Friend of No-Lyfe Mike Ahlf, who has a mostly-but-not-entirely political blog delves into the world of comic books and comic book property movies to try to make the case for Marvel Comics over my preferred (when I collected) DC. He'd make a convincing argument... except that he gets DC soooooo wrong it's not even funny.

His points about continuity are more-or-less on mark. It's always been a problem at DC for reasons that are more-or-less beyond their control. DC superheroes were set up in a legacy format. The first Flash was Jay Garrick and the second Barry Allen. The first Green Lantern was Alan Scott and the second Hal Jordan. The reasons this happened were well documented and were a product of the marketplace more than anything else. In 1986 wherebouts, they made the controversial decision to take Jay Garrick and Barry Allen and put them in a linear timeline. While there were two Green Lanterns (Scott and Jordan) and two Flashes (Garrick and Allen), there were two Batmans named Bruce Wayne and two Supermans named Clark Kent (when they relaunched Flash and GL in the 60's, Batman and Superman were too popular to tamper with). this became increasingly confusing for readers and since they have always been the flagship characters, it was easier to change around the Flashes, GLs, and Atoms.

Had they left it there, it would have been controversial but it wouldn't have lead to the agitation that has occured with many fans. They rebooted Superman and changed around the history of Clark Kent from boy nerd to jock, which was disconcerting at best and an outright betrayal of the character at worst. They also rebooted Wonder Woman from scratch, taking everything that she had done beforehand and taking it out of continuity. Though Mike also mentions Zero Hour, the effect that had on DC continuity was minimal and overblown in a marketing effort.

His point about DC characters having a cheesy fatal flaw is half-right. Superman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter have it, but they're about it for the big guys (and in MM's case, it's well explained and no more odd than Storm's aversion to enclosed spaces). Flash, Atom, and the plethora of powerless characters (Batman, Green Arrow) are without said limitations.

Then Mike really starts to just get it all wrong:

None of their villians are simply evil businessmen like the Kingpin. Nobody in their pantheon has shades of grey. They're evil, or they're not. Contrast this with Spidey, who used his powers for monetary gain until the death of Uncle Ben. Contrast with Magneto, whose true brilliance is that he truly BELIEVES what he is saying. Contrast with Doctor Doom, who of all things carries around a more powerful weapon than anything he can build, in the form of Diplomatic Immunity

None of their villains are evil businessmen? Ahem... Lex Luthor? Luthor was a diabolical madman pre-Crisis, but since has been more or less DC's own Kingpin. Poison Ivy and R'as al Ghoul just want to set the Earth free. Penguin wants to be admired and respected. Joker just wants to world to understand the joke. Luthor is trying to provide a financial empire for himself and legacy for his daughter. Shade was a superhero because it seemed like the thing to do, then he became bored of it and destroyed half of Opal City. His super-powers had simply made him bored. Neither hero nor villain, somewhere in between. As for heroes in shades of gray? That pretty much defines Batman these days, whose own struggle is provided in the dichotomy between Robin and Huntress, the one who wants to do good and the one who wants to hurt those that hurt her. Green Arrow is a womanizer and a cad whose irresponsibility lead his former sidekick, Roy Harper, into drug addiction. Not to mention Hal Jordan, who was a drunkard when he found salvation through his superpowered ring and became Green Lantern for many years. Then his home town was destroyed, and he became so driven to make things right that he was trying to disrupt the entire time-space continuum... just to make things right and bring Coast City back from the dead.

On the last point, it's not too tough to disagree with his assessment:

So, now we have X-Men, and Spidey. Daredevil is proving that even Marvel's second stringers have box office power. Why? Because Marvel is doing it right. They have writers and directors who respect the material. They bring in actors, not for name power, but who can play the parts. Contrast the casting of Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man with Ahnold as Mr. Freeze and you'll see what I mean. Contrast the director's work and writers' work from Spidey or Daredevil with "Joel the campy fruit" Schumacher's complete ruination of Batman, right down to the Bat-Nipples and Bat-Ass. Turning Mr. Freeze, the emotionless scientist, into a singing wierdo. Taking Bane, from the evil genius who studied Batman for a year, learned his moves, then broke his back, to a shameless Hulk-ripoff toady controlled by pheromones. Warner showed no respect for what Batman is, and it showed. The people working on Marvel's films have respect for the material that's giving them a job and a chance to shine, and it also shows.

One must remember, however, that both the Batman and Superman movie enterprises started off well and went downhill. Burton's Batman was a solid adaptation of Frank Miller's Return of the Dark Knight character and the original Superman will always be a classic. It is therefore quite possible that Super-Man and X-Men will end up little different. It all depends on how many movies their respective directors do and who replaces them. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen, and I don't think it will. Not because the characters are inherently superior as Mike suggests, but rather because DC suffered from properties protection overkill. When Burton left the Batman enterprise, it was in part because Warner Bros. didn't want the Batman mythos to become irretrievably dark. A couple years ago when there was talk of a Nic Cage Superman, it was (thankfully) squelched during a debate over how closely it should tie in with the Superman comic story at the time (Superman Blue). The Marvel movies, on the other hand, are produced independently of the comic books so there is no overlap. There is no need to showcase shoehorn the new comic villain (at the time) Bane where he clearly didn't belong. They did the same thing in the Batman Animated Series (which was stellar to the end, for the most part) with the same disastrous results. Coincidentally, DC's last successful foray into other media was Batman Tomorrow, which had no comic book precedent for the bigwigs at DC Comics to try to control. Since there is little Marvel Comic editorial control over the content of the movies, it frees the movies to more closely mirror the visions of the directors. Let's just hope they don't replace the Burton's with Shoemachers.