Marvel/DC/Whatever: Origings of "Your" Brand (Or How You Got In to Comics)

[Something Amyss]

Or, rather, "Did you pick your brand?"

This is the sort of thing that rattles around my head occasionally, and it sort of came up mostly because I've heard a couple YouTube personalities who aren't strictly comics fans sound off on the Marvel vs DC thing. And, I don't know, the longer I've been alive, the more I realised I don't really have a particular brand loyalty so much as I have a brand habit.

My dad is a huge nerd, you see. He has been collecting comics for ages before I was born, and he continued buying them for quite some time after I was born. And most of those comics were Marvel. I was exposed to Batman and some Superman, but not much else in the world of DC. So when I started reading comics, I had this huge back catalogue of Marvel comics to choose from, including a large amount of Marvel Team-Ups where I was introduced to new characters by virtue of them being paired off with old characters. And so I just continued buying Marvel stuff when I was older. I knew dozens of heroes from Marvel easily, and I knew basically most of the mbers of the Justice League on the DC end (and most of that from their TV incarnations, to be honest). And that's all there was to it. No "Marvel is better," no "I hate DC," just...."Oh, hey, these guys are familiar!"

I see a lot of X v Y when it comes to comics. And it's not like I have no preferences whatsoever, but I'm not as entrenched as a lot of people seem to be. I'm sort of wondering if this is unusual, though, or maybe if it's more common than I thought.

And if that's not interesting enough, how did you folks get into comics? My father was convinced it would help get me into reading. My brother, too. We're both still big readers. I don't know if those two are strictly related or just coincidental, though.

Captcha: Brand Lift. Interesting timing.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I guess that would two people that got me into comicbooks-

First my mate (now former) from High School. Before him I only knew comicbook from cartoons like Spiderman and Batman TAS. The comics he owned were pretty much Marvel and Spawn. He lend me a few issues mainly Deadpool which I guess I had to thank him for introducing me to Deadpool before he got popular.

Second mate from University. I suppose it was also thank to my mate mention above that I found a topic to talked to him about when we first met. I mention that I was into comicbook but did not lnow alot due to limit exposal (and this was when Spiderman and X-Men had come out a couple of years ago). Anyway he help me to widen my knowledge on Marvel and DC by mentioning previous and current story arc (House of M and Civil War etc) and some bio on come characters. Also this was when broadband was new and since Universirty had it (I was using 56k modern back home) I pretty much soak into the comicbook ocean for a few days and was up to date with the arc and a few characters!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Marvel/DC binary never affected me. Most of what I know about it I've gathered from The Escapist. Apparently a lot of people feel like you have to "pick a side".

I grew up reading Asterix, Lucky Luke and Tintin. And these days I like collecting old-but-not-that-old (i.e. 80s/90s) Batman comics, because ever since the Chris Nolan movies and the Arkham games I've become a huge Batman fan, and it followed that I wanted more of it. So I read Long Halloween, Arkham Asylum, Knightfall, etc.

 

[Anachronism]

I don't really think there was any specific thing that got me into comics. I just started reading them at one point. I think I read Watchmen to see what all the fuss was about, and from there I just fell deeper down the rabbit hole. Doesn't make for a particularly good story, but that's just how it goes sometimes.

I really don't like the idea of having to prefer one publisher over another. I'm not innocent of it - I tend to favour DC, but that's mostly because I really like Superman and the Vertigo imprint - but it's not good for readers or for the industry. All that matters are good comics and bad comics, and the only factor in customer loyalty to a particular publisher should be how many of their comics are good.

Which means, at the moment, everyone should be flocking to Image's banner, because they are publishing damn near every comic that I actually find interesting these days. I finished the first volume of Rat Queens a few days ago and it's bloody brilliant.

 

[Eamar]

I came to comics late - I must have been around 14, and I used to spend a lot of time in my school library. I randomly picked up a book containing a run of Uncanny X-Men stories from the 70s. I instantly fell in love with the whole concept of the X-Men (they're still my favourite thing in comics), realised that comics were definitely for me and made a conscious decision to get into them.

