The Suicide Squad is in UK cinemas.
For much of the 1960s, Marvel Comics adopted the slogan of car rental firm Avis, who were perennially overshadowed by market-leader Hertz: ‘we’re number two – we try harder’. DC Comics had crossover pop culture icons – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman – so Marvel presented quirkier characters. As editor, Stan Lee often pointed out that Spider-Man or the Hulk had problems – torn costumes that needed replacing, the enmity of the US government/army – which would never trouble the dignified heroes of the Distinguished Competition.
In the current incarnation of this rivalry, Marvel (in the form of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) is Hertz, so DC’s generally shambolic DC Extended Universe films have to try harder, sometimes by taking risks the Disneyfied MCU is averse to. After Patty Jenkins parted ways with Marvel during pre-production of Thor: The Dark World, DC hired her to direct their Wonder Woman film. James Gunn, writer-director of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films, was (temporarily) let go after an orchestrated kerfuffle about tasteless things he tweeted when he was associated not with Disney but the low-rent exploitation outfit Troma. With the glee DC once demonstrated by signing up Marvel’s top artist Jack Kirby, Gunn was hired and given free rein with a follow-up to David Ayer’s compromised, financially-successful-but-little-loved Suicide Squad (2016).