Name: What's Next For Superhero Movies
Uploaded: 2026-01-16T17:34:04.000Z
Duration: 7 min 7 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Okay, so every new reader of superhero comics faces a defining Marvel or dc.

Two vast story universes, two enormous casts of heroes and villains.

Two hyper passionate fandoms, one choice.

You can read both, of course, as I'm sure some of you have.

And I think there are three reasons for that.

One, DC and Marvel have a long standing rivalry which carries over to readers.

Two, the continuities of each universe are so bafflingly complex that a person only has enough brain space for one.

And three, for adolescents getting into comics, the third reason is often the big one.

I came to comics in the early 2000s via Smallville, the TV show about an adolescent Clark Kent.

At that time, DC ran four monthly Superman titles, each $2.25 per.

That's perfectly affordable on a part time staple salary.

But I rapidly added more titles to the list and costs climbed.

See, a vital component of shared universes is the crossover.

A storyline that begins in one comic and ends in another.

Crossovers bring shared universes to life.

They weave distinct heroes with distinct backstories into an all encompassing tapestry, enabling complex narrative and emotional payoffs.

This deep interconnectivity is what makes superhero comics so fun and unique.

It's also an ingenious device for comic book publishers to make more cash.

The highest expression of this device is the crossover event.

A universe wide story that gets everyone involved.

Here is where you feel the interconnectivity most intensely.

In the years I was buying superhero comics, DC leaned heavily on crossover events.

The earliest I can remember is Our Worlds at War from 2001, which comprised 43 issues across a variety of titles.

In 2004, they published Identity crisis, which led to Infinite Crisis, which led to 52, which led to Countdown.

To Final crisis, which led predictably to Final crisis.

Meanwhile, Marvel was doing its own crossover events.

Crossover events are a time and mental investment as well.

There's a ton to read, a ton to remember, a ton of.

I was fully plugged into DC comics's continuity for a decade.

But eventually the costs became too great and I stepped off the train.

For me, the greatest strength of the shared universe, Its interconnectivity, became its fatal flaw.

Superhero storytelling forces you to constantly raise the stakes.

Villains need to get stronger threats bigger.

A building is on the line than a neighborhood, than a city, than the world, the galaxy, the universe, the multiverse.

And to feed the stakes, beast, you have to draw on interconnectivity.

Bring in more heroes, have them form a team, maybe kill off a major character.

Crossover events occur with increasing frequency.

Continuity gets convoluted, and more and more comics require a college course of background knowledge to be understood.

In the end, the only option left is a clearing of the board, a refresh, or a reboot.

Now, full continuity reboots are very rare, but partial or soft reboots happen all the time in comics.

Characters are brought back from the dead.

This is the circle of life in superhero comics.

And it's the circle that the Marvel cinematic universe has finally entered.

The mcu is the most successful franchise in movie history because it achieved the interconnectivity that we love about comics.

In its first three phases, comprising 23 mostly good movies, Marvel introduced heroes in standalone films, crossed over minor characters, then brought the heroes together for crossover events, gradually tying the phases together with cosmic macguffins and a big baddie who threatened half the population of the universe.

As a kid, I never thought I'd see movies achieve something like this.

With thanos defeated and the universe saved, Marvel has to up the stakes even further.

So it created the multiverse and tightened the web of interconnectivity with a slate of TV series.

A pattern familiar to comic book readers is playing out.

The costs for casual fans are steadily increasing, and a run of lackluster projects isn't helping the situation.

In a tightly woven shared universe, bad movies break a cardinal rule.

Never force people to watch something that's crappy in order to understand an upcoming project.

Once you do that, entertainment becomes homework.

Now, I don't blame marvel for breaking the rule.

Studio batting averages are comparable to actual batting averages.

Two or three great films out of ten is the most you can usually hope for.

For a decade, Marvel well exceeded that average.

Bad and mediocre movies are just unavoidable.

And so is the life cycle of superhero storytelling.

Despite some online pessimism, the mcu is still doing great financially.

But sooner or later, a refresh is going to happen.

It's the way of things the consolation, as all comic book fans know, is that it's going to be one hell of a crossover event.

Hey everybody, if you want to read more of my thoughts on superheroes, specifically on what makes a great Superman story, check out my book of essays, Escape Into Meaning, which is available and paperback now.

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