The big-screen battle between DC and Marvel

IN ADDITION to fighting for truth and justice, some superheroes are capable of making a fortune. Hence the high hopes for “Man of Steel”, the latest Superman film, which opens in America on June 14th. Behind the on-screen fights between good and evil in such films there exists an equally fierce rivalry between the two main comic publishers. DC (now a part of Time Warner) went unchallenged for two decades until Marvel entered the fray in 1998. Then Kapow!, Wham!, Splat! and by 2004 Marvel’s X-Men, Spider-Man and the Avengers had left DC's Batman and Superman trailing with their capes between their legs. But a rebooted, darker Batman revived DC in 2005, as is the hope with the new Superman. It has a long way to go: to date, Marvel (part of Disney since 2009) has raked in $13.6 billion compared with $8 billion for DC. The first of our two superhero infographics (above) tracks box-office receipts for films since 1978, and a breakdown by franchise. A second chart (below) gives more detail and shows how Hollywood has become increasingly reliant on foreign cinema-goers, even though the studios get a smaller cut of the takings in overseas markets. One virtue of superhero films, from this point of view, is that they are not overly reliant on wordy scripts.