Robert Kirkman has had a great deal of success over the past few years. The writer and creator of both The Walking Dead T.V. show and Comic has shown that his great storytelling abilities transcend the medium that he works in. When it comes to writing comic book characters for the screem, world building, and possible franchise starting properties, Kirkman is a guy that just seems to be in the know.

When speaking with Entertainment Weekly about his new Walking Dead Spinoff, Kirkman was asked about how both Marvel and DC have handled their respective Comic Book Franchises. What Kirkman had to say about Batman V Superman & Justice League was very interesting to say the least. Here are this thoughts about Batman V Superman from the interview:

“ I’m going to get in trouble here … Anyone would be foolish to think that Marvel hasn’t done something extremely special. 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.”

While I don’t think that Kirkman necessarily is completely in the right here, I do also appreciate his comments in the fact that he as actually saying what most fans are feeling: DC is playing catch up. While Marvel had a plan for expanding their universe from the very beginning, DC seems to be taking the opposite approach. It almost seems as if DC wants to reap all of the benefits of having a cinematic universe without actually doing the work to create it. Granted, Batman and Superman are probably the two most distinguishable and popular characters in all of comics, but even they alone aren’t enough to hold an entire universe on the big screen. You need depth, along with interesting characters that we care about. Most DC films in the last 10 years haven’t even come close to meeting those criteria.

What do you think of Kirkman’s statements? Will Batman V Superman fail? Will DC be able to successfully launch a cinematic universe? We will find out in a little over a year when the film is released on March 25, 2016.