[thechris]

Marvel - I feel like Marvel tries harder to evolve their characters depending on whatever is popular at the time. I do find the characters easier to relate to, however I don't find most of them to be anything special. Especially in recent time, they've made a firm effort to make just about every superhero into a powered down every man. Also, their redesigns seem to be the Jim Lee/Liefeld era gone into overdrive. Also, they seem to do a lot of "I was a bad guy, but now I'm a reformed anti-hero" characters. I don't know how I feel about it. I did like some of the stories and some of the direction they went with certain characters, but it's too much of the same now. I feel like Marvel is notorious for flogging a dead horse. "Oh, they like this, let's keep doing it."
Examples:
Putting heroes in civilian clothing
Turning villains into heroes
Giving heroes financial problems
Killing heroes and then bringing them back
Family Guy-like fourth wall satire

DC - I think there's something somewhat admirable about sticking to your guns for decades. Up until the new 52, character designs and themes and cliches has pretty much stuck. Now it feels almost like Marvel secretly bought DC. Everyone gets shoulder pads or everyone gets piped tubing stuff in their costumes, everyone loses the underwear on top of the pants, everyone has those dumb looking V-shaped belts. In an attempt to rid their characters of cliche, they traded it for even more generic cliches. The writing is still decent in most of the issues but the artwork is kind of blah to be honest. I actually find DC's characters to be more visually vibrant as they seem to be willing to use very bold colours. Marvel stuff is grittier and dialed back. They use a lot of browns and desaturated colours unless they're doing it as a cliche like Sentry.

They both have their flaws, but with the new 52, it's hard for me to compare the two brands because they've pretty much melted into each other for me. DC comics no longer feel like an alternative to Marvel anymore for me. I don't even know what I'm trying to say here, I guess other than the toys and the pre-52 DC, there really isn't much I like about DC anymore?? And Marvel, I got off that ship ages ago. I even found Secret Invasion and Civil War to be a bit lacking.