Marvel versus DC

No, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to pitch one against the other. I'm not going to say that one is better than the other. There are people ... like me ... who like comics and superheroes as a whole, whether they are from Marvel or DC or Image Comics or any other publisher. Ofcourse I have my preferences in comics, in movies, in TV-series, in games, but I generally get excited if something new comes out. If I were to do a Mr. Dad versus the Boys, it would probably be Marvel versus DC, but actually Onyx and Kuromochiii are more into anime then into superheroes and they also watch both or don't watch at all and rather play (non-superhero) games.

So why this post today, after months of slacking off from this blog? Well, this week was a very good week for comic-nerds like me. Both on DC and on Marvel side. Here's what is going on ...

Fortnite

On Tuesday the new Fortnite season started. Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 6. I got excited about that. I'm an adult gamer and I play Fortnite. I'm not afraid to admit it and don't care what people think of that. I started playing when the Boys were still in the Philippines and it was a way for us to play together and connect via Playstation 4. When Mommy and the Boys came to the Netherlands, they lost a bit of interest in the game and even went into the 'Fortnite sucks and is for kiddies'-phase. Meanwhile Season 4 was going on and Fortnite collaborated with Marvel and the battlepass (season pass) was filled with Marvel heroes like Thor, She-Hulk (or Shulkie to us Marvelites), Dr. Doom, Mystique, Iron Man and Wolverine. They joined Deadpool, who was the bonus hero in season 3 and a lot of characters that can be bought via the store. In season 5, the boys were happy to play again, when the battlepass included the Mandolorian and some other characters they liked. With season 6 they backed out again, giving preference to other games like TeamFortress 2 and Apex Legends.

But me, still excited with the new season where the battlepass includes Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, but also Raven from DC's Teen Titans. Teen Titans Go! was actually a favorite cartoon series of the Boys when they were younger, but they lost interest and I don't think they watched the live action Titans series or the Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans animated movie (which I both enjoyed). In Fortnite, the Raven character has 3 costumes: Raven (classic), Rachel Roth (from the live action series) and Rebirth Raven. Next to the Teen Titan character joining the game, also a comic crossover event is coming to DC as a 6 issue miniseries called Batman / Fortnite: Zero Point. The first comic will be available on April 20th and the series will conclude on June 6th. I think it's fair to assume that more DC characters will also join Fortnite's line up, next to The Flash, Green Arrow (who was a Fortnite crew (Fortnite's new subscription service) exclusive), Joker and Harley Quinn.

Avengers

For the public at large, Avengers is best known from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But ofcourse the Marvel franchise started out in the comics and also was featured in multiple cartoons and games. The latest Avengers game was developed by Crystal Dynamics (known from the Tomb Raider games) and published by Square Enix (known for Final Fantasy). It came out in August 2020 and had a very rocky start. People generally liked the single player campaign featuring the relatively new hero Kamala Khan or Ms. Marvel. The game however was set-up as a live-service multiplayer game and got a lot of grief about the repeating and boring gameplay. That critique was valid, even the developer and publisher admitted that. But Crystal Dynamics took it as a pro and started working on bugfixes and quality-of-life improvements. Also they came with new content in the form of the Operation Taking Aim dlc featuring another young Avenger called Kate Bishop, the new Hawkeye. As a side note: Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) will also be featured in the upcoming MCU related Disney+ series Hawkeye, next to her mentor Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner).

As an Avengers fan, I preordered the game to get in the beta (playing a game in the last testing phase before going live). I was a bit disappointed with the demo of the single player and was wondering if I had threw away my money on a game I would not play often. When I was able to play the full game, that feeling was taken away and I also liked the multiplayer, although in the beginning it did crash a lot and have other bugs. 

Fast forward to 8 months later. I still play, although not that often. I had a small surge when the Kate Bishop dlc came out and this Thursday came the follow up with the Future Imperfect dlc featuring Clint Barton as Hawkeye. The game also added a new sector (the Wastelands), a new villian (Maestro ... I don't feel this is spoiling, because it's in all the promotion material), an option to customise the H.A.R.M. Room (the training room) and the ability to replay the single player game without loosing your leveling-up progress. Also next-next-gen console players are able to update their game for free, but since I'm still on PS4 (for the foreseeable future) I don't care that much. And lastly we got a free skin for Ms. Marvel if you play the new dlc before March 24th. 

By the way, the relativily unknown Pakistani American Muslim hero Ms. Marvel gets a lot of grief for being the main protagonist in the single player campaign of people who are not up-to-date with the comics. Ms. Marvel is very well liked by comic fans and, like Kate and Clint, she will get her own Disney+ series, which will introduce her to a wider public. Like all of the heroes in the game, she is very well portrait and her powers are translated very well from the comics to the game. I don't play her that much anymore, because I already finished her 40-level season pass and still need to unlock lvel 40 with some of the other heroes.

Lastly (beacuse I really want to go down and finish the Future Imperfect dlc) Crystal Dynamics presented a 2021 roadmap (finally!) for the Avengers game at the Square Enix event that also happend on Thursday (like I said: good week). In the image above you can see what is coming. For me, I get excited about the Black Widow movie tie-in (Red Room Takeover), MCU inspired outfits, the Black Panter dlc and well basically everything in this announcement. As the roadmap states (left lower corner), this doesn't include all the work in-progress and I'm also excited about the Playstation-exclusive Spider-Man content, which will probably come after the summer in 2021. So yeah, good job, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix, you got me excited again.

What's on TV?

Well, DC brought us the Snyder Cut of the Justice League movie. It's streaming on HBO Max and it's 4 hours (and 2 minutes) long! Zack Snyder had to step down from directing the movie because of a family tragedy. The 2017 movie was then finished by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which Mommy and me are now (re)watching), but wasn't that well received. Oh, maybe good to say that Whedon also screenwrote and directed The Avengers (well received) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (a bit less well received), so they expectations were high. So a big group of fans started the #releasethesnydercut campaign. WarnerBros listened and Snyder got 70 million to recut the movie, film new scenes and finish it the way he wanted. Personally I also enjoyed the Whedon-cut, but the Snyder-cut had a lot more background story (should be, since it's one-and-a-half hours longer) which really helped shape the characters. We ordered pizza and sat to the whole thing yesterday. Kuromochiii gave up after about 1,5 hours, but Mommy, Onyx and I finished it in one sitting (well, with drink and popcorn breaks) and enjoyed it all.

So that was DC\WarnerBros. Meanwhile on Marvel\Disney side The Falcon and the Snowman ... Winter Soldier started streaming. Mommy and Mr. Dad recently finished WandaVision, the Assembled (making of) documentary and the Marvel Studios Legends shorts (character profiles). After Wanda Maximoff and Vision episodes, Marvel Studios Legends now concentrated on Sam Wilson (Falcon), Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier), Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter, all known from the Captain America franchise and all appearing in the new series. The first episode was fun. Bit of action, bit of drama, cliffhanger with new MCU (but old comic) characters. It didn't pull me in as much as WandaVision yet, but I see the potential and will definitly tune in next week.

And Disney+ gave us a lot to look forward to. The Loki series, which has a sort of timecop vibe, the animated What If series, the earlier mentioned Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel series, a series about She-Hulk and more, more, more. So yeah, it was a good week and the future looks bright (not Future Imperfect at all).

And with that, I think all of us are winners in this Versus-episode.