Comics - Marvel vs DC

In an earlier post I mentioned that I read comics on a regular basis, however, I only read Marvel books, and not DC. After reading many other comics blogs, I thought I better explain myself so that I would not be shunned from the community. This is my story.

My mom collected comic books growing up. She grew up in the mid to late '60s, and she only read DC. She passed her collection on to me when I was about 10, and this collection is full of classic Silver Age DC comics. I have numerous Silver Age issues of Superman, Action, Batman, Detective, Adventure, Wonder Woman, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and Justice League. I read these growing up myself, and I loved them. I loved the stories and the bizarre things that would happen in these Silver Age books. Just see every other comics blog on the web for great examples.

I never bought any of my own comic books growing up, because I had these, and I could read them at will, no need to buy new ones. A couple of years ago I read about Infinite Crisis, a big DC crossover event, in Entertainment Weekly. When I read about it, I got the impression that this would be a great jumping on point for the DCU, so I picked up the seven issues in the main series, and started getting Action, Superman, Batman, Detective, and Justice League. Just like momma used to buy! Then I started reading them. I had no clue what was going on! Multiple Earths, weird characters, insane violence! What was going on? I thought I would stick with them for a few months to see where they would go.

While I was at the comic book store I decided to pick up a copy of The New Avengers, because it had a lot of characters I recognized on it. I mean, who doesn't recognize Spider-Man, Captain America, and Iron Man. I thought it might be interesting. Well, this book was eminently more understandable and easy to follow than the DC books. It was fun, and quick, and even though I had never read a Marvel book, I knew who everyone was, and the story was fun.

Shortly after that I decided to start picking up The New Avengers regularly, and what started right after I began picking these up? That's right, The Civil War! I starting picking all of these issues up, just to get the whole story, and that was it, I was hooked in the Marvel U. Shortly after that I had to drop the DC books, just to keep up with Marvel.

I know DC is supposed to be mythic and powerful, but the universe was just to hard for me to follow. Marvel made sense because it seemed a lot more like the real world. It doesn't have the same qualities that I grew up enjoying with my mom's Silver Age books, but I don't think anything ever will. Well, except DC Showcases, The War That Time Forgot was freaking awesome!

For now, Make Mine Marvel, but who knows what the future will bring, I still hold the classic DC characters close to my heart.

Tomorrow: TV