Before Iron Man, superhero films were already seven years into gaining the public's goodwill with flicks like Spider-Man, X-Men, and that inexplicably successful Ben Affleck Daredevil movie with playground grappling foreplay. So, when it came time for Marvel to bring us a swank gentlebeard quipping in an exoskeleton, audiences were DTF Y2K.

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But something seems to be forgotten with the creation of upcoming franchises like Universal Monsters (no, seriously): The Marvel films didn't succeed because of the expanded universe model; they succeeded because they're awesome and everyone loves superhero films. That said, even with the popularity of Batman and X-Men on their side, Warner Bros. and Fox will always play second fiddle to Disney's Avengers because audiences simply don't have the stamina to see that many goddamn movies.

According to the MPAA, your standard schmo sees an average of four theatrical movies per year. And with at least eight major comic book adaptations set for 2017 alone, general audiences will always be choosing one franchise over the other. And let's face it, we all know who the sad loser is in that race. "Sad" being the operative word.

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And this isn't even accounting for all the other shambled-together universes lumbering down the pike. Suddenly, the idea of Lucasfilm limiting themselves to only one Star Wars per year makes a ton of sense. Except even Star Wars can last only so long as it expands endlessly like Jabba The Hutt at a Sizzler, because ...

It might sound soul-crushingly mathematical, but most films out there are structured in the same basic way to make them accessible to audiences. This usually involves three acts with eight different plot points.

The first act sets the plot into motion (see: Loki sliding into our world, Nick Fury assembling the Avengers). The second and largest act establishes each character's struggle and contains the intriguing midpoint followed by the movie's lowest moment (Coulson's death and/or Loki's archaic profanity). Finally, the third act is that final push where the stakes are crazy high and the protagonists resolve their problems (the Avengers overcome their insecurities and, uh, beat Racist Jock Prep in the Southwest Regional Spelling Bee? Come on, Avengers came out in 2012, that was like 10 years ago).

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This structure can be seen in everything from Disney to David Lynch because of how aptly it avoids pissing off the audience. And in Age Of Ultron, you start to see that structure groan under the weight of all the subplots setting up future Civil and Infinity Wars while simultaneously attempting to tell a complete story arc with 12 main and secondary characters. And now that Captain America: Civil War will apparently have 16 fucking characters, it's impossible to imagine a scenario in which the movie won't continue for the rest of your life and Don Cheadle is your new dad.

And we haven't even begun to talk about the TV shows ...

Yes, when it comes to television, we're not dealing with just Marvel anymore; ABC and Netflix are sticking their grubby fingers in the cogs of this money machine. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is apparently constantly fighting the good fight between entertaining an audience and not stepping on the films' toes. The arduous process is a back-and-forth where they pitch ideas to Marvel while trying to ration the amount of superheroes they can introduce.

After all, what good are the Avengers if the TV show is up to its balls in people who can save the day instead? But the real stinger is Netflix's Daredevil, which both recognizes the world of The Avengers films and the harsh mortality of superheroism that Hawkeye and Black Widow are blessed to ignore.

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For comic book fans, this kind of loosey-goosey continuity is commonplace, but the moment studios start dabbling in other genres is when the problem starts becoming laughably noticeable. For DC, the issue is actually the opposite. They have both Gotham and Batman V Superman -- two properties they've had to explain as separate worlds. But of course that's not nearly the biggest problem the Justice League films are facing ...

But love it or hate it, the biggest problem with DC's gloomy Justice League universe isn't the strong thematic tone; it's that no single person is in charge of it. By building on Zack Snyder's Silent Hill-cutscene directing style, the studio has locked themselves into an even tighter creative box than Marvel's -- which is no doubt why they've already burned through five different writers attempting to give Wonder Woman and her invisible jet and boomerang tiara their own movie after Dour Billionaire V Sourpuss Demigod: Enter The Frown Brigade.

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It's like if Clive Barker did a successful Garfield movie and the studio expected every other sequel to match the tone of the first, which saw Jon Arbuckle get crucified upside-down on a giant mountain of lasagna on a Monday. This is why DC's scripting process has so far been described by sources close to the projects as "throwing shit against the wall to see what stuck."

Unless a studio's willing to rigorously streamline the process like Marvel has, then they're left with the catch-22 of giving directors and writers creative latitude and simultaneously making them toe the party line. Which explains why ...

Directors don't like being told how to make their movies, especially when the demands are "maximum audience appeal." Whedon has called Wright's shit-canned Ant-Man script "the best Marvel ever had" -- making this new film (directed by the guy who did Bring It On) seem like a consolation prize to something awesome we'll never get. It's a statement you can't imagine Marvel liked hearing from the guy who just directed their prize pony -- but it's also not surprising considering that said pony almost had all its organs stolen.

MINOR AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS: Remember Thor's exposition soak? Turns out that even Joss Whedon thought it was a clown balls scene, but he was forced to keep it in when Marvel threatened to ax the farmhouse and dream sequences if he didn't. In other words, Marvel was willing to cut the scenes that actually developed the characters and story in order to plug future projects in what they clearly just considered a two-hour advertisement for Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok.

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As we've mentioned before, the surefire way to foretell the imminent collapse of a cinematic craze is when the studios invest enough money that they feel like they can call all the artistic shots. A cinematic universe might be a neat idea for certain franchises, but when all the studios start daisy-chaining every film together, they turn into those Nova Corps star blasters from Guardians Of The Galaxy. And we all know what happens to those brave, brave jackasses.

Dave can communicate with horses and once threw a chair so hard it caused an evacuation. You can reach him on Twitter.

Also be sure to check out 5 Sad Truths You Learn Watching All The Marvel Films At Once and 5 Marvel Characters Who Totally Dropped The Ball.