They are the biggest rivals to each other, but, despite all that competition, the comic book worlds of Marvel and DC are not much different from each other. They both feature the victory of legendary superheroes over evil in numerous adventures and have involved the most famous creative brains in the history. Still, they have on many occasions come up with identical characters or plot points. While this might be unintentional at times, there are instances when these characters/stories aim to copy or repeat the success of the other brand. In this article, we will take a look at five such cases.
AGE OF APOCALYPSE/FLASHPOINT
Back in 1995, the X-Men based Marvel crossover “Age of Apocalypse” created a pattern for the mega superhero crossover. Created by Scott Lobdell, Joe Madureira, Roger Cruz and Fabian Nicieza, this story delved into the dark parallel world created when the time-traveling son of Professor X, Legion mistakenly murdered his father in the past.
Back in 2011, Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert created Flashpoint that showed a similar grim alternate world created by The Flash when he went back in time to stop the Reverse Flash from killing his mother. In both cases, the other highly successful comic series were halted for many months as this new series featured a vastly different world.
BLACKEST NIGHT/NECROSHA
Inspired greatly by The Walking Dead, zombies became a rage, a few years ago. It was obvious to see Marvel and DC make their superheroes take on super-zombies in a couple of crossovers in 2009. One of these was the Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’ Blackest Night that saw the DC Universe assemble to battle the death lord Nekron and the Black Lanterns.
Barely a few months later, the X-Men and their associated teams featured in an extremely similar “Necrosha” crossover, created by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Mike Carey, Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain. Although the X-Men crossover was forgotten in no time, Blackest Night has become a part of the best DC stories of recent times.
AGE OF ULTRON/FUTURES END
After a few years of the zombie invasions, both Marvel and DC created futures that were dominated by murderous robots. Brian Michael Bendis, Bryan Hitch, and Brandon Peterson teamed up to create the Age of Ultron, where the cybernetic enemy of The Avengers took control of the Earth in a mega crossover.
In 2014, DC creators Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, Brian Azzarello, and Jeff Lemire joined hands to create a war-ravaged future when DC’s AI Brother Eye ruled an empire in The New 52: Futures End. Both crossovers were quite similar and Terminator-style plots.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN/BATMAN: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE
Back in 2010, the Batman and Captain America had apparently died in the comic books. After Captain America seemed to have died in the finale of 2007’s Civil War, Batman was shown to have perished in Final Crisis (2009). The two superheroes were later revived. Captain America: Reborn, created by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch was Captain America’s revival, and after a few months, Bruce Wayne was sent to the start of the history after Darkseid hit him with Omega Beams. Grant Morrison and an illustrated team of DC artists created Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne and the series showed the Caped Crusader traverse through several historical eras to reach modern times. In their absences, their respective sidekicks, Bucky Barnes and Dick Grayson carried on their mantles.
HEROES RETURN/DC REBIRTH
After they failed to get a great response from the loyal readers, Marvel and DC both reversed most of their modern reboots after a while. Marvel’s series Heroes Reborn ended after 13 issues, and the Avengers and others went back to the main Marvel Universe with Heroes Return. In 2016, Geoff Johns, the iconic DC writer created buzz with DC: Rebirth. Although the overall narrative of Rebirth is still going on, the relaunch has been successful by taking the iconic DC heroes back to their classic elements, and they also innovated to make the characters more contemporary. This version of modern classics has ensured that the characters from both Marvel and DC have a bright future ahead.
