“The Flash” is unlike any other live-action superhero film that has come before. It’s intensely funny, heartbreaking, and a genuine love letter to DC fans. This is one of the best comic book films of the last 10 years and DC’s best since “Wonder Woman.” And with the DC Extended Universe coming to a close (soon to be replaced by the greatly hyped DC Universe), “The Flash” very well may represent the turn of the tide against Marvel, despite a less-than-stellar performance at the box office.
Despite being a heated rivalry, the Marvel-DC film wars have been no close contest. DC dominated the comic book film industry as pretty much the only game in town from the late-’70s to mid-’90s, with wildly varying levels of success. Then after the catastrophic failure of “Batman and Robin,” Marvel’s titles became briefly ascendant with a trio of trilogies: “Blade,” “X-Men,” and “Spider-Man.” The first two of each trilogy were great, while the final installments of each all failed to live up to expectations, essentially killing each franchise. Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy reestablished DC’s box-office dominance, but once the Marvel Cinematic Universe really got going, the studio launched one of the most financially successful film franchises of all time.
But it hasn’t just been Marvel’s insane success that made the rivalry lopsided. Warner Brothers failed to make consistently crowd-pleasing entertainment, continuing the now decades-long trend of DC films’ schizophrenic swings in quality. Their biggest successes of the last 10 years have been with
