'Walking Dead' Creator Robert Kirkman On Why 'Batman V Superman' Is An Uphill Battle

There are lots of comic book writers who know story. Men and women who weave exciting, layered, multi-dimensional tales across various books. However, very, very few of them are currently doing that in another medium. One who does is Robert Kirkman. The writer and creator of The Walking Dead comic is also an executive producer on the super popular TV show of the same name. It's a show that, after several successful seasons, is adding a companion series which will expand the franchise.

With that expertise in comic book writing, TV producing and now franchise expansion, Kirkman is a very interesting person to discuss the current movie trend of comic book shared universes. In particular, he thinks the way Marvel slowly rolled out their films was surprising and well-done. On the other hand, he feels Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is going to be fighting "an uphill battle" with the intense pressure on it to launch a universe that hasn't even been blessed by audiences yet.

Read and discuss Kirkman's Batman v Superman thoughts below.

Kirkman was talking to Entertainment Weekly about the Walking Dead companion series when he was asked about comic book movies doing the same thing:

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.

Lots of diplomacy in that statement, but it's tough to argue Kirkman's point. DC is in the back seat and it feels like they could be putting the cart before the horse. Developing sequels to movies they aren't sure will work is a dangerous game. However, you could also argue it's a vote of confidence in the material. That's likely true too. Still, I think you'd be crazy if you weren't worried Batman v Superman will suffer franchise syndrome where it's too concerned about what's next rather than giving us a great story on its own.

What do you think of Kirkman's statements?