Pretty soon, the entire world is going to lose its collective mind when Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters. The movie will be the culmination of a decade worth of films, starting with Iron Man, which came out in 2008. Infinity War is widely acknowledged to be the biggest cinematic event in history. Really, almost every filmgoer will agree that The Avengers are the only superhero team in the world that matter right now.

And they would be wrong. Sure, Justice League released last year to a mixed response and does not have the box office clout that The Avengers possess, but cinematic worth is not measured by box office alone. The superhero team-up movies you see on the big screen these days are a culmination of storylines that have been running through comics and related media for more than 70 years.

Once you go deeper into the matter, you begin to realize that there is a reason The Justice League is acknowledged by both DC and Marvel fans to be the granddaddy of all superhero teams. Even the DC Cinematic Universe, as messy as it's been, has consciously tried to move away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe formula, in the process giving us many movie moments that we could never imagine occurring in a Marvel movie. Here are 25 memes that challenge the idea of The Avenger's dominance, and prove that when it comes to a superhero team battle royale, The Justice League has more than a few tricks up their sleeves.

25 The Man Who Stands Alongside Gods

There is a reason that Batman is fondly referred to as 'The Batgod' by large sections of the fandom. He may just be a man, but this Man always wins. Doesn't matter if he's going up against a Gotham street thug or the ruler of Apokolips, Lord Darkseid. The Dark Knight will always find a way to win, if not by muscle, then by strategy and planning.

And that makes Batman a far more interesting character to watch than any other hero on either of the teams. The question at the back of your mind will always be 'How will the Bat get out of this situation?' All the best Batman storylines from the comics show him getting beaten to a pulp, only to rise up at the last moment and snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat.

That's what happened when Bane broke Batman's back and threw him in jail. Or when the Joker turned his own family against him. Or any number of times that he and Superman have clashed in the past. You may never know until the very last moment, but Batman will always win.

24 The Long, Hard Wait For The Film

Justice League has more loyal fans than The Avengers. This statement can be backed up by two facts. First, the Justice League has been the older, more popular team since their inception. The Avengers was even formed as a response to the League's popularity.

Over the years, the Justice League dominated fan's imagination like no other team. They made video games. They made cartoons. They were referenced endlessly in popular culture. All of that made the fans salivate thinking of the day when we would finally get to watch a live-action Justice League movie.

Which brings us to the second point: DC fans have been waiting a long time for The Justice League movie. Honestly, Marvel fans are pretty spoiled by this point. With their multiple solo-hero films, their multiple superhero team-up films, and now Infinity War.

All that DC fans had to look forward to was Justice League, and even that seemed to be an uncertainty at one point, with Batman V Superman underperforming at the box office. For all these reasons, the build-up to the League movie was far more intense than anything that was witnessed by the Avengers movies.

23 The Coolest Leaders Any Team Can Have

It must be acknowledged that Captain America and Iron Man are the leaders of The Avengers. They're the ones that the others turn to for guidance, which is why the team was split into Team Cap and Team Iron Man during the events of Captain America: Civil War.

Now, while Tony Stark is a billionaire genius who can think his way out of any situation, Captain America is the shining standard for heroism that all of America looks up to. It would be hard to come up with better leaders for a team.

Unless you happen to be the Justice League.

Because the League has Superman and Batman as the team leaders. Superman is the shining standard for heroism not just to America, not just to the planet, but for the entire universe. There are civilizations in other parts of the Cosmos that are not even aware of Earth, who know about the Champion of the People known as Superman.

And Batman... well, he's Batman. He's the last word when it comes to being a genius billionaire. And he's the guy you call for all your battle planning and strategizing needs.

22 The Trump Card To End All Others

If you've got Batman and Superman in the same movie, how can you possibly hope to upstage them? Simple: Be Wonder Woman, and pull it off with ease.

Everyone agrees that Wonder Woman was the breakout character from Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Was it because Gal Gadot has the face of an angel and the swagger of a gunslinging cowboy? Definitely.

But just in case you thought her popularity in the movie was a fluke, along came Wonder Woman the next year and established the Amazon Princess as the most popular superhero in the DC extended universe.

Wonder Woman is now so popular that even Marvel Superheroes can't stop praising her. Thor, AKA Chris Hemsworth, once cheerfully admitted on Twitter that Wonder Woman would beat Thor any day. The new Deadpool movie makes a reference to Wondy's famed Amazon salute in the trailer.

With so much goodwill from both sides, Princess Diana becomes the trump card from the League that the Avengers just don't have an answer for. Because when Wonder Woman throws down on the big screen, Marvel or DC fan, male or female, you're rooting for her.

21 The Disneyfication Of The Marvel Universe

When was the last time you saw a prominent hero perish onscreen in a Marvel movie? The closest example we can think of is Agent Coulson from the first Avengers movie, and even that passing did not last, since he came back on their TV show.

