During his South by Southwest panel today (via EW), The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman told the audience that he believes Warner Bros. have their work cut out for them trying to make the DC Comics movies stand out from their competition at Marvel.

Besides chiming in with comments that building to a Justice League movie feels derivative after Marvel had just built to Avengers, Kirkman suggested that he probably wouldn't have let the world know there were other Justice Leaguers appearing in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

“Anyone would be foolish to think that Marvel hasn’t done something extremely special," Kirkman said. "I think of Iron Man ending with with a surprise cameo from Samuel L. Jackson [mentioning] The Avengers – you were like, ‘What?! How did that happen?!’ People forget that was a surprise. Everything that came out of that was very organic and very exciting. I think [DC] announcing you're going to do a Justice League movie after a Superman movie, that was neat and had some awesome things in it, but it wasn’t like amazing or groundbreaking – I shouldn’t have said that. It was an awesome movie, I like it. [The plan] just seems derivative, so it puts them in a backseat position to Marvel. It’s not organic so there’s going to be so much scrutiny on Batman vs. Superman when it comes out, it’s got an uphill battle. If they hadn’t told anybody if the Justice League were going to appearing in that, and they were forming that, it would have been surprising and exciting and weird. People are forgetting how important the surprise is. But, you know, Aquaman looks awesome and I’m sure it will be great.”

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters March 25, 2016. The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.