At first I didn't stick so completely to Marvel, but I quickly realised that I much preferred Marvel's style over DC's, and as it became apparent how huge and complex the main superhero universes are, I decided that I only really had time to become very familiar with one, so I chose Marvel. Never regretted my decision so far.

I do read non-Marvel stuff too, of course. Got very into the idea of standalone graphic novels at an early stage, and devoured things like V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and I've also started getting into Hellboy and Judge Dredd in a big way, but mostly I'm a Marvel girl.

EDIT: I don't know how others do it, but I take a "branching" approach to comics - I started out with Uncanny X-Men, then as other storylines or characters that interested me cropped up or were mentioned I'd investigate them, repeat the process with them and so on. The result is that at any one time I'll be reading a baffling array of characters from vastly different times, which keeps things interesting.

 

[DeimosMasque]

When I was in Third Grade our English class did a "pen pal" thing with the eight graders. My 8th Grader pen pal sent with his letter a comic book: Uncanny X-Men 245. I was hooked and started devouring X-Men comics and then a year later the Tim Burton Batman movie came out and that started me reading Batman comics.

All these years later... I dropped out of comics in the min-late 90s. Then got back in when I heard Grant Morrison was writing New X-Men, decided to check it out and got hooked, this time I stayed hooked. I devour everything comic book related now, I'll try nearly any book for five issues.

In fact, I had my copy of Uncanny X-Men 245 signed by it's writer Chris Claremont just last year. He leafed through it and asked "You sure you want me to sign this, it's really beat up." I said it'd be an honor and told him the story. It's hanging on my wall, worn out spine, cover, and even staple marks. First comic I ever owned, signed by one of my favorite comic writers of all time.

 

[Fappy]

I've always been a Marvel guy because of the characters. I got drawn in first by the X-Men and later by the Avengers. In high school I went through tons of Stan and Kirby's really old stuff from the 60's and 70's (I have half a bookshelf of essentials collections) and fell in love with all the original characters from the Silver Age. Having been enamored by Silver Age comics it is only fitting that I gravitated more and more into Marvel's camp. The 60's aren't remembered as the "Marvel Age" for nothing. Their books were just light-years better than DC's at the time. It wasn't until the 70's that DC really started to get it (see the famous 70's Green Lantern/Green Arrow as a good example of DC figuring it out).

I've never had anything against DC per say, it's just that these universes are so far up their own asses when it comes to continuity that kids with limited time and incomes like I used to could only feasibly invest in one of them. I really got into modern comics in the mid 00's (at the dawn of the yearly event phenomenon), so it was really important to know what was going on in the different corners of the continuity at any given time if I were to keep up.

I'm not currently keeping up with either company. I never had the energy to invest in the DCU after becoming so intimate with Marvel lore and Marvel's been in the shitter since before the EiC change, unfortunately. In fact, I have been looking for a good new-ish book to pick up. Haven't had much luck so far. Saga is alright and I have been meaning to pick up the rest of the D&D comics as they are surprisingly good (and features the wonderful artist who did Annihilation).

 

[Vault101]

my answer would be neither....

snip.

I found a random copy of transmetropolitan #8...liked the look of it...bought all the ones the comic store had on a whim and...well thats it

I don't read super heros, I did a bit of batwoman and batgirl but I've fallen off with the latter and with the drama surrounding the former...meh

I prefer self containd storys

Which means, at the moment, everyone should be flocking to Image's banner, because they are publishing damn near every comic that I actually find interesting these days. I finished the first volume of Rat Queens a few days ago and it's bloody brilliant.

