Last year, DC’s Justice League had many Marvel and DC fans alike eager with anticipation for it’s arrival. Despite them producing movies that fail to reach the expectations of the audience every year. It’s become an exceptionally funny tradition. And although Wonder Women did well in box office and was received well by critics, it was essentially a fluke that could not save Justice League from inevitably failing. If there had to be one singular moment that highlights why the average viewers’ interest in the MCU is so much higher than their interest in the DC films, it would have to be the farmhouse scene in Age Of Ultron. The scene and the movie itself is far from perfect, but it does a go job bringing to light why Marvel movies are so popular amongst moviegoers: It’s all about character.
A perfect example of this would be the character of Captain America. At the start of Captain America’s trilogy – before he transforms and gets his powers- he’s just a scrawny guy who in one instance, stands up to a bully, broken and battered and says, ‘I can do this all day.’ Fast forward to the end of his trilogy, Civil War, when Steve is facing off against Iron Man, broken and battered, he manages to say: ‘I can do this all day.’ This line gives a certain poetic beauty to the third films end since it is one of the first things Steve delivers at the start of the trilogy but also one of the last. It brings the trilogy full circle while also serving a larger purpose. It is a statement that the character we all fell in love with in the first movie is still the same character all throughout. This isn’t to suggest that he has no character arc because he does. The character of Steve Rogers starts out as an optimistic patriot eager to do his duty and ends it as a man beaten by reality, whose loyalty to the establishment he once fought so hard for has entirely faded away. This line shows that over the course of his adventures, everyone he’s lost and every time his values were tested, he’s managed to stay true to himself throughout. And as a fan of his character, I can say that he remains the very same guy whose story is still not yet over and is still going through that turmoil. These moments and character representations are what keeps audiences invested and coming back for more.
Another good example of how Marvel has made me care about their characters is Iron Man. At the start of his very first film, when confronted by a reporter about the atrocities he has enabled and being labeled the ‘merchant of death’, he brushes it off without a single care in the word. In fact, he even likes it. This moment establishes Tony’s outlook and shows how little he cares about other people. But as the series progresses, and he sees firsthand the effect of his actions, he betters himself. This well-delivered arc where he starts to become more responsible and caring about the world and actions enables his character to reach his completed state. This all comes to fruition in Civil War when he realizes that he is partially responsible for one person’s death and this realization sends him into a spiral grief. And this discovery he makes sets up his motivations for every action he takes during the rest of the film. The evolution of Iron Man’s character that Marvel has carefully built up to doesn’t feel forced. His character is simply compelling. And while there is one example of poor continuity on Marvel’s behalf (when Tony retires as Iron Man 3 then returns in Avengers 2 as though that moment never happened), Marvel seems to scarcely make a character say something or make decision that is not totally consistent with the character they’ve been building up in prior films. The fact that Marvel’s characters are so compelling is one of the core reasons people continue to come back to see their films. We can’t help but feel compelled and intrigued by their stories.
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It is for that exact same reason why Justice League has failed to perform had the same level as any Marvel movie. In BVS, the character Batman is quite possibly the darkest live-action portrayal of the character. He’s old and bitter, where any trace of happiness or optimism has long been destroyed by decades of loss and torment. He never smiles and he never cracks a joke. This creative decision was in no way bad, and for some, it was the highlight of the film, but the intrigue of this character ended up being entirely irrelevant because when Justice League came around, DC took this brutally dark version of Batman and turned him into someone who delivers funny one-liners. If this had been the character that was established in BVS — a character that had a sense of humor — then the lines he said in Justice League would have been acceptable. But from the beginning, he was an incarnation that was incredibly dark and DC comprised that character in the very next film. And although this change in tone could simply be argued as natural character development, I say otherwise. Marvel’s character Thor starts off as an ignorant, entitled, and insensitive person and ends as a wise man with a newfound respect for the world and his position to inherit the throne. That is character development. When Iron Man goes from an egotistical playboy to a humble man who cares deeply about doing the right thing. That is character development. When Captain America goes from an optimistic Patriot to untrusting of his government. That is character development. DC’s idea of character development is realizing that some people didn’t like the dark tone of BVS, and decided that Justice League would be lighthearted. They made this change to their character; not because it was apart of Batman’s natural character development, but because they wanted to push forward the idea that their movies could be humorous and more light-hearted.
The two different approaches to handling their characters are exactly why Marvel’s characters are far more loved on screen than DC characters. DC characters are so overwhelmingly tiring and uncompelling that it’s almost insufferable. Marvel has always treated their characters as human beings with their own personality and morals. And when planning a compelling plot, they will always consider character because if they were to say something or do something that would terribly compromise who they are, it would make that character inconsistent and less compelling. DC has continuously failed at capturing this concept. Instead of treating their characters like humans with an actual purpose, they treat them like robots who just execute their various ideas and plans and if DC is faced with the theoretical decision to comprise an established character, they will happily do so if it allows them to execute the agenda they have planned. And like I stated previously, Batman’s character was comprised for the sake of making Justice League funnier. My main issue with BvS is that it was clear that DC wanted to set Batman fighting Superman up so that by the end they could be good friends to pave the way for Justice League. And everything else that occurred was secondary to building towards that moment of the fight. I felt it through Superman’s motivations. His motivation is that his mother is kidnapped and being held hostage and would be killed if he didn’t fight Batman. And because of this ‘epic’ moment that they wanted to build up to, nothing else mattered. Instead of giving their characters their motivations and then projecting from that on how they should act, DC decides how the characters are going to act and then completely contradict their motivations. This ultimately resulted in displeasure from their audience because how can they expect their fans to want to see more from their characters when they failed to make them compelling in the first place.
Avengers Infinity War(2018) — Marvel’s culmination of ten years of hard work — was one of the highest and the fastest grossing films in history! Over the course of ten years, Marvel Studios put together this intricate and well crafted cinematic universe that allowed them to create and develop rich and compelling characters. In my perspective, if you fail to build a core character that your audience can get behind, empathize with, and fear for if they ever get into turmoil, then nothing matters. And while Marvel has the concept down to a science, this is DC’s huge obstacle that they can’t seem to overcome.
