Ah yes, that old chestnut. Well, dividing it all up into categories...
Comics: Marvel. Marvel comics have ALWAYS been better than DC's, as far as I'm concerned. Much as I enjoyed DC's New 52 relaunch and a lot of the classic storylines that came before that, Marvel has been consistently brilliant since the 90s...ignoring that awful period in the early 2000s, anyway. I suppose this is bias talking, because I started with Spiderman and X-Men during the second Clone Saga and Age of Apocalypse - and even if the former had a bit of a dodgy conclusion, the latter most definitely did not - but Marvel over the last few years has been incredible. Jason Aaron's Mighty Thor run is the best thing to have ever happened to the character, and Hickman's Avengers leading into Secret Wars was pretty amazing. In fact, most of the comics set between Avengers vs. X-Men and Secret Wars were amazing. Some of the best Avengers teams came out of that time period. Spiderman has always been able to better Batman by having better storylines, even if the stakes are never quite as high. The All New All Different Marvel hiccup was a bit awkward, but it delivered more interesting storylines than DC's Rebirth did by mixing things up in a significant fashion and having it stick for more than a few issues.
I'm hesitant to mention Ultimate Marvel, but without that we wouldn't have had Miles Morales, so at least one good thing came out of it...and to be fair, ignoring Ultimate Avengers and Ultimatum, it's all actually pretty solid stuff. Really good jumping-on point for anyone interested in Marvel but wants something a little more...like DC, I suppose!
Movies: DC. I loathe the Marvel Cinematic Universe - it's bad plagiarism of good comic book storylines, and I am not going to forgive them anytime soon for the "Children of Thanos" either. The MCU has turned every character into the 90s era comic book Spiderman in terms of personality, and whilst that is by no means a bad personality archetype, it's a bit much to have EVERY character throwing around snarky one-liners like it's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, I know Whedon directed a couple of the films, and I'll excuse those ones, but every other film? EVERY character? No. Also, the MCU's treatment of its villains is absolutely unforgivable, because with the possible exception of Loki (who, even then, has been watered-down something awful) they are all grossly under-developed and faceless. They're a thing for the heroes to kill at the end of the movie. I was basically done with Marvel villains when they decided to treat Ronan the Accuser like a mindless zealot. If you read literally ANY comic you'll realise just how bad the MCU is at portraying the characters it has on-screen. It's atrocious. Not to say that there aren't any good Marvel films - Deadpool is great, and X-Men: Days of Future Past was pretty good, although why they had to end that series with ANOTHER bad Dark Phoenix adaptation is beyond me - but they're not part of the MCU. The DCU isn't any better, but at least the heroes have personalities that aren't completely identical to one another.
Anyways, the reason DC wins this category is because of the animated movies. This is as close a continuation of the DC Animated Universe as we're going to get, and to be fair with the exception of a few hiccups - the two part Death of Superman was horrific, and what on earth did they do to The Killing Joke?! - these movies are fantastic adaptions of great storylines, with strong voice acting and great animation that toes the line between being reminiscent of the old shows and more modern. I love the DC Animated Movies, and I hope they keep making them, because their quality is right up there...most of the time.
There's also Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a.k.a. the greatest superhero movie of all time.
Video Games: DC wins this, if only because good quality Marvel video games are very few and far between. Ultimate Alliance 3 is by far and away the best superhero video game I've played, but there are just so many better DC-based video games...I mean, sure, most of them DO revolve around Batman, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Batman is a great, highly relatable hero to play as. Plus Marvel's Avengers exists. Yeaaah. No excuse for that being as bad as it is.
Live Action TV Shows: DC wins this one by a landslide...hell, it could win this off Gotham alone, but then there's the Arrowverse, which, outside of a few blips - most of them in Arrow's later seasons, although Supergirl was a trial to watch in the third and fourth seasons - is one of the best interconnected TV franchises I've seen that isn't science fiction. It also has Legends of Tomorrow, which takes the rejects from every other show and makes them the best cast in the entire thing, which is pretty special. I LOVE Legends of Tomorrow, because the next episode could be literally anything. They just go wild with it. Agents of SHIELD got boring after two seasons and relies too heavily on the movies, taking the rejects from the movies and giving them TV shows doesn't sound like my idea of a good fime, and the Netflix Marvel shows were all over the place. Daredevil was great. The less said about the rest the better.
Cartoons: This is the only area in which I struggle to pick a side, because both the 90s Marvel and DC cartoons were the pinnacle of both franchises. Marvel had Spiderman and X-Men, and DC had a whole interconnected cartoon universe, but mostly Batman. It's very, VERY hard to choose between them, because they both offered radically different and essential experiences. If I had to look outside of those I would say that DC has fared better - Batman: The Brave and the Bold was a surprisingly fun take on the character, and gave us the Music Meister, and Marvel's shows since then have left a lot to be desired - but really it all comes down to the 90s cartoons. Don't ask me to choose, because I can't. Tie.
Heroes: Marvel. Easily. DC has a very black-and-white landscape which, whilst it provides more gritty realism and shocking storylines, doesn't really EXCITE, because it's rare that the heroes are the villains. Marvel pulls all kinds of crazy shit with its heroes, and even if a lot of them are woefully forgettable, there are a few that stand head-and-shoulders above the rest because of consistently fantastic writing. Mostly Spiderman and Thor recently, although the X-Men have off-and-on had great storyline arcs - and have progressed a little beyond being a very dated metaphor for racism, thank god - as well.
Villains: DC gets this one, if only just. Marvel just doesn't have a proper counter to either Lex Luthor or the Joker. It has so many great villains, but none of them come close to the heights these two have reached, because they're serious, credible threats. Marvel is much, MUCH better at turning its heroes into villains and blurring the moral lines, but when it comes to creating tense situations that could literally go anywhere, DC does it best. Batman's gallery of villains is also better than Spiderman's. The problem with Marvel's villains is that they don't really have any staying power, either. Well, except for Doctor Doom, anyway. But even with the recent-ish symbiote storyline Marvel never let Carnage go as wild as DC would let Joker go in a comparable storyline. It's just not as exciting. Marvel's problem is that it never really gives its new villains a chance to shine, and it doesn't do enough with the ones that are truly interesting and still technically villains. It's better at redeeming villains, but not at actually making them villains.
Overall: Despite my hating what Marvel has become - thanks for that, Disney - I have to go with Marvel, because I am at heart a comic book fan and Marvel has always had better comics. DC does good one-off storylines, but Marvel is far better at connecting its storylines together for crossovers with far-reaching consequences, and even though the quality of Marvel comics has mostly declined since the 90s - a lot of comics pre-Secret Wars were amazing, and Thor has been extremely fortunate to transfer into only slightly less-gifted hands now that Aaron's run has concluded - they still far and away eclipse DC's efforts since the New 52 ended...which is a VERY unpopular opinion, but that was a good gateway into the comics for me and I've not been overly impressed with what I've read since then.
