Movies (recently seen)

[Dragavan]

...Doctor Strange... Is that the one Comic Superhero who uses accult-ish things for his powers and, while occasionally appearing to help Superman or Batman, ect., is too overpowered to really have his own series?

No Doctor Strange is the MARVEL comics character (not DC) that is the master of the occult, known as the Sorcerer Supreme. He spends a lot of time on other planes of existence, keeping the evils there from invading our universe, and is therefore often too busy to help Spider-Man and others with their petty potential world ending problems. Actually a really cool character. The '70s TV movie was utter crap, but the Animated movie out last year was pretty good (although a little two much sword and swashbuckling).

[Leblanc4prez]

Marvel Heros could kick DC heros any day of the week!

[Dragavan]

Marvel Heros could kick DC heros any day of the week!

As much as I would LOVE to agree... you are very wrong here. The main problem I have with DC is their major heroes are WAY too powerful.

Their flagship character, Superman, is nearly infinitely strong and invulnerable to everything. The only things that can hurt him are an element not naturally found on this planet (which the creators of him didn't want to add, but were forced to after the popularity of the serial), magic (which was added much later to give him another weakness), and super-strong aliens (because they figured he would have to be affected by others like himself).

Wonder Woman is nearly as powerful as Superman, only she's from here so she doesn't share the same odd alien weaknesses. In fact, she can even use magic in some cases.

And rounding out the big three is Batman, the only "normal" human among them. He just happens to be a highly trained expert in every form of martial arts, science (biology, geology, astronomy, etc.), mechanical engineering, History, and tons of other subjects. Plus he has enough money to create millions of devices and gadgets that can do nearly everything he can't, but somehow does it all in total secrecy.

Then you move out into the supporting cast of major heroes and you have Flash (the fasted person in the universe — even able to "vibrate" through solid matter), Green Lantern (cosmic power to create nearly anything out of green energy... now with no weaknesses), Aquaman (Seems kind of lame, but super strong and controls all aquatic life without error), Martian Manhunter (Another one who has close to Superman level powers PLUS shapeshifting), and many more.

Not to mention all the gods, aliens, and "dead" people that interact with them all the time. The universe is just on a way higher power level overall than Marvel... which also happens to make them far less interesting characters to me (other than Batman... love me some Batman).

Marvel, on the other hand, have less insanely powerful beings (although there are a few) and all their main central heroes are all very flawed. They are far more interesting characters, but nowhere near a match for the DC pantheon. In fact, when they did the Marvel vs DC thing they had to do some very creative matching and a LOT of cheating to give Marvel a fighting chance (The only two I really liked out of it was Lobo vs Wolverine and Aquaman vs Namor).

[Leblanc4prez]

I mearly ment I prefer Marvel. spidey is one of my all time favorites. Although the movies kinda sucked... The original comics and cartoon series rocked. But I have found one DC hero that totaly sucks... "The Falcon". He is a dude in a bird costume that can talk to a bird. That's about it... And Apache Chief. What? He can grow tall? Big woop!

[Usoki]

I'm definetly gonna go with Drag on this. Most of DC is boring because, in the end, nothing can challenge them. Though Hawk Girl still manages to crack me up. And Wonder Woman villains are amusing, because of how Greek Mythical they are, but...in the end, I just don't have much interest in the DC world.

It's like an unbalanced D&D game- it's fun for awhile, but you eventually grow bored when nothing can come close to challenging you.

[Dragavan]

I finally just saw The Mist. Very well done and creepy movie. Sure, they added an ending onto it, unlike the novella (which was left open ended), but the ending worked with the depressing nature of the movie. The acting was far better than I expected and a few of them got the characters down perfect.

I also just saw Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I am not a Will Farrell fan by any stretch of the imagination (kind of hate a lot his work), but I have to admit that this movie was one of his best. It had some really funny shit in it, but that didn't make it a great movie overall. I will most likely check out the second movie they made out of the extra and deleted footage (Wake Up Ron Burgundy), but it's not gonna make my top list of things to see.

---

Back on the DC comics vs Marvel front (which may need to be turned into it's own thread it more is to be said) I wanted to reply to Usoki. Yes, there are some really crap and powerless characters in both camps (Catman of DC, Cypher of Marvel, Arm Fall Off Boy of DC, The Dazzler of Marvel, and so on), but most of them are mostly ignored and rarely seen again on the DC side and can have relatively common and even starring roles in Marvel. There are also some uber-powered characters in both too. The main difference is that the majority of DC's main focus is on the overpowered (as we both stated) and Marvel makes them rarities that usually have to be overcome by the heroes.

I really wish I was making up Arm Fall Off Boy.

[Locke]

You forgot Batman's biggest asset, Alfred, who keeps his world running. Without Alfred, Bruce would probably sleep through the deals he needs to make to fund the crime fighting, and end up getting outed as Batman somewhere in there as well. I don't see it working out if he lost his butler.

Superman is also vulnerable to a prolonged lack of higher-spectrum sunlight, not to mention being limited to Metropolis a good deal of the time because of all the villains, and in case Jimmy and Lois need saving again. Though as he relies so very much on bullets just bouncing off of him, I don't see why the villains don't load up some guns with the kryptonite. I guess that would kind of suck as a plot.

And what happens when you throw the bad guys into the mix? Luthor, the Joker? Please. There are an awful lot of X-men and such to make up the difference, too, including Xavier, who can kill you just by thinking about you.

EDIT: Yeah, it'd probably be amusing to do a thread devoted to the comics clash.

[Leblanc4prez]

And also why did Superman duck when the crooks threw the empty guns at him?

[apotheosis]

I'm actually kind of conflicted. On the one hand Marvel has all the X-Men which is a hell of a lot of fighting power on their side, but DC has the Justice League which includes Batman who can outwit and defeat basically anyone. I dunno, in comic book logic I think DC might triumph but in reality, if all of these super heroes and their powers were real Marvel would definitely kick their asses.



Actually, wait a minute. Watchmen were from DC comics, therefore everything I just said is null and void and DC would dominate Marvel.

[Leblanc4prez]

And now back to der movies yes?

[Usoki]

The Muppet Christmas Carol is love. Just sayin'. I don't care how far away Christmas is, it's always a good movie to watch, and the songs are utterly amazing.

[Leblanc4prez]

Amen. The Muppets are awesome. I'm a die-hard "Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mahem" fan.

[apotheosis]

Speaking of Muppets, Kermit has a thriving solo career now.

http://sadkermit.com/

[Leblanc4prez]

Now I'm sad too... And that's hard to do. Oh well, a nice grilled cheese sandwitch'll make it all better!

[Dragavan]

Iron Man ROCKS

Marvel has really done a great thing here with their first In-House production. I look forward to see what they are going to do next (some of which are hinted at in the movie, and after the credits). The story was well done, and mostly followed the comic (although updated and changed a little for our modern world). It also didn't really feel like a superhero movie, since he is a techie business guy who builds electronics and stuff (not radioactive spider or aliens from a destroyed planet), but still rocked ass.

I don't want to give anything away right now, so I will stop typing right now... but Damn... they did good.