The wonderful world of capitalism is essentially rooted in competition. Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” is played out on a daily, even hourly, basis in America’s fickle, ever evolving (forgive the pun) marketplace.
What commonly transpires as a result of this cutthroat competition is that two organizations scratch and claw their way past weaker opponents, over the rotting corpses of failed companies to reach the pinnacle of their industry.
In the soft drink industry there’s Coke versus Pepsi; in the fast food industry there’s McDonald’s versus Burger King; and in the comic book industry there’s Marvel Comics and DC Comics.
Another important characteristic the comic book business shares with other businesses is the fundamental economic building blocks os supply and demand. Quite simply this means that as the public’s interest, or demand, grows for a product, the number of companies able to cash in on this elevated demand by providing, or supplying, enough products to at least meet it tends to also grow.
This means that other comic book publishers – such as Dark Horse, Drawn & Quarterly, and Idea and Design Works (IDW), just to name a few – have started to chip away at the glass ceiling that precariously holds Marvel and DC at the top of the industry’s pyramid.
The Universes are expanding
Both DC and Marvel like to foment the idea that all of their individual product lines are like semi-autonomous planets, existing as conjoined parts of a much larger universe. The DC universe contains Vertigo, DC Direct and MAD; whereas the Marvel universe contains Icon Comics, MAX and CrossGen.
Life on any number of these planets would be full of several familiar faces, not just to the rabid Comic-Con cosplayers (costume players), but also to most adults who own or have access to a TV, the internet or an already seemingly anachronistic newspaper.
The Marvel Comics universe, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is populated by such legendary superheroes as the Fantastic Four, the Amazing X-Men, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America and literally dozens more.
The DC Comics universe, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, introduced the comic’s universe at large to its first super hero, Superman, in 1938’s Action Comics #1. DC is also home to such iconic crime fighters as Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the real Dream Team of the Justice League of America. The brain wizards who control the superheroes in the DC Comics universe caused a comet-like sensation in the overall comics’ universe in 2011 by announcing that they were giving all 52 of their superheroes a nip-and-tuck facelift, and rereleasing them under the not-too-creative-but-it-rhymes moniker, “The New 52.”
Multi-Tasking Superhero-Style
If you’re not all that interested in comic books, that’s OK. In addition to the proliferation of Hollywood blockbuster movies, DC and Marvel provide you with multiple media outlets from which to get your superhero fix.
Of course the movies eventually make their way onto DVDs, Blu-ray Discs and the various video game platforms. You can even find novelized versions of some of their movies, if you occasionally like your reading material (mostly) picture-free. And then there’s the myriad collectibles, action figures, cold-cast porcelain statues, and so forth. It’s enough to make a merchandiser weep with joy.
