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In the wake of the Superhero genre becoming a full force in Hollywood, it has opened up various channels of support for the films across a wide and varied spectrum.
More and more comic conventions have appeared, it has generated even more fans who weren’t necessarily comic fans before to watch and love the films and these films have spawned spin offs into comics, books, documentaries, fan fiction, amongst lots more.
The most popular channel that has appeared though is the thousands of fan pages found on social media, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.
For the most part, these fan pages offer a brilliant and unique glimpse into the comic world through art, comic strips, interviews, fan made creations and facts and knowledge. Some of the more popular pages reach hundreds of thousands of followers every single day and it is definitely a positive outpour that has been generated from the success of comic book films.
However, there still remain some negatives when looking upon your favourite comic pages online. More so from the fans themselves than the actual pages, a creeping negativity towards a particular comic book company is being established.
The more popular pages on the whole do and try discourage these comments but it’s still an issue that should not be ignored.
Though comic book fans are fans of both Marvel and DC, a preference is usually chosen between the two without discrimination or complete lack of respect for the other. It is definitely OK to like one over the other or to even dislike one completely and love the other but the feud between the two needs to stop before it becomes a recognised problem between fans and eventually, the studios.
It’s not an over exaggeration to assume the studios aren’t aware of this riff between fans as some high profile stars have commented on the issue when they have been questioned on the matter. Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman vs. Superman Director Zack Snyder, when discussing BvS mentioned that Batman and Superman were iconic characters in comic history and that they were not ‘flavour of the week Ant-Man’ and that ‘What’s next, Blank Man?’
This fuelled a response from Sebastian Stan, famous for playing Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier in both Captain America films who defended Marvel’s film strategy and commented that ‘They’re not trying to mimic a better Christopher Nolan movie or something like that’, which appeared to be swipe at Snyder’s upcoming attempt at Batman.
Whilst it’s easy to get caught up in support of your own franchise, comments like these should be kept to a minimum and instead should follow in what Man of Steel star, Henry Cavill recently said on the matter.
Cavill stated that, “It’s not about that, they’re such different entities. Which is great, which is why I like Marvel movies as well and they’re not really competition at all, ‘cuz they’re so, so different. And when Marvel does well, I’m happy, so that means superheroes are doing well, and that means DC will do well.”
Cavill here states the most important point of the so called ‘feud’, in that when one company does well, it means the genre is still popular and that also means the other company will do well. DC stars aren’t that shallow that they won’t support Marvel films and vice versa because they know that a united support will only boost popularity of superheroes, and that will only create more comic book films for fans.
That is exactly what comic book fans want; more films, and that can only be achieved if everyone including studios, directors, actors and most importantly, fans, do their best to support all comic book companies and films so that this genre which is loved in film can continue for many more years.