MCU’s Excelsior Cinematic Universe vs. The Downfall of the DCEU: How Marvel Studios’ Pacing and Planning Helped Them Embrace Transmedia Storytelling to Conquer the Cinematic Universe

Abstract

When it comes to superheroes, Marvel and DC are the two companies that shine in that department. Even though both companies share the idea of creating superheroes, they have their differences when it comes to how they want to present these superheroes to the media. Marvel owns respective heroes such as Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Hulk. This means that only Marvel is able to use these characters in their works and no other company can use their character as Marvel protected the claim to these characters, and only Marvel has the rights to use these characters in their projects.. This rule also applies to DC with their characters. DC owns respective heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. With these superheroes becoming more and more popular due to their creativity and likeness in the comic books, both DC and Marvel have promoted these heroes in numerous multimedia platforms. Things like merchandise, comic books, animated shows, animated movies, and toys are a few examples of both companies’ way of promoting and displaying their characters worldwide to audiences of their superheroes. It was only a matter of time for both companies to promote their characters on the big screen of movies and display them on a worldwide media. Marvel's first ever movie was Captain America (Elmer Clifton and John English, 1944) and DC’s first ever movie was Superman and the Mole Man (Lee Sholem, 1951) and ever since then, both companies throughout the years have created iconic and revolutionary films that helped elevate not only the superhero genre in the world of films, but also constructed a new blueprint of worldbuilding when it comes to their cinematic universes.