Warning: SPOILERS for Defenders: Beyond #4Marvel Comics has found the perfect way to criticize DC Comics‘ tendency to constantly reboot its universe. Facing a powerful villain that promises to let them live in their ideal world forever, the Defenders take a jab at Marvel’s “Distinguished Competition” by saying that constantly rebooting a timeline makes its stories become worthless.
Marvel and DC have very different approaches in the way they handle their creative universes. Their characters are fundamentally different: while DC’s heroes are “gods among mortals”, representing ideals to strive for, Marvel’s are fundamentally flawed and more “human”, and thus more relatable. The two companies also have different approaches to storylines and continuity. While Marvel does not shy away from the “big events”, its continuity has remained fundamentally stable over the past sixty years. On the other hand, DC has a tendency to reboot its entire universe after a big, cataclysmic event, in an attempt to keep its characters and stories fresh.
Sometimes creators working for one company will poke fun at the other, and more rarely they will go even further. In Defenders: Beyond#4, by Al Ewing and Javier Rodrìguez, the titular team, assembled by Eternity to protect the Multiverse, has journeyed all the way to the Abyss, “the farthest place from reality there is“. There, they meet Glorian, a deranged villain with the powers of a god who traps the Defenders in an imaginary world of his making, where all their dreams have come true: Black Marvel is the President of the United States, Tigra is an A-list hero respected by her peers, Taaia is the Herald of her son, Galactus, who is still the Lifebringer, and America Chavez has rescued her sister. However, the Defenders soon realize that it is all an illusion, and they refuse to go on, despite Glorian’s promise to keep “rebooting” that reality until it becomes perfect.
Why Marvel Does Not Reboot Its Universe While DC Does It Constantly
Through the words of the Defenders and their refusal to live in Glorian’s “perfect” world, the creative team perfectly explained the difference between the Marvel and the DC approach to world-building. When Marvel did the closest thing to a reboot, destroying its Multiverse with Secret Wars, the new Multiverse that was then created (the Eighth Cosmos) was not actually a reboot, a new beginning, but a continuation of the old, with the same familiar characters and the continuity mostly unchanged. DC, on the other hand, reboots its universe after every big event: they did it with Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, DC Rebirth, Flashpoint, and Infinite Frontier. “Reboot after reboot“, as Taaia says, “always hunting for the perfect fix“, until every story becomes a “What If?”.
Of course, neither Marvel nor DC’s ways of doing things are “perfect“, and readers will prefer the one that resonates most with their tastes. However, the creative team behind Defenders: Beyond (and mostly writer Al Ewing) used this story to defend Marvel‘s approach to storytelling, and to take a shot at DC‘s obsession with constant reboots.
