Decades ago, fans, as well as the creators of both Marvel and DC comics, realized soon that the other was their biggest competition. After all, the rivalry between DC and Marvel comics is the stuff of legends. 

The two mega publishers engaged in a battle of characters and sales for decades. It is something that is still continuing. But it’s more serious nowadays between fan camps. Back in the 70s, Stan Lee says that he intentionally trolled DC. 

How Did Stan Lee’s Marvel Troll DC? 

Marvel and DC are always referred to as the “big two” of the comic book world. As of now, Marvel has the largest percentage of comic book sales. 

In the first quarter of 2021, they held about 35% of the entire market share regarding comics. DC came in second with about 27.9% of the market shares. Trailing them at the third position was Image Comics with 10.1% of the total market sales. 

Nowadays if Marvel trolls DC for higher sales, then it would be considered being done in a bad taste. But back in the 70s, when Marvel outsold DC Comics, then Stan Lee decided to troll their distinguished competition. 

During an interview taken in the late 70s, the former Marvel editor-in-chief was questioned about Marvel and DC’s competition. With zero hesitation, Lee commented: 

“bless their little innocent hearts.” 

He then went on to say that he had “fun with them” after Marvel started selling more. As per Lee, DC studied what Marvel was doing with their covers in an attempt to copy their success. The excelsior said that DC noticed that Marvel was using more red in their comic covers. 

And so the other mega company started doing red covers as well. Lee went on to say that DC did the same regarding the dialogues present on the covers. In response to this, Marvel took the red as well as the dialogue off their covers. Thankfully this action didn’t make their sales decrease at all. However, the maestro said that it made DC “crazy.”

Stan Lee Calls DC Comics Stuffy

But that wasn’t it. Lee had more tales to tell about DC comics. He said Marvel worked: 

“A little more seriously and maybe we have a little bit more of a sense of humor.” 

In comparison, he said that DC Comics’ approach was “stuffy,” and said to the interviewer that readers “like things that are whimsical or humorous.” Stan Lee also joked that he made sure to never tell DC what he did. 

Lee doesn’t say how many covers got changed to troll DC. However, the fact that Stan Lee trolled their competition by taking out red from their covers shows just how much tension was there between the two of the biggest comic book publishers. The funny thing is that Lee would go on to write for DC comics about two decades after trolling them. This just goes on to show that he was enjoying just some harmless fun and that he still respected DC. 

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