Why is Marvel beating the stuffing out of DC superheroes?
By Trey June SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN Friday, June 13, 2008 Movies starring comic book superheroes have not been in short supply during the past several years. Attentive viewers might have noticed, however, that the overwhelming majority of these films has featured Marvel Comics superheroes, with relatively few featuring characters from Marvel’s chief publishing rival, DC Comics. Just look at the numbers. This week’s “The Incredible Hulk” will be the 17th live action theatrical release starring a popular Marvel character in the past eight years. By comparison, next month’s “The Dark Knight” will be DC’s third (or, if you count the adaptation-in-name-only “Catwoman,” the fourth). So why is the box office getting a glut of Marvel but a dearth of DC? The first reason is business-related. The only movie studio in the world allowed to make films adapted from DC Comics is Warner Bros. This is because the publisher and studio are legally conjoined through their collective ownership b