I just got issue 1 of pretty deadly (probably the TPB coming out soon)

the popularity of superheros kind of...counfound me, like I think eather the appeal is there or it just isn't, and for me it just isn't

I once read a comment on io9 saying the biggest problem with the industry is they are limited to one distributor (diamond something) which puts stores balls in a vice I feel like comics could be a lot more mainstream if they had better exposure and the publics veiw of them wasn't "super hero universes that only hardcores can really enjoy"

Aamazon bought comixology which is interesting

I'm not currently keeping up with either company. I never had the energy to invest in the DCU after becoming so intimate with Marvel lore and Marvel's been in the shitter since before the EiC change, unfortunately. In fact, I have been looking for a good new-ish book to pick up. Haven't had much luck so far. Saga is alright and I have been meaning to pick up the rest of the D&D comics as they are surprisingly good (and features the wonderful artist who did Annihilation).

image puts out a lot of good stuff thease days...there is also Locke & Key which finished recently

 

[Zontar]

My father always bought me and my brother comics from France and Belgium (Asterix, Tintin, and a long list that probably most North Americans have never herd of). I always loved them, but for most I've grown out of them. For more traditional hero comics, I got into them when I entered CEGEP and the building right next to the school had a comic book store on the second floor. Picked up some comics that looked interested, subscribed to the ones I liked, and now I'm a bit of a Marvel fanboy when it comes to the comics themselves (the Marvel Animeverse and the cartoons are ok, but nothing will ever top the DCAU) since I found them to be more to my taste. The funny thing is, for DC, I came in at the most opportune moment since it was at the same time as the start of New 52, but the comics just didn't run with me. I can see why someone would like them, I just don't personally. (Except Red Hood and the Outlaws, that baffles me to this day)

 

[TheRiddler]

Started with cartoon strip collections of Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Foxtrot. Read Spider-Man comics at a friend's house. Watched the Justice League cartoon and BTAS reruns as a kid. Read a lot of great Batman stories (Long Halloween, Killing Joke, Death in the Family, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Gotham by Gaslight).

Looked through middle-school library comic book section. Read Maus, Bone, (some of)Chew and Persepolis. Read Kingdom Come, Justice, Marvels, decided Alex Ross was the greatest graphic novel artist ever.

Read some Superman stories (All-Star, Red Son, For All Seasons). Read Watchmen (which I found pretty mind-blowing considering that majority of comics I had read up till that point had been idealistic, Silver Age [Watchmen's also the reason I'm doing this post in Rorschach mode]). Read all of Alan Moore's stuff (including the weirder stuff).

Read a lot of Neil Gaiman's stuff. Read some Frank Miller. Read DKSA, ASBAR. Stopped reading Frank Miller. Read some Hellboy. Read Preacher. Read the Walking Dead. And so on...

Have I picked a brand? Majority of the stuff I've read is DC, but I don't think I really could pick a side. Both have their moments. Both have their mistakes.

 

[Mr. Q]

I started getting into comics at a very young age; single digits I mean. My older brother was into comics like Marvel's run of GI Joe but I didn't start out with a brand like Marvel or DC. I saw some issues from the big two, but I was into Archie comics and the Star Comics imprint. Books like Spectacular Spider-Ham (yes, you're reading that right) and Madballs along with Top Dog and Heathcliff were in my collection. When the late 80s came around, I got into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman when they hit big. By the 90s, I was slowly but surely expanding into lesser known characters from the big two plus some independent stuff here and there. Got into Frank Miller's Sin City in the late 90s but I wasn't too big into the grim and gritty stuff that came out during that period. I truly enjoyed the Busiek run of Avengers and Morrison's JLA. Plus I got into Alex Ross with Marvels and Kingdom Come. His treasury books of the DC superheroes were a great read.

These days, I'm only on one title from the racks and its the new She-Hulk series. But I pick up tpb's like The Goon and I just got the 6th volume to Justice League International (the original run and not the New 52 relaunch). Wish DC Comics would get back to printing the rest of the JLI run.

