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"Wonder Woman can come home and have gorillas in her living room and you go, ?OK, cool.? If Professor X comes into his room and there?s gorillas in there, that?s going to be weird.? ? Brian Reed (explaining the difference between Marvel and DC)

ACT I

As the Big Two comic book publishers, Marvel and DC fans have always pit the two in an imaginary fight.

So, how is that fight going?

Well, lately it looks like Marvel is giving DC a pounding in both the big screen and in comic books.

If we take a look a the top 10 money makers (in theaters) of comic book adaptations we find a top 10 list with only two DC properties ("Batman" and "Batman Begins"). But, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming "Dark Knight" also makes the top 10 or at least comes close. We also have six Marvel properties (the three "Spider-Man" movies, two of the "X-Men" movies, and the recently released "Iron Man" movie). Ouch.

Oh, and while I'm talking about the top 10 I want to mention the two non-Big Two properties of "Men in Black" and "300."

So, why is Marvel doing so well? Why can't DC have a larger effect in the movies? Is Batman the only character they have that resonates well with mainstream moviegoers?

I think there are two cards that Marvel is playing well. First, they recognize that their characters are easier to relate to. We can relate to Spider-Man's financial, social and relationship problems. We can also relate to the prejudice that the mutants in X-Men face. Luckily, the writers play these elements up and audiences love it.

Meanwhile, DC characters are just a little too perfect. Except for Batman. He's just nutters. We can relate to the fear of violence and losing someone we care about. We can relate to the desire of vengeance and the want of a truer justice than what our justice system sometimes gives.

It is the exploration of these darker elements that truly attract audiences, not the goofy villains or the next gadget (although I like them gadgets). Later Batman movies forgot what made the first a hit and added a cast of ridicules villains. Luckily, "Batman Begins" got it right by returning to the core of the character.

"Superman Returns," at least for me, seemed dated. First off, it was some weird sequel to the second film that ignores the third and fourth. Huh? The bizarre love triangle with a Lois who's a mother is such a drastic change. Mix that with the old Lex Luthor and the movie just couldn't find itself.

It was trying to retain and continue the Christopher Reeve tradition, while adding modern day complications. It just didn't work. Instead they should have done a reboot. I'm sorry, but that Lex Luthor is as different from the more modern Luthor as the "Batman" Joker is compared to the Joker in "Dark Knight." Plus, the whole kid thing was just weird.

I never understand why DC movies (made of course by Warner Bros.) try so hard to ignore the stories their characters come from. "Catwoman" being a good recent example of this philosophy, while "Batman Begins" being a great example of someone finally "getting it" and using material from the books.

And seriously, with the special effects like they are now, fans want to see at least one good fight between Superman and one of his non-Lex Luthor villains.

The second card that Marvel has just recently started playing is making everything connected. DC/WB has always had the ability to do this, but have never tried. When the Justice League movie was in development, we finally saw them finally dabbling in this, but DC/WB was just looking at short-term sales. If they would build the movie up in advance with individual movies, who knows what could happen. That is exactly what Marvel is starting to do. Iron Man was the first of their in-house movies and boy was it a hit.

Now "The Incredible Hulk," "Thor," "The First Avenger: Captain America," and "Iron Man II" are in development or coming out. Each one linked to each other, each leading up to an Avengers movie. This is brilliant planning and I hope it works. Hopefully, DC/WB will learn from this and try something similar.

I'm excited for Marvel's future in the movies and I hope that DC/WB will finally give us some new superhero movies that are worthy of our hard-earned money. Come on, where are the Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow movies? Many of these have been in development purgatory for way to long.

To be clear, I should also state that I didn't adjust for inflation when looking at the top 10, primarily because I'm just looking at recent sales and patterns.

ACT II

OK, enough talk about movies. Let us take the Marvel vs. DC battle in the comics.

Hmm ... actually those numbers look similar to the top movies and this hasn't been a good year for DC. Its big event book, "Final Crisis," had a horrible lead-in called "Countdown." Now, don't get me wrong. There were a few good twists in the 52 issue weekly series, but it was uneven and lost sales as the year went on.

It also did a horrible job linking up with "Final Crisis." Partially because the writer of "Final Crisis" didn't ask or want the lead-in, so he mostly ignored it and did his own thing.

Marvel's big event this summer is "Secret Invasion" (you have to watch out for those alien shapeshifters) and Issue 2 of the book actually outsold Issue 1 of "Final Crisis" by a decent margin. Ouch.

There has been a great deal of speculation on the Web that Executive Editor Dan DiDio may lose his job, especially with the drop in sales, writer Chuck Dixon ("Batman," "Way of the Rat," "Birds of Prey," "Batman and the Outsiders") leaving DC Comics and John Nee (DC Comics? senior vice president of business development) resigning.

