Why is almost every DC character so overpowered compared to Marvel?

@kind_Panda

For some reason I find the idea of SuperPanda rather charming :)

@Dukedog said ^

@kind_Panda

For some reason I find the idea of SuperPanda rather charming :)

aww xD

Because Marvel is better at telling stories.

Main story arcs are about some one trying to be a hero, then a struggle, possibly a failure, then to rise and surpass the obstacle.

If you make your main character almighty powerful like superman is, then you already lost the narrative battle, your character cant be defeated, hence no obstacle. In order to achieve that arc, you have to scale up every single enemy for them to be able to beat your character temporarily so they can recover and redeem themselves, which is basically what happened, and they cant get out of it because they created that universe with overpowered characters.

Its quite easier to tell if you start at street level, like batman or spiderman. Then scale the difficulty bit by bit.

Thats the main reason, and you will see that in Marvel, the main characters, even though they are strong, more often than not, they cant actually beat the villain with their pure strength, they need a clever plan or something else.

The only heroe that I have seen that has been able to overcome that narrative issue is Saitama from One punch man. There is no struggle for him, as he will beat everyone with a single punch, but the focus of the show is everyone else around him, specially Genos.

With characters like superman, when he is the main focus, they need to scale him down to make the threat believable or scale the villain above him, which ends up in ridiculously overpowered enemies.

@Alientcp said ^

Because Marvel is better at telling stories.

Main story arcs are about some one trying to be a hero, then a struggle, possibly a failure, then to rise and surpass the obstacle.

If you make your main character almighty powerful like superman is, then you already lost the narrative battle, your character cant be defeated, hence no obstacle. In order to achieve that arc, you have to scale up every single enemy for them to be able to beat your character temporarily so they can recover and redeem themselves, which is basically what happened, and they cant get out of it because they created that universe with overpowered characters.

Its quite easier to tell if you start at street level, like batman or spiderman. Then scale the difficulty bit by bit.

Thats the main reason, and you will see that in Marvel, the main characters, even though they are strong, more often than not, they cant actually beat the villain with their pure strength, they need a clever plan or something else.

The only heroe that I have seen that has been able to overcome that narrative issue is Saitama from One punch man. There is no struggle for him, as he will beat everyone with a single punch, but the focus of the show is everyone else around him, specially Genos.

With characters like superman, when he is the main focus, they need to scale him down to make the threat believable or scale the villain above him, which ends up in ridiculously overpowered enemies.

I used to think so as well but then I started reading League of Super-Heroes from DC. It's a super team in the future that is ABSURDLY overpowered - they have Superboy as a member plus 3 or 4 equally powerfull characters - plus 3-4 characters almost as strong.

But it's great stuff really. off course many of their enemies are uber-powered but a lot of time they're facing sneaky plots and mysteries where the heroes can't just muscle their way through it.

Aliens for instance will secretly mindwipe the government of Earth so all of Earh opposed the heroes and stuff like that.

@Alientcp said ^

Because Marvel is better at telling stories.

Main story arcs are about some one trying to be a hero, then a struggle, possibly a failure, then to rise and surpass the obstacle.

If you make your main character almighty powerful like superman is, then you already lost the narrative battle, your character cant be defeated, hence no obstacle. In order to achieve that arc, you have to scale up every single enemy for them to be able to beat your character temporarily so they can recover and redeem themselves, which is basically what happened, and they cant get out of it because they created that universe with overpowered characters.

Its quite easier to tell if you start at street level, like batman or spiderman. Then scale the difficulty bit by bit.

Thats the main reason, and you will see that in Marvel, the main characters, even though they are strong, more often than not, they cant actually beat the villain with their pure strength, they need a clever plan or something else.

The only heroe that I have seen that has been able to overcome that narrative issue is Saitama from One punch man. There is no struggle for him, as he will beat everyone with a single punch, but the focus of the show is everyone else around him, specially Genos.

With characters like superman, when he is the main focus, they need to scale him down to make the threat believable or scale the villain above him, which ends up in ridiculously overpowered enemies.

Agree with you

@garlic_bread_rucola said ^

But it's great stuff really. off course many of their enemies are uber-powered but a lot of time they're facing sneaky plots and mysteries where the heroes can't just muscle their way through it.
Aliens for instance will secretly mindwipe the government of Earth so all of Earh opposed the heroes and stuff like that.

Thats what I said.

You have 2 options. Either the enemy is stronger than the heroes or they arent.

If they are stronger (or equal), which, will happen in most narratives, the heroes wont be able to muscle their way, they are weaker.
They will be defeated first, and then the redemption arc and will end up victorious somehow.

Examples. Original avengers. They lost to loki on the helicarrier, team struggled, regrouped, and won at the end.
Avengers infinity war. They lost to thanos. Then on the next movie, they came up with the plan to go back in time, then they beat thanos and its army.

Dark Knight Rises. Bane beat the crap out of batman in the sewers and send him to prison battered and bruised. He was able to escape, then he beats bane and redeems himself.

Iron man. He got kidnapped, realized his weapons were being used by terrorists. He was left for dead when his mini arc reactor was stolen by Obadiah Stane, then he manages to survive with the help of pepper, then proceeds to beat Obadiah.

