It’s undeniable, Marvel is kicking DC’s ass.
Deadpool came around and crashed all expectations, then came* Thor: Ragnarok*, and then Black Panther... And they all did the same.
Infinity War is only a few weeks old and it’s already one of the most popular movies ever made, one of the best-selling in history and it’s still going strong.
Then Deadpool comes back again and wrecks havoc. Standing in strong contrast with their rival franchise The DCEU.
On the other side of the spectrum - and aside from Wonder Woman - almost every DC movie in the recent years have faced some serious criticism, quite justifiably I may add.
You see, the first thing that jumps to mind comparing the two franchises is that Marvel movies are engineous, fun, vibrant… They bend the rules, and because of that they’re often refreshing.
The DC movies however are none of these things.
The curious part comes when you compare some extremely similar plotlines that both franchises share, and observe how the way each of them approaches the story couldn’t be more different.
Let’s try a fun exercise.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: In a movie where most superheroes of the franchise assemble (Civil War/ Dawn of Justice) the main plot revolves around a Billionaire orphan (Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark) taking on one of the most popular superheroes (Superman, Captain America) trying to put their power in check.
There are plenty of other similarities that we will skip through, such as both movies starting in Africa, both having an event that backfired causing world wide outrage, both having the United Nation assemble and a bomb exploding in that meeting, both movies have a seen where the billionaire orphan watch their parents get murdered… And a bunch of other plotlines.
However this is where the balance starts to tip.
The Tale of the Two Storytellers: The Compelling Struggle
In Captain America: Civil War, the struggle is a one of ideologies. On one side we have Tony Stark who values safety over liberty because of the guilt he’s carrying, and on the other we have Steve Rogers who doesn’t understand the Post-Patriot Act America, and instead he values freedom and privacy over “security”.
The main subplot revolves around Bucky Barnes, who is the only example of what happens when they surrender their powers to the government. They corrupted him, brainwashed him and turned him into a killing machine for political gain.
Tony Stark wants to send Bucky back to the state so they can do with him what they want, knowing that the orders are to kill him on sight.
Steve Rogers remains loyal and defends his friend, he doesn’t accept the “shoot-first, ask questions later” and doesn’t seem to fit in this new world he’s been brought to. No matter the stakes, he still believes in investigation and the right fair trial.
Later on, Tony discovers that Bucky was in fact framed which leads him to re-examine his own beliefs.
In the midst such a brutal face-off, most of the superheroes side either with Iron Man or with Captain America.
All of them caught in clash of ideologies between safety, security and blindly following the law… And others leaning towards freedom, privacy and the unalienable human rights.
And there are some who can see both point of views, like Natasha Romanoff who understands that Tony’s guilt is what’s pushing him towards those draconian laws.
And she understands Steve Roger’s side too, which is that governments can be - and have been proven - to be corrupted, quite easily and with vast frequency.
You see, this is a struggle that everyone relates to. They seem real, because they are real. Your brain is stimulated in a similar manner than if it was a real situation which allows the storyteller to take you into an emotional roller-coaster.
The role of the storyteller to make you care. To make you care about the plot and to make the characters relatable to the audience.
In Batman v Superman however, there was a clear oversight in this regard.
Why were Batman and Superman fighting? For some reason Superman rubbed Batman wrong and he just wanted him gone.
Even his closest and oldest friend Alfred struggled to understand such animosity. “He is not our enemy, Bruce” he kept trying to reason with him.
At some point, it has gotten so ridiculous then when Clark Kent saved hundreds of people in Mexico, Bruce Wayne says like something like “Big deal! We don’t need him to save a cat from a tree”.
Now why in hell would you make your darkest character sound like a jealous teenage girl?
Needless to say, the character development lacked a lot of substance.
In comparison to that, in Civil War neither of the character had the absolute knowledge of what’s right and what’s wrong. Which makes it all the more realistic.
Both sides are full of doubt, and constantly re-examine their views (like Tony stark meeting with the victims of Sokova..etc) and despite everything, they still don’t know.
At the end, no one has a choice but to fight for what they stand for.
These are complex multi-layered characters and the viewers resonate with that because they too have multi-layered and complex personalities and life stories. They too have faced struggle in their lives.
And best of all, no one has the absolute truth, no one knows for sure. All they can do is to stick to their principals no matter the cost while delivering the audience a trepid clash of ideologies.
There is no clash of ideologies in Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice. Hell, there is no compelling reason behind the clash.
The technical term is known as the “Compelling Struggle” which is totally absent in the DC franchise.
This is how the main clash resolves in Dawn of Justice:
Batman tries to kill Superman and he almost succeeds. Just when he was about to end his life with Kryptonite Superman says “Martha…” and Batman realizes that his mom too is called Martha, so Batman immediately turns from absolute enemy into BFF mode.
Just like that, poof! They bonded on their motherly love for Marthas and a new friendship is born.
Ironically, this not lead to a deluge of Martha Memes and parodies, but even contributed to some light comedy in Deadpool 2.
Not only does the main struggle lacks of any substance, but even the reason behind such struggle is not clearly defined, and the same goes for the character's drive and motivation.
On that note, we close our story today but stay tuned for Part 2 where we discuss Character Development.
