole "thing" was playing the long game, very unusual for a comic-book alien invasion. Not the "wait a few months/years" long game, the "5+ centuries" long game. The Scarab is supposed to act as a sleeper agent, becoming the world's premiere hero (by surreptitiously killing off the competition, if necessary), so when the Reach arrives, they're greeted with open arms. Then, hundreds of years of social and environmental engineering later, the world's been stripmined by its population of cheerful and willing slaves, and the Reach moves on to the next planet. Cool stuff.
 
Neverman Batman and Flash's rogue gallery, DC technically has Gene Hackman-Luthor. That is winning on every level.
 
Pre flashpoint different things turned him back. Flashpoint Enchantress (Captain Thunder), Spectre (his magic supersedes Shazam), Billy throwing magic lightning at Black Adam and changing his word...

Post flash point I can only think of two occasions besides the movies which I don't consider canon. Orm changes Shazam back with his trident but Orm was so misrepresented in that movie. I think he took on all the league lmao.

Forever Evil has Lex change his earth-3 counterpart back to his mortal form. It's hard to explain it because I don't think the power of Mazahs was his originally (he mentioned Will Baston) and it's probably not the exact same thing as Shazam like how Ultraman and Superman aren't 1:1.

John Constantine tried to steal his power but he couldn't contain it. I can't remember if he tricked Billy into turning back or not.

I think the new stance is that saying the words won't change him back. The person has to mean it.
 
Could never choose when it came to the villains of DC and Marvel. I have my favorites from both sides , but I feel like they are both great when it comes to villains. Both has such a versatile set of baddies that I just can't choose.

Favorite Marvel:
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Favorite DC:
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I never read the Flash comics, but Reverse Flash in the CW show made me sit up and respect the motherfucking hell outta this psycho:

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He's amazing in the show, but in the comics he's really not very interesting TBH.

DC definitely has the better cast of villains, but Marvel has some great heavy hitters like Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, etc. It's saying alot that the MCU struggles immensely with having good villains when their X-Men/F4/Spider-Man properties can't be used in their movies.


I never really got the love for Spider-Man's rogues aside from Goblin, most of them are just kind of thugs with a power and no depth. Venom looks awesome from a design perspective, but the character himself is really flat.
 
What I'm getting from this thread is that not enough people read Kraven's Last Hunt.

But it was so good.


Spiderman is underdeveloped? When was the last time a hero carried a major event by themselves?

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That doesn't need a but. I was agreeing with you. I just... I don't understand how it got to exist. It makes me very happy that it does. Like Nextwave, it didn't deserve to exist, and yet it did.
 
One things that stand out form that graph is how little DC shipped vs the amount of retail sales, compared to how much Spider man Shipped vs the amount of sales. I would like to have more information on that Graph.
You're reading that wrong.
The shipments are in units, and are companies as a whole.
The sales are in dollars, and are the individual brands.
 
I never really got the love for Spider-Man's rogues aside from Goblin, most of them are just kind of thugs with a power and no depth. Venom looks awesome from a design perspective, but the character himself is really flat.
Despite not all of Spider's villains being all that interesting or not having enough to really carry a movie etc, they are varied enough and have interesting enough powers/gimmicks that atleast play off well against his own abilities.
 
Future evil Batman (Tim Drake) beat Captain Marvel by playing a recording of him saying "Shazam":

Uk74STd.jpg



Which was weird, because I thought Marvel has to say it himself and a recording would have no effect....I'm not an expert on how it works though.

What. The. Fuck.

There is no way that could work.
Hell of an ass-pull.

One of the most prolific and utterly evil groups out there

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I agree.
Totally incompetent, unwise, arrogant and underserving of a title called "guardians of the universe".

In fact they have created more havoc among the universe than some "proper" villains.
 
Slayven as usual gets it in record time. It's hilariously outdated.

one of the big differences between Marvel and DC is that Marvel has allowed their characters to age in (marvel) time, and the things that defined them have changed.

The concept that "marvel heroes are flawed, DC heroes are untouchable gods" is a trope that hasn't been true since the 1980s. Both companies have moved on. Superman and Batman are a lot more "flawed" and human than they were in the gold and silver age. A big part of this is because DC saw the money marvel was making and changed a lot of things, but it is what it is. There's not a lot of daylight in the approach between the two in the modern era.

On the Marvel side? Spiderman hasn't been a "poor nerd" in forever. Current parker is a CEO worth millions that's been pulling supermodels since the 1980s.

Cap has been in the "present" longer than he was in the 40s, and is just as comfortable in modern new york as he is among the stars, battling alien races and liberating solar systems. "letting go" of his 1940s crap and moving on was a plot point of his recent series- but not a recent one, it's been done before. The masters of evil destroyed all of cap's memorabilia in the early 80s, and "getting over it" was done back then too. (it was since rescued by time travel, only for marvel to have Cap get rid of it again).

There are many, many, many strong villains on the marvel side that have nothing to do with internal struggle- and making the claim kind of requires you to ignore the Xmen rogue's gallery entirely- there are some blockbusters in there that are pure diabolical spectacle and not much else.

This is a great point. I must admit that the views I shared are much more of blanket statement and based on a bias I have on what qualities attract me to both Marvel and DC properties.

You're right, modern stories are much more nuanced and the X-men villains are a great example of characters who are outright diabolical.

It's a context I have and it is definitely a dated one, but it does help me frame the whole "villain" conversation.

Perhaps the better question is what makes a good villain today. Is it the depth? Is the nuance? Is it disregard? The power? I think this thread is exploring all those questions so far.
 
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