Popverse's top stories

• Chainsaw Man anime was fully funded by MAPPA so the studio could have full creative ownership of the manga adaptation
• Greg Capullo is quietly retiring from drawing comics after the break-up of his Batman era art team
• Even DC is surprised by the success of both the mainline Batman series and Absolute Batman

Marvel's longest-serving editor, Tom Brevoort, has a pretty thick skin when it comes to fan outrage. Having overseen decades of big narrative swings come out of the House of Ideas, he'd have to. And yet, there's still one moment of reader blowback that stands out to him, even decades after the choice in question went down. The reason?

Fans asked for it before it happened.

Brevoort was talking about his witness to unpopular decisions at Marvel (which comes with, we should note, absolute libraries worth of popular ones) on the Word Balloon Comics Podcast with host John Siuntres.

"I still hear from people that are angry about Superman [vs.] Thor," Brevoort told him.

Specifically, Brevoort is referring to the confrontation between the Man of Steel and God of Thunder that happened in 2003's JLA/Avengers #3. Krypton's favorite son ended up soundly defeating Asgard's, much to the dismay of Thor fans everywhere, but while people were grumpy about it after it happened, they were foaming at the mouth for it beforehand.

"The funny part for me," the current X-Men editor explained, "Is when we announced the project, Kurt [Busiek, writer] set up a dedicated email address that was like, 'If people have suggestions for what they want to see, email them there. We'll read through stuff and we'll look and see if there's anything.' One of the things that came in by the pound was fans on both sides of the equation saying, 'We want real fights with a real winner and a real loser. No mealy-mouthing about it.'"

"So we did Superman/Thor," he continued, "And it turns out that, in that moment, Superman beats Thor. Every Thor fan on the planet went bananas. They were just so angry! They came back with bargaining, 'Well, couldn't you have made it a tie?' Dude, last week you were saying, 'We will not accept a tie! We want a definitive winner, and [the loser] has got to be embarrassed and killed. [We want you] showing that our guy is so much better than him.'"

"Our goal was that everybody gives a good accounting of themselves," Brevoort concluded, "And I think by and large they do. [...] It's been 20 years, so a lot of [outrage] has died down, but there's always a little. That's probably my greatest crime in comics, was letting Superman beat Thor. For certain people."

I don't know, Tom. This sounds like a case of people not being careful what they wished for, rather than a crime on your part. And hey, you could always have a Superman/Thor rematch down the line one day, if the DC/Marvel crossover books continue to make money. 

Just know that if you pit Detective Chimp and Hit-Monkey against each other, I truly won't know who to root for.

Want more? Make sure you've read our list of all the best Marvel Comics stories of all time, and get ready for all the free Marvel comics coming as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day 2026 / Comics Giveaway Day  2026 events.