This fact about Marvel, that nothing too dark happens in the movies, is becoming extremely apparent after ten years worth of movies. It is impossible to ignore the shadow of Disney that seems to loom over the Marvel universe.

What this has given us is a universe that only lightly brushes over what it means to be a superhero. Acquire superpowers, make plenty of quips, defeat the villain whose powers and origins mirror yours. Rinse and repeat. This is the formula that Marvel has chosen to establish in their movieverse, and needless to say, it is one that many comic book fans are getting tired of.

Of course, Marvel fans will argue that DC's movie formula is far from perfect, and they would be right. Is it too much to ask that both DC and Marvel learn from each other to give us better films than before?

20 The Only Hero The World Needs

How effective do you need your superhero team to be? Do you all need to come together, pooling your collective might into a final confrontation with the villain? Or do you simply call Superman and take the rest of the day off?

The latter is an option only for the Justice League.

To put it bluntly, the Man of Steel would destroy 90% of the Avengers on his own. Now, your first words of protest should be "But what about Thor and Hulk, you pathetic DC fanboy?"

First of all, there's no need for name calling. Second, the level of destruction that befell Metropolis in Man of Steel is unlike anything that occurred in any of the Marvel movies. And that was with a young, inexperienced Superman. Once Kal El came back from the grave in Justice League, he proved to be almost single-handedly capable of defeating the villain.

So if a fight ever takes place between the two superhero teams, you can be sure Superman will be the deciding factor in the fight, with almost all of the Avenger's focus directed at him. Leaving Batman enough time to plan a victory gambit.

19 The Batman V Superman Hype Was Real

At their core, both Avengers and Justice League are ridiculous concepts. Gods in capes and tights fighting mad scientists? Absurd. The skill of the films lie in making not only such a concept seem real, but getting us hyped for their wildly one-sided fights.

And be assured, both fight scenes in Batman V Superman and Civil War were equally one-sided. Superman should have won easily. And Team Iron Man should have won easily. Both films managed to make the fights actually look well-balanced and exciting.

But Batman V Superman managed to hype their fight up much more, making the fans almost wet themselves with excitement when the throwdown eventually occurred. All of BVS was a gradual build-up to the fight. We caught glimpses of Batman's rage and paranoia. We got to see Superman's helplessness in the face of a world that did not know how to handle his presence. It made their fight seem all the more important.

But the airport fight in Civil War almost seems like an afterthought. It started without warning and ended with no clear winners. The same thing happened at the end with the fight between Iron Man and Captain America and Bucky. It's difficult to get hyped for such abrupt brawls.

18 No 'Other' Quicksilver To Steal Your Thunder

Quicksilver was a welcome addition to the Avengers. Until you remembered the other Quicksilver, the one who showed up in X-Men, and who stole the show in the movie with an insanely cool slow-motion fight scene. Suddenly, the Quicksilver in Avengers seemed like a pale imitation of the X-Men hero.

This is a constant problem that Marvel faces, where different companies own the rights to many of their characters, making it hard to plan a truly combined universe. Spiderman was a last minute entry to Civil War, because of the long legal battle it took to include him in the Avengers. And his future in the Marvelverse is still uncertain. Venom is going to get his own movie without ever being able to mention Spiderman. Quicksilver and Black Widow from the Avengers movie had their pasts changed completely to ignore their connection to Magneto.

DC does not have this problem. All their characters are still owned by one parent company. This means that when the DC extended universe does start in earnest, they will be able to make much more ambitious team-up movies that can safely include every DC superhero character.

17 The League Is More Serious About Saving Lives

When was the last time you saw the Avengers take stock of the destruction they caused during their battles? Think back to the post credit scene of the first Avengers movie. We see Captain America and the others sitting at an almost completely demolished diner right after the Chitauri attack, having lunch.

Wouldn't the Avengers have done better to lend a hand to the terrified people of the city who'd just witnessed a massive alien attack? The entire conflict of Civil War was based on the assumption that the Avengers don't do enough to clean up after them when they're off on a superhero mission. Captain America was even willing to side with a serial life-ender, The Winter Soldier, and go against the government's regulations because Bucky was his old friend.

The Justice League has been shown to be far more careful about following the law of the land. Superman is constantly bothered by the destruction his actions caused in the battle over Metropolis. Batman V Superman was a direct examination of the destruction of the previous film, and Superman willingly turned himself over to the law to stand trial.

16 Taking A Long View Of Comic History

Whenever the more general arguments about Avengers Vs Justice League pop up, they are usually based on the recent live-action movies. But that misses out on the far more significant 70+ years worth of storylines that the two teams have been built on.

