Artists and writers have complained of constant editorial second-guessing over the past few years, as sales of most of its superhero titles have spiraled downward. In the 1960s, when DC’s parent company controlled Marvel’s distribution and limited the number of titles they could publish, Stan Lee’s editorials in Marvel’s comics sniped gently at the “Distinguished Competition.” Once Marvel started publishing a Captain Marvel series in 1968, DC acquired the rights to the ‘40s-era Captain Marvel character, who appeared on the TV show Shazam! (After several decades of not being able to print the name of their own Captain Marvel on comic book covers for trademark reasons, DC started referring to him simply as Shazam, more or less as a gesture of defeat.)ĭC, likewise, has a Batman-ish tendency to alienate its allies and collaborators. They collectively control about 70 percent of the comics retail market if either of them were to stop publishing, it would likely destroy the fragile ecosystem of American comics stores. The Big Two, which both date back to the 1930s, have been uncomfortably bonded to one another for decades. (Batman puts them in Arkham Asylum Iron Man in Negative Zone Prison Alpha.) That’s how Marvel and DC generally interact with each other, and the rest of the comics business, at this point. Most superheroes’ goals are not to destroy their rivals, but to overtake and contain them.
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