Marvel vs. DC

Some of you may be wondering what the words "Marvel" and "DC" mean. Well, today is the day to become educated! These are the two major comic producers that create pretty much every comic people have come to know and love. For the following post, I am going to be completely and totally unbiased (Marvel is better) without a hint of preference to either one (Marvel totally beats DC) since this is merely for instructional purposes (Marvel wins. Always). First up is a little bit of background.

Notable DC characters: Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and anyone ever associated with The Justice League.

Notable Marvel Characters: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, The Hulk, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and anyone else associated with the Avengers, Hydra, A.I.M., or S.H.I.E.L.D.

Notable Movies Associated with DC (1989-2012): 7 Batman movies, 1 Superman, 1 Catwoman, and 1 Green Lantern. Total: 10

Notable Movies Associated with Marvel (1989-2012): 5 X-Men related movies, 4 Spider-Man Movies, 3 Fantastic Four movies, 2 Hulk Movies, 2 Iron Man movies, Thor, Captain America, and the best one of them all: The Avengers. Total: 18 And these are just the movies that contain the notable characters I've listed above.

As you can see, Marvel has a lot more variety than DC does. The entire X-Men comics alone have enough characters to pretty much be their own universe. Also, Marvel's movies are pretty good overall, especially the most recent ones featuring the Avengers team. (Those ones are just fantastic.)

I'm a huge fan of Marvel because of how imperfect their characters are and how relatable their struggles are to us "normal" folk. The best example is Spider-Man.  He gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and then goes out and does what pretty much any teenager does when they have something cool: He shows off. He doesn't instantly become imbedded with a moral compass. No, he wants to make his problems stop at school, he wants to be cool to the girl he's been crushing on, and (in the new version) he wants to help find out about what happened to his parents. It's not until his Uncle Ben talks to him and begins planting the seed that people with power have responsibility that Spider-Man begins to realize that his powers are more than for showing off. Even after his superhero realization, he still has every day problems. Just because he's now Spider-Man doesn't mean his real world problems will go away. He still has to pay for rent, go to school, help his widowed Aunt May, and figure out how to become less awkward around women. His first love dies in a tragic accident, and the villains find ways to defeat him on a regular basis. Peter Parker's world is not an easy one, and I love the fact that just because he's a super hero doesn't mean that the rest of his problems disappear.

Many Marvel character have issues similar to Spider-Man's They have to struggle with how they plan on going about being super heroes. Wolverine has to deal with isolation issues. Iron Man and Thor have to learn how to stop being arrogant brats and become heroes. Hulk just has huge anger management problems, and even Captain America initially struggles with becoming a hero instead of a dancing monkey. (He actually gets that joke.)

DC doesn't have the same well rounded characters. The only one who even comes close is Batman, and that's pretty much only in Christopher Nolan's most recent "Dark Knight" trilogy. DC heroes' only problems are the ones that they have facing villains. (Although why Lex Luthor is ever much of problem to Superman is beyond me. Puny mortal.) There is not as much struggle, and the good guy always wins. The reason why Christopher Nolan's Batman has been such a huge success is because it breaks the DC stereotype and goes nowhere that a DC character has gone before: The hero has issues. Huge, giant issues like the entire city hating him and the love of his life dying. No longer does a DC hero live in a candy-coated world where he can fix all of his problems.

Am I being a little harsh on DC? Probably. However, the following highlights from this article prove my point about DC films: "Because Reeve's Superman doesn't wonder who he is or why he is, the citizens of Metropolis...don't wonder, either." Superman is also described as a "confident, unburdened hero". Maybe that worked back in the late seventies when Superman: The Movie was released (which is the best Superman according to the article), but it does not work now. Hopefully the new Superman movie (Man of Steel) will put some good background info on the "unburdened" hero showing how he too can have disfunctions, instead of just assuming that he's perfect.

Now just because I don't like DC as much as Marvel doesn't mean I won't watch their movies or cartoon shows because let's face it: They're still superheroes, and I'm all about loving superheroes. I'm not as totally excited to see them though as I would a Marvel superhero movie. I haven't even seen Green Lantern yet since I've heard it was mas o menos (so-so in Espanol). Dark Knight Rises is a definite must-see, and maybe Man of Steel will be worth watching. Maybe.