Now, The Avengers have come up with some interesting comic storylines in the past, like the Civil War narrative that was adapted for the big screen. But pound for pound, the Justice League has had the more interesting storylines, with more mature themes, and more lasting consequences.

That is the main reason why The Justice League has historically enjoyed greater popularity than The Avengers. The Justice League Unlimited cartoon show took bigger risks and was more ambitious than anything the live-action Marvel movies have served up. The Injustice Universe, at first created simply as a supplement for a DC video game, eventually evolved into a fascinating study of what would happen if the Justice League decided to use far deadlier means to establish world order.

And so, if you were to take into account all the storylines that the two teams have explored over 70 years, the League edges ahead.

15 The Flash Would Destroy Quicksilver

This one feels a bit mean. After all, Quicksilver perished as a hero in The Avengers: Age of Ultron. But that moment perfectly served to demonstrate that Quicksilver, as fast as he is, is still no match for the Flash's speed.

And if you think that is just us favoring Flash over Quicksilver, let it be known that Marvel and DC have had plenty of comic book crossovers in the past, and in every single one of them, Flash easily and handily beat his silver-haired counterpart.

How easily, you ask? Well, there was the time that Quicksilver was running on water, when Flash came up from behind him, running backward. Quicksilver could only stare at Flash in stunned amazement as the Scarlet Speedster casually overtook him.

So outclassed was Quicksilver during their encounter that he began a desperate search for the Speedforce, the energy that powers the Flash, in a bid to bring himself up to the DC hero's level.

Meanwhile, the only time Flash lost a race was when he wound up in the Marvel Universe, where the Speed Force does not exist, and which he consequently could not access across the separate universes.

14 The Better Villain's Gallery

When was the last time you saw a Marvel villain you actually felt excited about? And before you chime in with 'Loki!," bear in mind that Tom Hiddleston's villainous turn became more popular for his good looks than his storyline, and he has recently been established as a lovable anti-hero rather than a villain.

Compare this to DC's penchant for fascinating and unapologetically villainous characters. Heath Ledger's Joker alone did more to establish comic book movies as a legitimate art form than anyone else, by winning an Oscar for his performance in The Dark Knight.

And it's not just the Joker. Zod was so much more than simply a maniac desirous of ruling Earth. He was a soldier lost in time, genetically compelled to recreate the glory of his lost world. Professor Zoom from The Flash tv series is one of the most fascinating villains on television.

And just when you thought villainy was a boy's club, along came Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, and proved that villainy knows no gender. So popular was Margot Robbie's take on the character that she is now going to headline her own solo movie franchise as the warped jester.

13 The Cool First Meeting Moments

DC gets a lot of flak for rushing to make a Justice League movie before making stand alone movies for all its members. There is certainly an argument to be made that this forced us to try to root for a league whose members were still a mystery to us.

But it did give us some very cool first interaction moments with the various heroes. Marvel let us explore each character's origins before throwing them together in a movie. But when the heroes did eventually meet, it was either with a civil handshake, like between Captain America and Bruce Banner, or with an obligatory fight scene, like with Thor and Iron Man.

That's the most predictable method of having heroes meet each other for the first time. Compare this to the first time Wally West realized he was talking to Batman. His excitement when he saw the Bat signal in the sky. Or the mutual bonding moment that Diana and Cyborg shared during their first meeting.

And of course, nothing compares to the first time the rest of the league met up with Superman and the looks of joy and awe, and even fear, on their faces.

12 DC Is Not Afraid To Go There

We've talked before about how casual The Avengers are about the lives lost around them. Even in Civil War, half the team refused to consider the fear and terror their unchecked actions caused to the common public, and the need to put their power in check.

One reason the Avengers are more casual about mortality is that they never really deal with it directly. They always seem to end up fighting an army of faceless aliens/robots that feel no emotions or have actual personalities. As a result, the epic fight scenes end up looking pretty sterile.

Compare this to the Man of Steel final fight scene, where Clark realizes that the only way to save Earth was to end Zod, the first Kryptonian he had ever encountered, and his last remaining link to his former home. When Clark finally does eliminate Zod, the camera stays on him, making the audience a part of his action rather than shielding them from the ugly reality of a world at war.

In the next movie, we are brought back to the reality of Superman's actions, and how they affect the rest of the world.

11 Aquaman Is No Longer A Joke

There was a time when Aquaman was the behind of all jokes in comic books. This was largely a result of the old cartoon show Superfriends, where Aquaman was famous for just failing a lot. He had no powers outside of water and needed a ride in other hero's vehicles to wherever the action was taking place.

But with the new Justice League, viewers were introduced to a new Aquaman, one who was definitely not a pushover. Maybe because Aquaman was now played by Jason Momoa (definitely because), but he automatically became a bruiser that the whole league could point to with pride whenever the Avengers start bragging about all the new muscles that Thor has managed to grow in the last year.

