Customer Reviews

DC vs. Marvel Comics

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The wall between two realities is breaking down, and people are finding themselves pulled across into a different reality - a place with different cities and towns, and different heroes and villains. Facing a war of all against all, the keepers of the two realities have decreed that the super-powered beings of their realities must fight it out, the winner take all! And so the battles begin - Thor vs. Captain Marvel, Namor vs. Aquaman, Flash vs. Quicksilver, Robin vs. Jubilee, Green Lantern vs. the Silver Surfer, Catwoman vs. Elektra, and so much more. Who will win, and what will the resulting reality look like? Read this book and find out!

OK, where do I start? First of all, this is a lot of story to pack into such a small book, I could easily write one that was as thick as the New York City phonebook! What this means is that each interaction between super-beings is bound to be short, which many will find disappointing. Secondly, as neither DC nor Marvel is going to sign on to a project where their superheroes come off looking second-best, you do realize that somebody somewhere is going to pull a rabbit out of their hat.

But, that said, my ten-year-old son and I both found this to be a fun and highly enjoyable read. Admittedly, when one of our favorite superheroes got defeated by a rival, we objected. But, overall we thought that they did a good job of producing a very good mega-crossover graphic novel. My son and I both highly recommend this book to you!

If you're a comic book fan you'll now how expected this crossover was, so there was no possible way to get it wrong. I'm not saying that it couldn't have been better, as a matter of fact not all fights were intresting, but the interaction of the two universes goes beyond that point. Peter Parker and Clark Kent working together, Batman fighting Bullseye, the Scarecrows terrifiying Louisa Lane, Gambit driving the Batmovile, are all exiting moments.
About the fights the best one by far is Superman vs Hulk, and the most dissapointing is Wolverine vs Lobo.
Claudio Castellini's pencils are AWSOME, I mean this guy draws in a very unique stylle, making even the boring caracters intresting, it's a shame that he didn't pencil the entire story.
So if you like the DC and Marvel caracters you are going to enjoy to read DC vs Marvel.

The idea is great and the artwork cool, but overall I have to agree that this is much too small a format for such a sprawling concept. In order to cram everything in, what should be epic confrontations are mashed the smallest possible space.

That said, I must take issue with this absurd idea that no one likes Captain America. That's just silly; Cap has always been and remains a fan favorite. I find it funny to see him refrred to as dated when Batman is as clunky and old-timey as they come!

Truth is, I accidentally purchased this along with The Amalgam Age of Comics (DC) and Return to Amalgam Age of Comics (DC).

For you who don't know, "Amalgam" was a joint DC-Marvel project where Marvel and DC characters were actually half and half versions of themselves (Wolverine and Batman were fused into "Dark Claw", Flash and Ghost Rider into "Speed Demon", Storm and Wonder Woman into "Amazon", Elektra and Catwoman, Green Lantern and Iron Man, etc.), making for some really amazing blended characters that you'd only see in that one short run of comics. 24 comics were made in the series, half published by DC, half by Marvel. Unfortunately, only the DC collections are still in print. (Though from what I've seen the DC titles were done far better. It felt like Marvel was slacking a bit on the deal.)

Anyway, I was somewhat disappointed that I had ordered DC Versus Marvel instead of the Amalgam Age (Marvel)... Until I read it. It actually leads directly into the Amalgam stories AND resolves them. On its own it absolutely shines. There are amazing battles between some closely matched characters and wonderfully inspired moments (Spidey and Superman working on a news story together, an emergency comes up and both have a simultaneous thought bubble, and I paraphrase: "I gotta ditch this guy and get into costume"). This actually introduced me to Lobo, who I'd heard of but always assumed was a subpar Wolvie ripoff. Wolvie ripoff? - Maybe. Subpar? - Not a chance. I think I know what my next comics purchase will be.

Read it, eat it up. It's worth every cent and every minute.

When I was growing up I devoured comic books, but only those that had a super hero theme. It was the time when Stan Lee was wielding his creative magic and developing characters such as the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, Spider Man and the Fantastic Four. Simultaneously, the DC Comics side had characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. The writers of both groups also developed powerful villains worthy of doing battle with a super being. However, with very few exceptions there were no confrontations between the heroes and villains of the two publishers.
The premise of this book is that there are two universes, one containing the Marvel heroes and villains and the other containing the DC heroes and villains. Due to a bizarre set of brothers that wish to battle by proxy, some of the heroes are transported to locations where they must battle a similar hero from the "other side." For example, DC Aquaman battles the Marvel Submariner, Marvel Captain America battles DC Batman, Marvel Silver Surfer battles DC Green Lantern and DC Wonder Woman battles Marvel Storm. Although all are reluctant to fight, they are told that the side that loses the most battles will have their universe destroyed. Therefore, they go all out in their gladiatorial contests. These are not fights to the death, the battle ends when one is incapacitated, generally through being knocked unconscious. There are 11 battles in all and my favorite was one that I always wanted to see, Hulk versus Superman. For this would be a battle of strength against strength, kryptonite would not be a part of the struggle.
There is a lot of great superhero against superhero action and each side wins some and loses some. Naturally, there is a conclusion and both universes are once again safe, but the road there involves a great deal of action depicted by some superb artwork and including some dynamic dialog. This is one of the best book length comics ever published.

