“When you debate a Marvel fan online, there’s a good chance you’ll get into an argument. When debate a DCEU fan, there’s a good chance they’ll wind up threatening your life.”
I can’t remember where I read that quote, but in my experience it is one hundred percent true. And very relevant to this little piece of soap box preaching.
I have been accused of being a member of team Marvel on many occasions. Usually whenever I have criticized a DCEU movie (something I have admittedly done a lot), I’m labelled a Marvel fanboy who sings the House of Idea’s praises 24/7. And that’s sometimes the most diplomatic thing I’ve been called whenever I’ve been dragged into the latest round of online fame wars between Marvel and DCEU fans.
For the record, I do like most of what Marvel has produced. I wasn’t a big fan of either Captain America: The First Avenger or Doctor Strange. I thought Iron Man 3 was OK at best and I feel that after a strong start, Marvel’s more recent Netflix offerings have grown soft (watching all thirteen episodes of Iron Fist was a genuine chore). I’m not the kind who gives the seal of approval to anything based on brand recognition alone.
On the other side of that equation, while I have been very critical of the DCEU as a whole I can admit when something is quality. For instance, Wonder Woman was my favourite comic book movie of 2017. I genuinely do want to see DC make good movies; I love its characters and would love to be able to enjoy two outstanding comic book universes on the big screen. If you think that the MCU has pulled off some strong stuff recently, imagine how good it would be if it were being pushed even further by genuine competition? Imagine how good the latest instalment of the Avengers would be if they had to take even more bold chances to stay one step ahead of a hard charging DCEU.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s address the premise of this little rant.
With Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War enjoying stratospheric success, I’ve been seeing a lot of DC fans playing the victim card, calling articles comparing Marvel’s success to DC’s failure petty and snobbish.
Sorry DC fans, but you deserve to have your noses rubbed in the MCU’s success more than a little.
Make no mistake, both fandoms have very vocal, very toxic slices in their collective pies (I still can’t believe there were Marvel fans defending Iron Fist). Yet having said that, I will argue any day of the week and twice on Sundays that the Mr. Hyde side of the DCEU’s fandom is worse than Marvel’s darker half.
Whenever a Marvel movie makes it big (which is pretty much every time), online forums and chat rooms are flooded with DC fans irate at the movie’s success. They take it as a personal insult and hurl names, not just at the film in question but also at its fans as well.
I visited a number of popular movie and comic sites when Thor: Ragnarok hit it big last November and while I‘d like to say I was surprised by the Marvel bashers, the truth is it had become par for the course. DCEU fans were quick to dismiss and denounce the hated Marvel formula. They were even quicker to call fans of the movie stupid, easily duped morons. If you liked Marvel and the way they made movies, their narrative went, then you were a special kind of dumb.
And they were unanimous that when Justice League opened just two weeks later, we were going to see true comic book movie making.
Then Justice League flopped. It was the biggest box office failure DC has had to date and, despite starring the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman (with some decent star level power to boot), it was the first DCEU movie to lose money. And it lost a lot.
Instead of being silenced, the more toxic elements among the DCEU fandom went into a frenzied overdrive. They blamed the media, who they accused of bias towards Disney and their precious MCU. They blamed Marvel’s fans, who they described as brain-washed sheep who diligently obeyed Marvel’s slightest whims and lapped whatever drivel was shovelled their way as long as it had the Marvel logo on it.
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But as the depths of Justice League’s failure grew more apparent and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (another Disney property) emerged to completely bury what was left of DC’s already struggling movie, it pushed many DC fans further over the brink.
Accusations of bias grew into full fledged conspiracy theories. Disney wasn’t just paying movie critics to give Marvel movies good reviews, but it was also paying them to give DCEU movies bad ones. The conspiracy grew even bigger, involving distributors, studio heads and theatre chains. Like Oliver Stone and anti-vaxxers, they became convinced everyone was in on it. They had become Alex Jones and Marvel was their Illuminati.
To get even with the hated Marvel, who they truly blamed for the failure of the DCEU, a defiant group of DC fans banded together to sabotage Black Panther’s Rotten Tomatoes score. Thousands of vengeful, would be hackers had soon joined the movement’s Facebook page and Rotten Tomatoes took the threat seriously enough to implement safeguards against them.
But in the end Black Panther went on to become one of the biggest success stories in modern movie history (good job on that sabotage guys), its enormous popularity and cultural importance overshadowing all efforts to quash it. But it still didn’t stop hateful DC fans.
The weekend the movie came out, one spiteful DC fan was prancing around the IMDB board proclaiming that all Marvel movies were garbage, and the only thing Marvel was good at was being “propagandists” (his word, not mine). DC, meanwhile, were the true storytellers who were being oppressed.
You can imagine how it ended when some other commenters called him on his BS. If you guessed name calling, congratulations you win the prize.
In the meantime, it would seem that the disgruntled DC fans (who were smart enough to know they would never dent Infinity War’s momentum) have turned their sights on this week’s Solo: A Star Wars Story in a desperate attempt to hurt Disney (at least they’ll have a sizeable portion of toxic Star Wars fans to keep them company on that front).
So when I see some DC fans bristling when its pointed out that Avengers: Infinity War made more in its first weekend than Justice League’s entire theatrical run, I simply can’t summon any sympathy for them. When I see some people who should know better accusing Marvel fans of being “sore winners,” I can’t help but roll my eyes.
DCEU fans have become the slighted bullies of comic book movies. They haven’t figured out that the time and energy they waste screaming and raging and peddling conspiracy theories would be better invested in forcing DC to make better movies. Instead they are all arrogant pride and belligerent attitude until they can no longer back up their talk. When their preening and strutting earns them a bloody nose, they’re the victim. And they’ll scream it from the highest mountain.
I’ve had debates with both fandoms, and I can honestly say while I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty sand box behaviour by both, the DC exchanges are far more bitter. And definitely more toxic. At the end of the day, Marvel’s worst (and they have their own share of malcontents) can’t hold a candle to the seething hatred that lives on DC’s side of the tracks.
So suck it up DC fans. It doesn’t matter how badly you think you’re being treated right now because you’ve definitely earned it.
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