So now Aquaman has taken his rightful place in the DC universe, as the man who commands the oceans, and consequently 70% of the planet's surface. Just like Black Panther, Aquaman is not just a superhero, but a King. His responsibilities and his influence reach farther than anyone else on either of the superhero teams. When the new Aquaman movie comes out, the world will finally be able to explore his world.

10 The Most Epic Coming Together Of A Superhero Team

When was the Avengers officially created in the movies? When Agent Coulson threw some files together to create the Avengers Initiative? Or when Captain America met up with the other heroes aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. carrier in The Avengers movie? Either way, you have to admit it's a pretty mild way to create the world's most powerful team of heroes.

Compare this to the inception of the League in Dawn of Justice. Batman and Superman had been knocking heads all through the movie, only to come together at the end of the movie to take on Doomsday.

Just when it seemed that the hybrid monster was too much for the duo to handle, a powerful guitar riff started playing in the background, the skies parted, and Wonder Woman arrived on scene, winning the collective hearts of the audience and immediately making The Man Of Steel and The Dark Knight look like bumbling sidekicks.

That was the moment that birthed the League, and it was the most stunning way to bring the three main pillars of the League together. Another time when a DC movie showed better dramatic instinct than Marvel.

9 The Deeper Themes Explored By Justice League

While The Avengers set the tone for the big, fun summer blockbuster superhero action film, many critics accused them of trying to be too fun. Every dramatic moment was followed by a light quip. Every tense scene was undercut by a Tony Stark eye roll for the camera, to show the audience that the movie itself was aware of how preposterous the premise of the story was.

Compare this to the far more weighty issues that have been explored in the DC movies till now. The very first movie in the Justice Leauge universe, Man of Steel, showed us a Superman who was not automatically the darling of the world, like in previous films. This Superman was young and not yet certain of his place in the world.

BVS raised the stake by showing a Batman grown paranoid with age, and a Wonder Woman who had given up on Humanity. Justice League carried forward the complex character interplay by showing the heroes struggling with their own issues before reluctantly coming together to fight Steppenwolf. The weightiness of the DC movies is something that fans often wish they could experience in the Marvelverse.

8 The Best Love Story Of All

It is a historical problem with Superhero movies that the love interest always gets the short end of the stick. Lois Lane is a classic example of this problem. Sure, she may pay lip service to the idea of the smart and sassy reporter who needs no man to save her, but the fact remains that she literally spends every movie being saved multiple times by Superman.

The same problem plagues all the love interests in the Marvelverse. That is also why female superhero movies have an even harder time, since few male actors want to be cast in the role of the damsel in distress.

Chris Pine went against all conventional logic to play Wonder Woman's love interest, Steve Trevor, and in the process gave us the best love story in a superhero movie ever. Steve was not a damsel, but a strong and capable man who was smitten by Diana's strong and confident persona.

Their relationship was tender and respectful amidst the chaos of war. They recognized the good and strong in each other. And that is why Steve's demise was such a tragic occurrence with actual dramatic significance.

7 The More Interesting Costumes

Because of how homogenized the entire Marvelverse is, all of their hero's costumes look like they were brought from the same store (which they probably were). Sure, Iron Man's armor might be one of the coolest suits ever, but that's because it was mostly CGI.

Cap, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Spiderman, and the other Avengers, basically wear the same kind of spandex and lycra in varying shades. Falcon looks like he just shows up wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and Thor looks always ready to attend the local Dungeons and Dragons convention.

On the other hand, the costumes worn by the leaguers are each designed by separate teams in accordance with the vision of separate directors. That is why you see such a great diversity in how their costumes look and feel. From the older Batman's metal armor to Superman's Kryptonian suit, to Wonder Woman's greek battle armor, to the slap-dash nature of the suit worn by the Flash that he constructed himself. Each of the costumes carry a distinct design style that tells you something about the person wearing them. And of course, all the leaguers being super buff also helps them carry their costumes with style.

6 Zack Snyder Did Have A Master Plan

Zack Snyder did not have an easy time creating the DCverse. He's a passionate director who wanted to take a deconstructionist view of the superhero genre. But his first movie for DC was panned, his second movie was panned even harder, and he was removed from his third movie before he could finish it.

All of this left the DCverse in a mess, made all the acuter by the smooth working of the Marvel engine. But let it be said that Zack was not prepared for his position as the father of the modern DCverse.

As has been revealed recently, Zack had a pretty good plan in place for the league, which would set their universe apart from Marvel as its own distinct animal. He intended for a 5 part series, with the League appearing in one of the first movies as the big team-up blockbuster. From there, the DC universe would have spun off into solo movies for each of the individual heroes. This would have been quite the departure from Marvel's formula of giving each hero a solo movie before bringing them together for the big team-up film.