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In the mid-nineties I personally wasn't thinking about these characters much at all, even though Captain Marvel was in the throes of Jerry Ordway's well received The Power of Shazam! series, and Thor's transformation into a slightly generic shadow of his former-self was probably part of an initiative intended to actually provoke interest from people. Īll things considered, opening the contest with Captain Marvel and Thor was an unexpected stroke of genius. Five years on, I hope I can dwell on the subject a little more without repeating myself too much, in honor of the (belated) fifteenth anniversary. The complete list, along with the most fleshed out incidental battles that occurred along the way, can be found in my somewhat sophomoric tenth anniversary summary, which you might have read before, if you've researched the subject. With the conventional wisdom of most modern pay-per-view fight cards DC vs Marvel promised a gradual escalation in battles, starting with an undercard of six independently contrived match-ups that would build tension toward the deciding results of the fan-voted five main events. Selections would require thematic resonance, iconic representation, and an organization that didn't compromise the integrity of characters beyond their ability to cope. An appropriate acknowledgment of status and expectation would surely need to be recognised to some degree, to the satisfaction of the corporate overseers and the fans, even if the ultimate victory would be decided by a democratic vote of five key seats. The great heroes of comics are often servicing higher ideals than the simple test of one ability against another, but here, bonafide diplomacy was as much on the agenda as the previously established wills of man-gods and super-soldiers. The cliché had a real-world truth to bare as the two biggest publishers in American comics submitted themselves to a set of true-blue competitive circumstances, which no doubt required delicate negotiation around some amount of ego. Like a lot of good comic book stories, there was more to consider in the construction of Marvel versus DC than the in-fiction propositions of parallel dimensions at war.