JLA/Avengers reprint (Image credit: Marvel Comics / DC) I hesitate to use the common term about three large storms converging because there is nothing resembling 'perfect' about it. JLA/Avengers was an extraordinary circumstance. It was appointment comic book reading even for jaded fans, and in the case of Marvel versus DC (yes, the publishers traded turns whose name went first) and Amalgam, it came at a tenuous and much-needed time for the medium.ĭC and Marvel even got so good at working together they even seriously contemplated swapping two characters for one another before the legal implications became too much to overcome.Īnd even when things got testy, the chemistry it created was additive … a net positive for the seemingly perpetually struggling Direct Market.īut that dynamic is no more and despite the faint pulse it seemed like it had this past spring when the two publishers cooperated with the help of the comic book charity the Hero Initiative to reprint 7000 copies of JLA/Avengers, the relationship is likely to stay that dormant for the foreseeable future. The publishers themselves engaged in the rivalry … egged it on … which of course set things up for huge sales successes like 1996's DC versus Marvel and its companion Amalgam and 2003-2004's JLA/Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez when they could find their way to working with one another.ĭC versus Marvel Comics art (Image credit: Marvel Comics / DC) The point is even if by sales the rivalry has been lopsided, DC is still the publisher of the iconic Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, and Justice League, and what that rivalry with Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and the Avengers means to fans helped create something memorable … something fun … something special.Īnd it wasn't just comic book shop (and then message board and then social media) talk about who had the better or stronger heroes or villains.
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While there have been a few years in which DC sales have eclipsed Marvel sales or kept the horserace close, Marvel has been the market leader consistently, at least in sales to comic book shops.Īnd despite having a head start with iconic successes like the George Reeve Superman and Adam West TV shows, the Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon, and Christopher Reeves Superman and Michael Keaton Batman film franchises, Marvel has also come to dominate DC in terms of media adaptations of its properties in the 21st century. And like those other three traditional rivalries, one party more or less dominated the other for most of the history between them - in this case, Marvel. the Amazing Spider-Man (Image credit: DC / Marvel Comics)įor decades Marvel and DC were the Coke and Pepsi … the McDonald's and Burger King … the Yankees and Red Sox of superhero publishers.
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