You can’t really blame ABC for wanting to edit out the Marvel/DC gaffe that Michael Strahan committed while talking to the cast of the new movie Birds of Prey since it’s more than a little embarrassing as Sam Stone of CBR points out. To her own credit though Margot Robbie just smiled a little as the ladies pointed out that there is in fact a difference between the DC and Marvel universe’s. It was an honest mistake that Strahan didn’t mean to make since he’s not the first to do it and he’s definitely not the only one that would anger a lot of comic and movie fans when it comes to mistaking DC for Marvel and vice versa, but it was also something the network couldn’t just let go as they did edit out the incident. Some might have said that Robbie looked as though she was a bit peeved by the question, but thankfully that winning smile came back rather quickly as it’s likely that she’s heard this kind of thing before and knows better than to take any real offense from it. If anything there’s more of a possibility that Marvel and DC fans would be the ones to take up arms and start railing against Strahan, but at this time it doesn’t appear that anyone has bothered to go that far.
this is SO EMBARRASSING lmao pic.twitter.com/Puz15LEzdg
— lana ʬâ¸â´ (@themycira) February 4, 2020
As Kevin Burwick of MovieWeb and just about any other opinion writer could tell you, the Marvel and DC fan bases are highly protective of their favored brand and don’t like to be compared to each other or mistaken for each other all that often as there’s a good deal of conflict between the two. This is kind of amusing really since the acts of theft that have been going on for years have been perpetrated by both companies in a number of ways when creating new heroes and villains and it’s been seen that neither company really wants to give the other that much credit. But if someone mistakes a hero or a villain though, huh boy. This is the kind of material that online arguments are built around since a lot of fans are bound to take things and blow them out of proportion in such a way that they’ll create a firestorm on social media about who’s better, Marvel or DC, who’s been around longer, and who’s more believable. Yeah, you read that right, people will argue about which fictional characters are more ‘believable’.
The fact that Margot even reacted to this is evidence that it’s not the first time and that she’s had to weather this kind of mistake a few times, but has at least tempered any outward reaction to it. After all there’s no real reason to get that bent out of shape, as people do make mistakes and will be glad to be corrected in instances such as this. Likely as not Strahan might have had Marvel on the brain since the MCU has still been quite dominant throughout the last few years as DC has been doing their best to do their own thing and remain just as popular. So far it does sound as though Birds of Prey might have a pretty decent chance of a hefty turnout and could possibly be another movie that will elevate DC into a position that might give them even more of an advantage moving forward. Erik Kain of Forbes has more to say on this matter. Thus far their only real successes, despite box office numbers, have been Wonder Woman and Aquaman. You could possibly say that Justice League was a financial success and that would be accurate enough, but the fan and critics reaction is enough to think that the box office numbers aren’t really that convincing. In fact the only thing that might be capable of slowing Birds of Prey down is that at first glance it looks like another attempt at female empowerment rather than storytelling. The hope of course is that it can be empowering AND tell a good story, which is what might happen if things happen the way they need to, meaning the movie needs to be less about ‘girl power’ than it does about a group of women that come together to fight a common enemy that has a reason to want them all dead.
DC has been getting better as of late and while they’ve absolutely dominated on TV their big screen presence has still been largely uncertain throughout the years. Hopefully this movie will be something that can keep them moving forward, but one thing that anyone should be warned against is mistaking it for a Marvel movie, or even likening it to one since DC fans are likely to take a great deal of offense. Hopefully this movie can accomplish what many others haven’t, and can keep DC on a steady roll towards continued success.
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