Disappointing overall. The almagam universe was the most interesting idea and was touched on too brief like everything else in this book. The amalgam series alone is far better than this effort and I would not waste time purchasing this book. Try the amalgam trades and also try JLA / Avengers - that book is far better and keeps all characters in 'character'.

...and FAR less "difficult to follow" than the "JLA vs Avengers" book I'd purchased earlier. However, since the "fights between" the DC and Marvel characters are, more or less, "staged" (plot: a couple of alien neo-dieties suddenly acknowledge each other's existence/presence, and something I have yet to ascertain "occurs" when they touch each other's fingers...yeah...I have yet to determine how/why that makes the superheros wanna fight) Anyway, Superman and the Hulk knock each other around in a desert, Aquaman causes a whale to eat Namor, who is "too noble to cheat," Flash outruns Quicksilver after a race between them causes a truck to wreck, "Storm" beats up Wonder Woman, and the currently-in-vogue Wolverine justifiably whacks a vile character named "Lobo," somewhere in outer space. And, of course, everything is resolved nicely at the end, as in all good hollywood-esque fiction. Really, the story left a lot to be desired - especially in the middle of the book, when a host of LITERAL "crossover" characters are created...for no discernable reason - but the artwork is FANTASTIC. Indeed, after seeing Wonder Woman fix a bridge or something, I (WHEW!) had to run outside and smoke off a couple of Marlboros. Two incidents in the story, however, are of note. The very beginning when Spider Man "crosses over" and meets The Joker, their verbal exchange is hilarious. The Joker tells Spidey that "this town is filled with flying rodents and murderous, disfigured psychotics," that he "hates bats more than he does bugs," and since the weather is rainy, blowing up the building upon which they're standing, "would be abysmally dull," and "hhmm...killing the weather man...now there's a thought." Spidey basically "hangs" there, wondering where he is, and spouting a couple of Bud Abbott-esque "straight" lines. And then there is a kind of PLEASANT "story within a story;" Robin (actually, a NEW "Robin"...the old Robin makes a brief cameo as "Nightwing") and Jubilee, a little DOLL who is a member of the X-Men (hey...shouldn't that be "X-Persons" since we're all so politically correct by now?), basically hug each other, kiss (!), play about 30 seconds of "pitty-pat," and then Jubilee calls Robin "handsome," and asks him "to untie her." And honestly, the next time the two are shown in the story, they're in a canoe in Venice, kissing heavily. All in all, it's really not a bad story, despite the "setup" being so stupid, and I'm halfway curious to check out any sequels: I am just ITCHING to see Hawkeye punch the ever-so-liberal Green Arrow.

When Marvel and DC did this in the 90's they wanted people to vote on who they thought would win in a fight but people actually just voted for their favorite characters which made this more of a popularity contest than actual "who would win" type fight. I mean think about it, would Spider-man really defeat Superboy in a fight? I love both characters and Spidey is my all time favorite superhero but I voted for Superboy because I honestly think Superboy would kick his butt. All that being said this is a really fun read. It brings me back to being 16 again. Even if you didn't read comics back then I still say pick it up because it's just a book that deals with those fights you would argue about with your friends. Like Who would win in a fight: Superman or Hulk, Batman or Captain America, etc. Ron Marz's righting is pretty solid. It's fast paced and the dialogue is sufficient but you don't read a book like this for dialogue. The art is good but a book like this should have been by a comic book legend like George Perez. Perez is so good at drawing big team/crossover/event comics. All in all, this book is a solid read. I would say read it for two reasons: If you read comics in the 90's, watched The Anti-Gravity Room, and read Wizard Magazine this will take you back to that time in your life. And two it's just a good old book that would answer, or rise more arguments, about who would win in a fight.

This series suffers from a couple of things. First, way too much build up to battles which end up lasting only a page or so. The second is that for the most part, it's a second string line-up. None of the match-ups really generated much excitement for me either. Storm vs. Wonderwoman? Yawn! A series that had potential, but turns out mediocre!

This collection I read already when I was a kid. Before I bought it I hadn't read a comic book in years. But, remembering all the fond memories I had sitting outside of a book store waiting for it to open so I could buy the next issue way way back when made me decide to purchase this collection and I certainly enjoyed it. The story itself is somewhat top notch as far as comics go, adding in tons of action but with an over-all story arc that only a more mature me could enjoy. The character of Access and his predecessor are surprisingly well developed for a gimicky tie-in element designed to make sense of this whole thing. The artwork is surprisingly Marvel-esque too for a collection with DC first in the title, which is a good point for both old and new fans of that style and a downer for anyone more into the DC form. Plus, Batman takes on Captain America and Superboy fights Spiderman, and who can argue with the entertainment value in that? The only complaint I have is that, after reading this, I want to buy the other Amalgam books so I can see fully what would happen if Marvel and DC decided to merge into one company and create new comics based on both sides of the super hero spectrum. While buying the DC side of it is easy enough, especially on this website where I purchased both for around 20 bucks, including shipping, buying the Marvel side is an absolute pain in the arse, with experience going through e-bay, amazon, borders, Barnes and Noble, and a couple of comic shops around town. I don't remember which store but the only thing I could find so far, The Return to the Amalgam Age of Comics: The Marvel Collection, went for nearly 60 dollars just to give you an idea of the head-ache you may find yourself in if you're curious to see what this universe was like at the time. It makes me wish I could submit my e-mail for those who could give me a tip for how to buy these comics, the storyline is just that good. Thankyou for reading.