The rumors built up so much that readers expected DiDio to announce his departure at Wizard World Chicago. Instead, Didio introduced himself at the DC Nation panel by saying: "I am the current and future editor of DC comics."

Listening to industry insiders, it looks more and more like this is just a case of the fan community convincing themselves that Didio would leave or be forced out. Rather, it doesn't look likely that Didio will be leaving anytime soon.

Don?t get me wrong. Marvel's powers that be have been making questionable calls, too. Don?t get me started on the Spider-Man's "Brave New Day" madness.

So, why is Marvel doing so much better in comic book sales than DC?

Again Marvel has two cards that they are playing. The first: These characters are easier to relate to. Marvel tends to write more mature storylines with greater character development. Good examples being "Ultimates" volumes 1 and 2 (not volume 3). In the last couple of years it has been rare for DC to reach that level of writing.

Rather, I've seen a disturbing trend of DC trying to make the books more "grown-up" by adding gratuitous violence and sexuality. Examples include the readers finding out that Elongated Man's wife was brutally raped by Dr. Light in the past. Or the recent conversation in "Justice League of America" No. 22 where Red Tornado is talking to his significant other Kathy. Red Tornado admits that he watched Red Arrow and Hawkgirl have sex (disturbing ...) and Kathy jokingly responds by asking why there weren't any porn channels he could have watched instead. Huh?

Combine DC's immature attempt at mature dialogue and this annoying habit of killing characters (and bystanders) without any hesitation, add their tendency to resurrect said dead characters with little explanation and you have a recipe for a universe that feels more and more like a big promo for the next big thing.

Now don't get me wrong, Marvel isn't innocent here. "Ultimates" Vol. 3 is an excellent example of a writer (surprisingly Jeph Loeb of all people) not understanding the mature and subtle writing of the previous volumes, instead Loeb turns the book into an immature story full of chaotic fight scene after fight scene with pubescent sexual innuendoes.

Many Marvel fans are pissed that one of their favorite books was changed so dramatically. However, this is an extreme example that sadly is becoming all too common over at DC.

The second card that Marvel is playing is their discretion with the use of crossovers. They are having a lot of them, like DC, but they mostly keep the "crossover bloat" down by not having to many necessary tie-in issues and miniseries. On the other hand, DC is getting carried away with far too many tie-ins and miniseries. You can tell that it is too much for fans to keep up with and even too much for the writers. There have been a growing number of continuity errors and an overall drop in quality.

So, DC needs to reevaluate a few things. They have to realize fans can't buy every book. Even if all they bought was DC it would be outrageous, especially with the economy the way it is.

One last thing, comic book companies often send advanced pdf copies of their books to news websites for reviews. Except for DC. Their stance had been that they just don't do that (unlike Marvel), but it was recently learned that they were giving copies to Wizard magazine, for a fee, of course. Say what?

ACT III

I don't want to come off as anti-DC here. But DC has been shooting themselves in the foot recently and Warner Bros. hasn't helped with overall bad planning regarding DC properties.

Marvel has done some questionable things in the last couple of years, but DC seems at times to be almost self-destructive. I hope DC can get back on track and give us more excellent stories.

FADE TO BLACK

Before I go, I wanted to bring up a few things.

That rumored Silver Surfer spinoff movie is looking less and less likely to happen. J. Michael Straczynski was supposed to write the movie, but he recently said that disappointing sales for "Fantastic Four 2" has made it unlikely.

"Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam" is still in development purgatory and they are blaming the writers' strike.

Remember when I talked about online piracy? Well, piracy has new victims. The pilots for Fox's scifi-supernatural drama "Fringe" and HBO's vampire drama "True Blood" have been leaked onto the Web.

J.J. Abrams? "Fringe" is also getting a six-issue comic book prequel courtesy of DC comics.

Sadly, another creator died on June 27. Aspen Comics founder Michael Turner died from cancer at the far too young age of 37. He created "Fathom" and was a talented artist who worked on various Marvel and DC properties.

OK, I can't end with that. I have way too much sad and depressing stuff. Let me end with one positive note.

Have you heard of Top Cow's Pilot Season 2008 contest? There are six one-shot issues (aka pilots) released. The readers vote and only two will be picked for more issues.

I think it's kind of a cool idea and this year has some great books. They've already released four of the books and I have really enjoyed them. Each one is drastically different in genre and tone.

Also, I'm proud to announce that I have become a producer for SyFy Radio. So, what are you waiting for? Go check out the archived shows or listen to us live on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.

That is all for now. As always, feel free to email. I'll be sure to post the best ones up here (unless, of course, you don't want me to post yours). You can send them to: mpyle@airlockalpha.com.

Until next time ... Marx out.

Marx Pyle is a staff writer for Airlock Alpha. He is not a shapeshifting alien sleeper agent, honest. He can be reached at mpyle@airlockalpha.com.