 

[KazeAizen]

I don't prefer DC or Marvel. I like both. I got into comics though way late. I had watched the old X-men show, Spider-man, and the entire DCAU growing up yet I had never picked up a damn book before or after that. I finally decided to jump in after The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers hit. Not too long before then DC had just launched the New 52 and Marvel was beginning a similar relaunch called Marvel NOW! So I jumped on those comics.....right at about the same time everyone jumped off saying they were shit and all that. Kind of like Final Fantasy. I jumped on at XIII while everyone else proceeded to jump off and then pelt the train with all manner of bullets and high explosives while I was still on it. Apparently I can't do anything right when it comes to joining a new franchise.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I like them both, honestly. I first started reading comics in the late 90's early 00 (and missing out on the whole early 90's comic debacle). The had comics at my local library, so I started picking them up and found they were actually pretty good. So, there's that.

 

[deathbydeath]

I was never that huge into actually collecting and reading through comics, but because the two things I love most in fiction are idealized/abstracted/iconic characters and massive settings/universes with a lot of moving parts, mainstream superhero comics are my friggin' jam. That said, I do have a preference for Marvel over DC for some reason I can't quite put my finger on yet. The characters I've encountered just don't grab my attention, but with that said I'm planning on picking up a super-duper massive hardback edition of Kingdom Come so I'm not entirely against the idea of DC producing things I like. I am also of the belief that Matt Fraction's current Hawkeye run is the best thing in print as well.

Interestingly enough, though, my favorite superhero story/universe is from the web serial Worm [http://parahumans.wordpress.com/]. While it is a deconstruction of superheroes, it isn't the cynical, edgy, and fatigued pseudophilosophy we've come to expect from things like Watchmen or Kick-Ass. While the main character is a supervillain, the setting is a great homage to silver age characteristics, with parahumans calling themselves things like "Armsmaster", "Legend", and "Jack Slash". It picks apart some really engaging ideas like the loopholes in conventional morality (especially when you have a hero/villain dichotomy), the idea of actually altering your identity when you put on a mask, and how far is too far when you're dealing with threats that can literally end the world. It also gets bonus points for being the easiest superhero setting I could imagine actually happening irl and simultaneously having a guy who can shoot lasers around corners and a kaiju that sunk Newfoundland.

 

[Ieyke]

I essentially got "into comics" via Batman TAS, Spider-Man TAS, and X-Men TAS.

They're 3 of the best cartoons ever made.
From Batman TAS I branched into Superman TAS and Batman Beyond, and then later into Justice League/JLU. Those were pretty great.

From Spider-Man TAS and X-Men TAS I branched into The Incredible Hulk TAS, Fantastic Four TAS, Silver Surfer TAS, Iron Man TAS, etc. Aside from Silver Surfer, they weren't very good, but they were still interesting.

Eventually X-Men:Evolution came along and that was good.

And then....uh... Then there was a gulf of nothingness for a while. I saw all the movies, but I wasn't any more a fan of them than I was because of the cartoons.
Eventually I sort of started just poking around and researching my favorite characters from way back in the day of the 90's cartoons, and that research lead me to other characters, which lead me to other characters, which lead me to major storylines, which lead me to the history of comics.
Eventually I became a living encyclopedia of the Marvel Universe.

Marvel is totally superior.

A lot of the Justice League's major heroes are pretty good, especially Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow and Green Lantern, and Batman has a lot of the best supporting characters and supervillains in comics, but the rest of the DC Universe is kinda...whatever. And DC Comics has stupid story arcs, handles a lot of characters poorly, constantly screws things up, reboots the universe so often that you can't become invested in the characters before their histories and personalities get invalidated.

Marvel has a MASSIVE cast of fantastic heroes and villains. A lot of Marvel's characters ARE ideas DC did first....but then Marvel did many of them MUCH better or equally well. And Marvel has loads of stuff that DC has no counterpart to. Marvel is constantly doing weird and interesting story arcs, and they continue developing characters foooorever. If there's something broken in the Marvel Universe they find a way to explain it and keep their continuity in tact.