Even deadpool got his redemption arc in the second movie after he was ripped in half.

And so forth.

The other option is when the hero is stronger than the villain. There is no redemption arc because, he cant lose to the villain, as the hero is stronger.

The first example it comes to mind is The Dark Knight. The joker is not stronger than Batman, nor any of the mobsters either.
But, batman is not almighty. His power is street level.
They have to come up with a convoluted plan to make him feel like he lost something (or someone), and the villains may or may not succeed at it, but they cant actually beat the hero. The redemption arc is skipped and changed it for something else. It may be compelling or not, but there is no redemption arc.

The example that you gave me, I dont know if the villains are more powerful than the heroes, but it looks like they arent, because if they were, they dont need any convoluted plans, they just have to punch the heroes and win.

From the narrative standpoint, as long as it is compelling, it doesnt matter who is stronger, but when the hero is stronger and face a difficult plan against him, the resolution is just a way to beat that plan. But when he is weaker and the redemption arc happens, it feels more rewarding to the viewer, as they see a lot of character development of the hero.

You can clearly see the rating of the marvel movies/tv shows. Where the heroes go trough the redemption arc, the movies are great and well accepted.
When the hero is stronger than the villains and have to make a convoluted storytelling, its meh or trash (Ms. Marvel, She hulk, loki, Iron heart, echo, fantastic 4)

Those are the only 2 viable options from the narrative standpoint to heroes. Both are valid, but the redemption arc is more rewarding. But if you make your main character unbeatable and/or perfect from day 1, there is no room for improvement/character development. Thats why superman sucks as a hero. The only way to beat him is with kryptonite, and every single enemy uses kryptonite in every single story. It gets boring fast. The only thing that changes is how the kryptonite is delivered. And even that is limited, as superman has x-ray vision, and superhearing he can see/hear it coming.

Less powerful heroes, you can attack them from multiple angles, so there is a lot of room beat them in multiple ways. The storyteller might surprise you.

Thats why I mentioned saitama, which should have been dead on arrival, as there is no way to beat him. The storytelling happens to work because its not about him, its about others trying to reach him, and Genos is the one with the redemption arc.

@Alientcp said ^

The example that you gave me, I dont know if the villains are more powerful than the heroes, but it looks like they arent, because if they were, they dont need any convoluted plans, they just have to punch the heroes and win.

They have both kinds of stories.

They have some enemies that are uber-powerfull so stronger tham them. A sorcerer and a team called the Sinister five or something. Sinister five have members like Validus that has quite a cool look

He's strong enoogh to casually KO Superman.

So I don't really see it as a problem to have OP heroes as you can just make even stronger villains.

In many of League of Super-Herppes stories the villains are less powerfull than the heroes and they're using trickery instead of muscle so you get more sort of sneaky stories with the vilain like setting the heroes against each other or spreading a disease on earth or whatever.

Other stories there's no villain at all, maybe the story is just they're rescuing somebody lost on a jungle planet or whatever.

When the hero is stronger than the villains and have to make a convoluted storytelling, its meh or trash (Ms. Marvel, She hulk, loki, Iron heart, echo, fantastic 4)

Well I mostly read comics and got tired of the movies.

There's some popular movies of the Avengers with really strong opponents like Ultron or the one where Loki invades earth. Also the ones when they're fighting Thanos.

For some reason the movies seem afraid to use the REALLY strong villains, maybe because it would be too crazy in a movie to most people.

When Sony did Dark Phoenix story (they sorta did it twice) they scale her down from this

To sheøs like maybe demmolishing a car.

So I guess the movie makers agree with you and this is probably why they diales her down so much.

So I don't really see it as a problem to have OP heroes as you can just make even stronger villains.

The issue is comprehension. For instance, Spiderman is very strong. He managed to stop a train using his webs to anchor in some buildings and he was receiving the full weight of the train himself, as he was holding the webs.

It was an impressive feat, and by that point, you already started to lose track of his powers. You have no idea what force you need to stop a train. You have no scale to which you can relate.

How about stopping a meteorite? or traveing near to lightspeed. At some point, since you dont have a scale, you start to lose track of the scale that you dont know which one is stronger. You cant even conceive what is happening.

Sure, you can visually track and get the gist of it, but it is so disconnected of reality that it stops making sense.
There is so much suspension of disbelief you can do.

There's some popular movies of the Avengers with really strong opponents like Ultron or the one where Loki invades earth. Also the ones when they're fighting Thanos.

Yes, only thanos was cosmic scale. And that wasnt him per say, it was the infinity stones. Thanos is very strong himself, but not ridiculously strong.

And in the battle against every single one you are mentioning, the avengers were defeated first, their redemption arc happened, they came back stronger and defeated the foe.

That battle you mention of superman.
Either of the 2 things happened. He struggled against the enemy, but defeated it at the end or.
He lost the battle, then somehow grew stronger and came back for the second round and he won.

If the former, there is no redemption arc, and little character development (which I assume is the case)
On the latter, it feels more rewarding to the viewer and shows a whole lot more of character development.

Thats how the narrative goes. Its not exclusive to super heroes. You will find it in many genres, the redemption arc is just very compelling to viewers.