The real never-ending battle in comics is not for truth, justice, and the American way of life; it is the competition between the industry’s two main rivals, Wonder and CC. Since Marvel captured a major segment of the superhero market in the 1960s with titles like Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Manand The Avengers — all of which were, to varying degrees, deliberate rip-offs or counter-programming of popular DC books of the time — the companies rarely made a move without considering how the other might respond. Their war is long and bitter enough to fill a book (which someone actually wrote it a few years ago).
This makes the new Marvel and DC television series much more interesting when considered together than they would be on their own. In the space of 48 hours, both publishers debuted new streaming shows: Agatha all the time from Marvel, The Penguin from DC. While the near-simultaneous debuts were coincidental, they highlight how both companies are trying to appeal to audiences with very similar concepts at the same time.
And I want to say very similar concepts. Both are derived from earlier popular productions; The Penguin sees Colin Farrell reprising his role from 2022 The Batmanwhile Agate promotes Kathryn Hahn’s supporting character from Disney+’s hit 2021 Marvel show WandaVision to lead their own story. More importantly, both shows are about villains. It’s a stretch to even call them antiheroes. “Oz” is a mid-level assassin and mobster; Agatha is a witch who previously tried to steal chaos magic from Avenger Wanda Maximoff (and even killed her dog).
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Obviously, these aren’t the first projects from either company centered on amoral characters — but most previous Marvel and DC shows and films of this type have focused more on villains turning tail and gradually moving to the side of the angels. Two seasons of Lokifor example, it transformed the Asgardian immortal from a troublemaker into a multiversal protector.
In the Distinguished Competition, the power hierarchy has completely changed with the addition of Black Adama vengeful ancient demigod who spent decades battling Shazam in DC comics. The last decade has also given us several films about the Suicide Squad, a team of villains forced to work for the U.S. government who begin to believe in fighting for the greater good. The two Suicide Squad the films were then transformed into Peacemaker series about Max, which gave a humanizing backstory to the most delusional and violent member of the team, played by John Cena.
The Penguin and Agatha all the time are something different. Neither is a story of redemption (at least not at first). Neither of the main characters makes any attempt to absolve themselves of their past mistakes; neither experiences an ounce of regret for how their past transgressions played out. Both seek to amass power purely for their own personal gain. The Penguin is looking to save his own neck in Gotham City’s increasingly tense underworld, while Agatha sets out on a journey to regain the magical powers she lost in her battle with Wanda Maximoff.
With both comic book giants turning to the dark side at the same time, there might be an urge to tie this choice to some broader social forces. You could argue that these sinister protagonists reflect some broader cynicism about today’s society; that our world no longer believes in heroes, and Marvel and DC are reflecting that here.
By extension, you could also argue that this is the root cause of Marvel and DC’s spotty box office records in the 2020s. And it’s certainly true that comic book superheroes are a concept that’s nearly a century old; it’s plausible that the genre’s traditional values of compassion, altruism, and self-sacrifice will seem dated or antiquated to some viewers in 2024. (Certainly, if you listen to the rhetoric of many modern politicians, those values sound like anachronisms.)
But the most popular Marvel and DC movies and shows of recent years have mostly reinforced the classic good-over-evil dynamic that has fueled the last century of comics. Deadpool He talks a lot and uses a lot of swear words, but in the end he moves heaven and earth (almost literally) to save an entire universe. Deadpool and Wolverine. Matt Reeves’ The Batman On the surface it seems like the darkest version of the character yet, but the title character’s arc is his gradual discovery that violence can’t be the only answer to violence. To move forward and truly achieve his goal of helping Gotham City, Batman will have to learn to stand for something more than blind vengeance.
Personally, though, I’m not sure Marvel or DC are all that interested in tapping into whatever sentiment is bubbling up in the zeitgeist. I think they’re interested in profits—and as we’ve already established, a lot of what they’ve released lately hasn’t been profitable. Marvel’s last theatrical release before Deadpool and Wolverine, The wondersIt was his lowest-grossing film of all time.. The latest installments of the DC Extended Universe, including the aforementioned Black Adamall failed to varying degrees at the box office, leading to a complete reboot of the DCU starting with a new (and, I assume, hopeful and non-villain-oriented) version of Superman coming next year.
Between Marvel and DC, supply far outstrips demand in the comic book adaptation market right now. And that’s before you factor in all the superhero movies of the past two years. no based on an existing IP. Sometimes it seems like a new one comes to streaming every other week: Power Project, We can be heroes, Thunder Force, Secret Headquarters, Samaritana new one Spy kidsand so on and so on. You have to really loves superheroes (and nothing else going on in his personal life) to watch them all.
The solution for Marvel and DC isn’t to stop making things; if they stop making things, they stop making money. So they need to find new and different corners of this underserved market. That’s where characters like Agatha and the Penguin come in. They exist in these recognizable universes, but they don’t play by their standard rules, allowing creators to add unfamiliar twists to familiar concepts.
Whether one or both companies stick with these twists and turns in the long run will depend on their popularity. But I imagine that if either Marvel or DC finds a genuinely new twist on their tried-and-true formula, the other will copy it in no time. The never-ending battle continues…
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Gallery credit: Emma Stefansky