You can just look at the movies they make and see their practices reflected perfectly.
Marvel has vibrant and interesting characters of all different flavors, with lots of interesting storylines, and they've built a huge universe with solid continuity.
DC has sucked all the life out of their movies and turned them into just muted color, grim, angsty nonsense, with bad portrayals of their characters, and they apparently can't keep a continuity going. They said Green Lantern was going to be the start of their DC Cinematic Universe....and scrapped that. Then they said it was Man Of Steel...and now they've scrapped that. Batman has been replaced in the movies like 5 times in my life. And they KNOW that Batman is the only character they can rely on to make people interested. That's why there have been 5 movie Batmans in the last 23 years, and why we now we have 5 Batman Arkham games and 2 Lego Batmans. See any other DC Heroes getting that treatment? No. Marvel meanwhile utilizes LOADS of different heroes and villains for all their projects, because they know they all work - hence Marvel Ultimate Alliance, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, The Avengers movies, etc etc.

My ex is a MASSIVE Batman fan. I got her into comics and she got into Batman like WHOA. She was super happy with it until she got in deep enough to see DC's pattern....and then she just got mad and sad, and "Oh god, why can't Marvel own Batman??!??!".

Right now, Arrow is one of the best shows on TV, and it is ABSOLUTELY the best thing DC has done in 6 years.
It is a weird isolated miracle.
The fact that it has made it through season 2 and only gets better and better and better is a genuine miracle.
Arrow and the old DCAU are proof that DC has all the massive POTENTIAL of Marvel, but that it just utterly fails to utilize it.
I WANT DC to be great.
It just isn't.
That's sad.

 

[V4Viewtiful]

My older Bro got me into comics but the cartoons and movies in the 90s helped.
the only Marvel book I got was Spider-man stuff but I had loads of DC comics (Spidey and Bats was my fav). As I grew up more I got more Marvel stuff but I always prefered DC now I prefer Marvel a tad more (well, a lot now).
Thanks to cable I watched the even older DC and Marvel cartoons too, I even watched the Spawn anime.

My brother also got me to try Image comics and from there other publishers. I buy more indie books now because Marvel and DC cancel more of the stuff I like and price me out of buying their stuff.

Spidey 2099 is coming soon Y'all!

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I would say my dad got me into comics in general, by making me watch Smallville with him and my mom when i was younger. I grew up DC, but I became a Marvel girl when I was younger. I remember going to see X-men the last stand as my first PG-13 movie when I was 12 and falling in love.

 

[Something Amyss]

Interesting the number of parental responses.

The Marvel/DC binary never affected me. Most of what I know about it I've gathered from The Escapist. Apparently a lot of people feel like you have to "pick a side".

This was more or less real to me since I was a kid. And I suppose I defaulted to the "Marvel" camp because it's what I read, but I was never really all "MARVEL RULES!"

Still, this may be regional. My family gets all disgusted that I drink Coke instead of Pepsi, and didn't like my previous stance of "Whatever's on sale this week." I drank a lot of Pepsi when I was sick a few years ago. Really sick. And I have this association built up between the two to the point where Pepsi now triggers an ill feeling. But nooooooo....The lines are drawn and I am the enemy!

Tangent aside, there may be a reason you didn't com across it til the Escapist.

I grew up reading Asterix, Lucky Luke and Tintin. And these days I like collecting old-but-not-that-old (i.e. 80s/90s) Batman comics, because ever since the Chris Nolan movies and the Arkham games I've become a huge Batman fan, and it followed that I wanted more of it. So I read Long Halloween, Arkham Asylum, Knightfall, etc.

Until the mid or late nineties, I'd never heard of Lucky Luke or Asterix, and only knew Tintin because there was a cartoon. I still haven't read a single Tintin comic. Nothing against him, mind. Just....They didn't stock the comics here when I was a kid and I no longer care enough to seek them out.

but mostly I'm a Marvel girl.

But are you Marvel Girl?

EDIT: I don't know how others do it, but I take a "branching" approach to comics - I started out with Uncanny X-Men, then as other storylines or characters that interested me cropped up or were mentioned I'd investigate them, repeat the process with them and so on. The result is that at any one time I'll be reading a baffling array of characters from vastly different times, which keeps things interesting.

