There is only one... (comic book publisher), to cop a line from the Highlander series. Question is - who is it? DC - or Marvel? 20 years ago, this argument might have been resolved by simply splitting most of the civilised world into 2, arming them with machetes and AK-47s, and then putting them together on a big green field, with lots and lots of ambulances and paramedics. Simply because there would be no other way.

There's been a battle brewing - and I'm not talking about the one between mutants and humans. Ever since the creation of the graphic novel, two names have been slugging it out for every conceivable inch of our sensory landscape. And today, the showdown is happening in movie-halls, on our tv-screens, at comic-book conventions. It's overflowed onto the internet: lexical forests have been relaced by billions of dpis seeking trading blows over the relative merits of every character that came out of the comic book hall of fame.

Now - we have widescreen. :-) And internet polls.

So lets take a look at what's on offer for the fans. Batman begins (2005), Superman Returns (June 06) are/will be recent releases from the DC stables. And Marvel has been steam-rollering competition with the X-men trilogy, the spiderman trilogy, the hulk (2 on the way), Fantastic 4. You'd think that DC didn't stand a chance. Not so.