[Snowflakian]

Both are branching out more and more. The mainstays have brought in cash, but both have dabbled in obscure off and on too.

Manthing, captain america movie in the 90s(plus the two in the 70s), Shazam had his own tv series in the 70s, birds of prey, among several other attempts at different franchises.

Going forward from marvel we've got AKA Jessica Jones, Mockingbird, a new Fox Punisher series, Kazar, and even more in the planning stages now. Movie-wise we've got runaways(Small Faces) still in the wings looking for a less marvel heavy date to go forward, a new Doctor strange movie, Black Panther movie, war machine movie, Daredevil, fantastic 4, among many others just waiting for their windows to open including yes, a new mutants movie still on the board over at Fox.

DC has dialed it back some with recent problems in the live action front, but animated they're always up for trying anything that makes money. On the live front we've got a Raven series coming, wonder woman was canned by NBC, and for movies it's just Superman and batman for now. Unless the next superman movie busts again, then it'll just be batman with maybe green lantern.

The obscures are great, and vertigo especially is a wealth of comics being adapted, but on the superhero front it seems only that Marvel is making headway with many characters, while DC is mostly just sticking to Batman as their lone money maker. I wouldn't count marvel out on using obscures at all. They've tried in the past and keep trying. DC/Warner Bros on the other hand tends to focus only on what has worked and sadly, birds of prey is on that list of mistakes alongside Batgirl thanks to schumacher.

Part of the problem with both though, is finding material that's not just sold on the tights. They need to find something that rings with general audience appeal to make it worthwhile, something that has a good story and merits to it being done. It's a fine line of doing the material that warrants it seamlessly, and finding material that can be catered to work. Some stuff can, some stuff can't.

I'm sure we'd all like to see She-Hulk like Harvey Birdman attorney at law, among god knows how many others, or my personal favorite idea, X-23 done by Monty Oum, but Marvel is slow, burns bridges just as fast as they make them, and is still learning how to navigate hollywood politics and juggling audience appeal. DC on the otherhand has the problem of being borderline too impersonal in their properties. They both need to find a happy middle ground of new entertainment forays.

Marvel is starting to learn, and so is DC. The new CN block for DC stuff coming will have plenty of character shorts of all kinds, and Marvel is getting on the ball with their tv series sort of now with hopefully some interesting surprises in store later if other quieter rumors are true about some potential new CG animated forays. They just need more time to really come to fruition and be on the screen. Marvel also needs to lay off the actor bashing and bridge burning before they end up only living on the name recognition and how you have to play ball with them for so and so character from your childhood. That's part of the problem with the comics themselves right now. Instead of being "the house of ideas," they are quickly becoming "the House of ideas from everyone else that we managed to screw over including almost stan lee himself."

All around I look forward to these projects from both camps if they indeed move forward. The future looks promising for now so long as neither continues to make a mess of things...