I swear, this was intentional marketing or something. This is how I got into like 80% of the comics I read. A lot of them directly related to Spider-Man at first, but over time the 7 stages of separation deal meant that I was dealing in all sorts of characters.

my answer would be neither....

To which question? How you got into comics, or why you read the ones you read?

This isn't an X-v-Y thread. In fact, it was sort of started specifically because I don't get the "line in the sand" mentality.

Transmet is fun, though. I need to see if it's available in ebook format since my previous collections were ruined.

image puts out a lot of good stuff thease days...there is also Locke & Key which finished recently

Image is still around?

The only time I think about them is when Linkara reviews their comics from the 90s and I'm like "Holy crap! I remember when hat was hot stuff!"

Not too long before then DC had just launched the New 52 and Marvel was beginning a similar relaunch called Marvel NOW! So I jumped on those comics.....right at about the same time everyone jumped off saying they were shit and all that.

I don't know anything about Marvel Now! besides the main concept, but the New 52 is a real clusterhump. Like, I was under the impression it was supposed to be a total reboot of the DC Universe. But I picked up Batgirl collection on sale on Amazon, and it's the first several issues of The New 52 version....But they're referencing events from the 90s when I last actively read the series. Now, I'm no big city lawyer, but that seems like a bad way to reboot a franchise. I hear some are more rebooted than others, but wow. May have been a bad time to jump on, I don't know.

I would say my dad got me into comics in general, by making me watch Smallville with him and my mom when i was younger. I grew up DC, but I became a Marvel girl when I was younger. I remember going to see X-men the last stand as my first PG-13 movie when I was 12 and falling in love.

And now I feel oooooooooooold.

 

[KazeAizen]

Interesting the number of parental responses.

Not too long before then DC had just launched the New 52 and Marvel was beginning a similar relaunch called Marvel NOW! So I jumped on those comics.....right at about the same time everyone jumped off saying they were shit and all that.

I don't know anything about Marvel Now! besides the main concept, but the New 52 is a real clusterhump. Like, I was under the impression it was supposed to be a total reboot of the DC Universe. But I picked up Batgirl collection on sale on Amazon, and it's the first several issues of The New 52 version....But they're referencing events from the 90s when I last actively read the series. Now, I'm no big city lawyer, but that seems like a bad way to reboot a franchise. I hear some are more rebooted than others, but wow. May have been a bad time to jump on, I don't know.

See as I had only really delved into comics post The Avengers movie I didn't actually know much about the source material. I mean I had read The Killing Joke and that was it and I knew vaguely why Bane was villain in TDKR because I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the hell they would pick him as my last memories of him were from that movie which would've worked so much better as an Adam West style Batman revival (which I think we should have anyway). So yeah I did some digging and eventually found out why they chose Bane. Because he was Batman's Doomsday.

After I picked up The New 52 I started learning who the big shot artists were like Alex Ross and who the big writers were, Alan Moore, Frank "kiss my super ass" Miller, Grant Morrison and the like. I quickly discovered what DC did wrong and why, or at least partly why, people were mad. I got into the comics so they got a new fan that actually reads the books which is what they were trying to do in the first place. Part of the reason is that they didn't fully reboot their universe. A handful of select heroes got to keep their entire history like Batman or GL. So yeah a half hearted reboot is grounds for annoying people, or maybe it was a way to get new people to buy older books and the way they implemented it caused them to not quite stick the landing. I still don't think it was a bad time. Part of the backlash was usual fanboy pissing and moaning and a small portion was justified.

Marvel NOW! is sort of the same thing. They relaunched most of their books with new #1s but I believe it is the world post X-men vs. Avengers (which I haven't read yet) in that its still the same story and universe its just during that event some things happened that could set the world back to a proverbial zero case and give them a new launch pad. Though they still weren't saved from fanboy pissing and moaning. See Superior Spider-man for that. It was just all weird.

Funny. In the last 5 years I've finally arrived to three of the biggest and oldest nerd parties to find out that I'm stupid for joining now. DC comic train, Marvel comic train, and the Final Fantasy train (started with XIII).