More on Marvel vs DC

I’ve said earlier that there was one way for DC to go which might work in terms of out-creating Marvel: go ‘super-grim’, in an effort to match the Ironic and bleak nature of today’s culture generally. 2016's Batman vs Superman did just that, as predicted. The long-awaited showdown between the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader smashed records at the box office initially, beating Avengers: Age of Ultron for a Thursday night opening at $27.7m, and then going on to make $166.1 million domestically and $424 million worldwide in its opening weekend, then, after only six days, surpassing $500m. And then it tailed off. So much so that DC panicked, making various executive and creative changes even to films that were already in the pipeline. The ‘billion pound barrier’ may be partly a psychological one, but for sure there was a lot riding on it financially too. As it turned out, the whole 'Snyderverse' collapsed under the weight of its own darkly ironic pretensions.

On the other hand, Marvel, with its legacy of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and the Marvel ‘Bullpen’ and what they did in the 60s, went from strength to strength. In 2016, Captain America: Civil War passed the billion pound mark, and the studio had plenty more planned, including some of the best-selling movies of all time.

Part of the reason for Marvel’s initial success was what I’ve called its ‘mall’ strategy - distinct products, established at first on their own, then drawn together under one ‘roof’. If any single film didn’t make it, the mall itself was strong enough to survive. DC, on the other hand, adopted a ‘franchise’ strategy, probably in an effort to catch up quickly: put together an ensemble film, featuring the big guns of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman (plus a few hints of some others), then branch out into a series of films about each character. If your foundation film ‘fails’ (and less than a billion pounds in today’s market is considered by many a failure), then the rest are put at risk.

Marvel succeeded as long as it maintained this mall approach and kept being funny and counter-pointing Ironic storylines with the wit and energy of Comedy and Epic. DC was the one who struggled, because its department store model was risky and because it didn’t have the Comic or Epic legacy to draw upon.

What was it that customers liked about the ‘mall’ model? The same thing that they like about malls everywhere. Anchored by major, long-lived icons like Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk, they could afford to offer glamour and seduction for further niche audiences by exploring new territory in films like Doctor Strange, Black Panther and many others. The icons were the big stores; the niche audiences were the smaller specialist shops. One of the advantages of the strategy was that Captain America or Iron Man fans didn’t have to wait for their character to get a starring role in a film - they appeared regularly in others. Iron Man featured hugely in Civil War; the Hulk made an appearance in Thor:Ragnarok, and so on. Then they all came together again for the two massive Avengers films. In other words, you could get everything you needed with fewer visits to the cinema.

Civil War also featured Ant Man and the re-cast appearance of another huge Marvel icon, Spider-Man. That was ‘mall strategy’ at its best, feeding the hunger of niche audiences in a larger setting.

Marvel’s mall strategy also had a social function: niches can meet. When I first saw Iron Man, there were only three people who were there at the end of the credits sequence to witness the now-famous ‘Avengers Initiative’ snippet; by the time I went to see Captain America: Civil War, only three people left before the end of the credits, leaving dozens. I felt an enormous affinity for those first three who stayed during Iron Man; now that affinity has grown into what is virtually a global cinematic movement.

Marvel had the knack of giving the ‘customer’ what he or she wanted. Just when the suspense mounted in an action scene, there was the comic quip, not acting to defuse the tension but to enhance it. Thus, in the elevator scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, for example, in which Steve Rogers is about to be pounced upon by a team of assassins, the action is preceded by his question: ‘Before we start, does anyone want to get out?’ The comedy enhances his confidence as a character; the audience anticipates even more the confrontation that is about to take place.

DC never mastered this. No doubt, with James Gunn at the helm of a new generation of movies, they will make an attempt to lighten the tone of further films. They start with the disadvantage that they never had a Lee or Kirby to inject their characters with wit all those years ago when the templates were being designed. And, if they want to mirror Marvel’s success, they need to have the confidence to launch stand-alone characters in their own films before bringing them together in ‘mall’-style super-films. Then they might have a chance.