Marvel is the best. And if you don't believe me, then do your own Wikipedia research, and watch their movies and if you're a big enough fan, delve into some of the better cartoon shows. Personally, I haven't heard one bad word for Avengers, but that's probably because there isn't one. And in the end, if it turns out that you're a DC fan, it's ok. I'll forgive you.

You've Got Mail!

And by you, I mean me. I get mail quite frequently. It's fantastic. Call it a reward for the amount of time I spend letter writing to missionaries. I now have ten missionaries that I write to quite frequently (Tyler, Nic, Murphy, Brett, Peter, Ryan, Spencer, Mike Clawson, Ben, and Mike Poret). I will be adding some more of these faithful Elders over the summer as well!


Getting mail is definitely one of the best things in the whole wide world. There's just something about seeing letters addressed to me after I've pulled them out of the mailbox that makes me all warm and happy inside! It's wonderful. And if I feel like that every few days when I get a letter, then imagine how those missionaries feel when they get letters from me! They probably feel even better!


This picture represents the amount of mail I have received this summer. Isn't it so super cool?!

Now you see why I've been spending less and less time on the blog, and more and more time writing missionaries. It's super fun.


On a completely different note, look at what I did to the Suburban mirror!

It cost me eighty-two dollars to replace the glass. Talk about a huge boo-boo for my wallet. Now we're having trouble with other parts of the mirror, (I didn't do it! I promise!) so now it's actually in worse shape than it was with the cracked mirror. Lesson that I learned: Cars are super expensive, and cause tons of trouble. I mean, a car isn't magically going to fix itself! Every day it just deteriorates into worse shape than it was the day before. So not fun. That's why I won't get a car for a long, long time.

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

There are lots of people out there wondering why Spider-Man is being redone so soon. To be put simply, it's because the Sam Raimi/Tobey Macguire's Spider-Man was good, but it wasn't great. In fact, it barely even followed the comics. At all. Like they really didn't follow the comics. One example being the fact that Spider-Man was able to create webs out of his wrists without using web shooters. Foolish movie makers. That's the whole reason why Spider-Man goes like this:



See the black pad in the middle? That's to activate his web shooters.

As you can see, there was some major disappointment in the earlier Spider-Man movies. Jessie used to think that Spider-Man was a lame whiney college kid that needed to grow up, because all she knew of Spider-Man was Tobey Macguire's portrayal. However, Spider-Man is cool. Like super cool. In fact, one might even call him amazing.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Guys, even I was a little skeptical about this movie. I was worried that Spider-Man and Peter Parker wouldn't be portrayed correctly. I was dead wrong. To answer why they redid Spider-Man a mere five years after the previous monstrosity hit the screen is because they had to fix it. This Spider-Man is the true Spider-Man. He's the Spider-Man I grew to love as a little girl. The guy who not only has real life problems as Peter Parker, but problems as a superhero as well.

So what made this movie so good? It was a little bit of everything. Andrew Garfield is an excellent actor, and his portrayal as Spider-Man and as Peter Parker was phenomenal. These characters evolve so much over the course of the film, which is quite a feat over the course of one movie. Andrew Garfield was able to pull off not one, but two character turnarounds, for while Peter Parker and Spider-Man are intertwined, they can almost be thought of as two different people.

The story of the villain was also shown well. The reason why Doc Connors does what he does and how he became a villain is touched on well enough to understand the why, but not overdone to where it takes away too much screen time from our hero.

The romance was also portrayed well. Gwen Stacey is a teenage girl. Peter Parker is a teenage boy. Put those together and what do you get? Hilarious awkward moments to where you're glad it's not happening to you, to super sweet moments where you get to see a little bit more of each characters' strengths and weaknesses. The romance wasn't just something added in to distract the audience temporarily, but it enhanced movie by allowing the characters to become more developed as the movie progressed.

For the people who hated Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man or thought that a "reboot" was unnecessary, this movie helps to correct all of the previous misconceptions that there may have been. This is the real deal. The Spider-Man movie that is closer to the comics, and has a darker edge to it that makes it more relatable to each of us. I would recommend to watch it. Even Jessie has come to realize how amazing Spider-Man truly is.