Anonymous asked:

Why is DC focusing on making its characters gritty as Marvel keeps outselling them with the more modern approach? It feels so silly and weird and as behind the time as I'm sure they seemed when Marvel first came to the spotlight.

brevoortformspring answered:

I can’t speak for what may be driving the DC management to make the choices that they’ve been making, I can only tell you what it seems like to me–and so I may be off-base. But to me it appears to be a combination of two things: 1) They’ve had great success with Batman over the years in film, and not as much with any other property, so making all of the films they do more like Batman would seem on paper to be a sound strategy. 2) It feels like there are those at DC who are embarrassed by aspects of their characters, who feel that they are behind the times and hokey and out of date. And they struggle with that, with making them relevant. And that’s fine as far as it goes–if you do it well, nobody will mind it. But in many cases, it feels like they’re throwing out the very attributes that make their characters relevant and iconic chasing something they never quite catch. And I think that, if nothing else, the CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER shows conclusively that you can have a character who embodies old school values who is nonetheless an action hero and a kicker of asses. People want to root for a hero if you give them one.