DC characters are superheroes pretending to be ordinary people. You get the feeling, for instance, that Superman is really Superman and he's only pretending to be Clark Kent.
Marvel characters, on the other hand, are ordinary people pretending to be superheroes. Pete Parker really is Pete Parker; he just happens to go around pretending to be Spider-Man.
It all comes down to which life they'd chose if they had to just pick one. In my somewhat limited experience of Batman, whenever his secret identity gets threatened with exposure, he sets his jaw grimly (admittedly, that's his default expression) because he hates the idea of just being Bruce Wayne, stagnating in that fancy house and not getting to be Batman. Real life for him consists of outwitting madmen atop tall buildings and bombing around Gotham in the Batmobile. (Batman, by the way, is a direct offshoot of that character type from English literature who's brilliant and bored and needs to go on adventures to stay sane. No Sherlock Holmes, no Batman. And I don't think there'd even be a Holmes without Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg, so the DC superhero strain goes way back.) Bruce Wayne is nothing but a role for Batman, and while he'll play it if he needs to, it isn't his reality. (Besides, when was the last time Bruce Wayne went to anything? I think the whole Batman thing started as an excuse to get out of all those bazillions of charity events he doesn't go to.)
Meanwhile, if a Marvel writer wants to give Peter Parker some drama, he has him quit being Spider-Man for a bit so he can live his life, only to realize that he can't do that no matter how much he wants to. Superheroing isn't a hobby for him, it's a job--a responsibility, we're told time and time again. He'd just as soon live without it. (The recent reboot of the movie franchise has him discover his new powers and instantly use them...to do skateboard tricks. That pretty much sums it up; he loves using his abilities for fun, but when it comes to the messier side of fighting villains he'd rather not be doing it.)
This theory is reaffirmed by the way both companies handle those few characters who chose to go without secret identities. The secret identity-less DC characters are the ones who don't feel the need to live as civilians; as far as I can tell they just wear those costumes all the time (except those aren't costumes, those are their clothes).
Iron Man doesn't have a secret identity either, but that doesn't mean there's no Tony Stark; it just means that Tony Stark has allowed everyone to know that if they see a guy soaring through the air in a metal suit, that's him. (No fear of anyone trying to hurt his loved ones, seeing as his company manufactures bombs.)
Wow, I'm more of a geek than I ever realized. But if you need any more proof of this theory, let me just say this: Superman is dating Lois Lane. Pete Parker is dating Mary Jane.
Over and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment