Marvel's Batmen

As I type this post, the movie "Black Panther" is printing money at the box office. Marvel Studios has, for the last decade, been able to use a brand new type of franchising to create hit after box office hit. And while others have tried to follow them up (Sony, Fox, WB) none of them have really come close to success of the MCU.

As a DC fan, this bothers me a bit, although I don't go see DC movies either (hell I dont go see any movies). IMO they've been horribly mismanaged, but they will be great again because the characters are too good to keep down.

But back to Marvel; and this is something that I have read and observed. Stan Lee was once asked about the DC characters and said that Batman was the closest thing DC had to a Marvel character. Given the backstory and other elements, I think that argument makes sense. But what I've noticed is that Marvel Comics, which btw is NOT taking advantage of the success of the MCU, seems to have several characters that I would call "Batman-ish" Taking elements of Batman and putting it into their own characters. Here are some examples of said characters:

Iron Man- This is probably the easiest to discern. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are both billionaires who use hi-tech gadgetry to fight crime. They also have public personas of being playboys, even though Tony Stark is a bit less of an act.

The Punisher- Frank Castle discovers that his family (wife and daughter) are killed by criminals and he decides to serve vengeance on them. Deadly vengeance. Batman going over the line, so to speak.

Moon Knight- Origin story is nothing like Batman, but both are non powered humans who use gadgets and use the night as cover and a weapon. Their costumes are similar as well, although Moon Knight's is white.

Black Panther- The man of the hour. Black Panther is dressed in a very similar costume to Batman, plus like Batman, he has a "kingdom" to protect. With Black Panther, Wakanda is literally a kingdom, but it still serves as BP's "Gotham City". The link between these two supposedly goes even further than that. Black Panther was created in July 1966, during two relative phenomena;

    1. The Civil Rights movement.
    2. The Batman TV Show.

Would it be fair for Marvel try to capitalize and create a black Batman-esque character?


In the end, what I am saying is that Marvel Comics has a lot of things going for them. But they don't have Batman, who I believe has surpassed Superman and Spiderman to become the most popular superhero of the day. And Marvel tried to compensate with many different characters with different characteristics of Batman, some of which have carved out niches for themselves. But in the end, there is only one Batman

Thoughts