You. Yes you. The one reading the newspaper right now. Quick, think of your favorite

superhero movie! (but don’t say it out loud because that’s weird). Without it being too much of a

wild guess, that movie is probably a property of either Marvel or DC comics, (Feel free to look it

up). And here, we find our subject matter. Though the two companies seem to compete on

every front, movies are arguably the most public, least nerdy, and most profitable. And DC

seems to be having trouble keeping up.

Let’s start with some numbers. When comparing information from the DC and Marvel

official websites, we find a few specific things. DC lists 41 animated, and 26 real-life movies,

with 57 TV series. Marvel lists five animated, and 46 real-life movies, with 30 TV series. It’s easy

to see which company has a niche in which area.

Marvel’s big big-screen success is largely due to the fact that Disney studios owns and

produces it’s movies. Let’s not lie, if you had 180 billion dollars worth of childhood magic funding

your movies you’d go places too. While DC sits on the 70 billion dollars worth of Warner

Brothers entertainment. (NET worths of both companies are from Forbes.com) Both WB and

Disney are good, but the difference in funding is obvious.

And just by looking at the reputations of these two motion picture companies we can find

the differences in success. Disney pumps out the family-friendly high budget tender moments at

breakneck pace. While WB cranks each new concept-spanning PG 13 action movie out with

something like a tireless march. And kids and family is not the same Genre as high intensity

action. Although the Marvel movies are getting more realistically dark, and DC hires good actors

to balance out all the punching, they remain basically in their places regarding audiences.

So, with Marvel planning a huge Disney-fueled legion of interconnected stand-alone and

Team-up movies to come out over the next ten years (*cough cough* Infinity war), where does

that leave DC? With the fading glory of the Dark Knight series, and a decent superman movie

that was designed around being a stand-alone. So, not much.

Now, DC has other ways of making money. The Arkham video games, Teen Titans Go

TV series (sadly), and New 52 reboots have all been large successes, but when trapped in

Marvel’s giant mouse-ear adorned cinematic shadow, it gets cold. Apparently, cold to the point

of desperation. And, (not to sound like a commercial) when you get desperate, you start

attempting to plan your own onslaught of character run-ins.

But with marvel already three steps ahead, and gaining speed. How do you catch up?

You don’t. With Critics and even die hard fans disapproving of almost every plot point in Batman

V Superman, Dawn of Justice (man that’s a long title), and strange vibes coming from other

upcoming titles, DC has hit a major road block. Because, no matter how hard they try, nothing

re-creates the Avengers movies. But that won’t stop DC from trying.

Okay, now look back at the title of the article. See where I’m going? DC is going down

the path of bandwagon competition. If Pepsi started to copy Coke out of pure desperation, the

balance of light and dark in this universe would be off. So why did DC do it? Maybe because

they think they’re the hero that moviegoers deserve. But not the one they need right now. Or

something like that.