I know its tough D.C., trying to make a cinematic universe to compete with Marvels. Believe me, I get that you want to jump into the ring as fast as possible. I get that you feel it might be unfair to be compared to your competitor since they have over seventeen movies in their cinematic universe while you only have three. So, I won’t. I’ll be nice and set my expectations for a bar that should be reasonable enough for you to pass.

I’ll compare your “Justice League” to “Wonder Woman.”

That’s right, your next movie has to be just as good as your last film, which is probably worse than comparing yourself to Marvel.

Now, some of you are probably wondering why it would be difficult for D.C. to top one of their own movies, they did create it so all they need to do is repeat the formula and everything should be fine. Right?

That’s how Marvel does it, they found what worked and what didn’t in the earlier films and have been repeating that process ever since. Granted, that they tweak the formula between movies so the films don’t get stale.

So why doesn’t D.C. try to make its own cinematic formula?

Well, they did, and it was horrible.

D.C. tried to go dark and gritty so they could market themselves as an alternative to Marvel. The only problem with that is, their only one popular D.C. character (Batman) works into that type of setting. Superman is the physical embodiment of hope, you cannot make hope appear gritty no matter how much black and gray you put into the film. Oh and good luck making “Aquaman,” the guy who wears goldfish colored clothing and could talk to fish, seem dark. I’ve seen his costume and sure, he seems cool. But let’s be honest, talking to fish is still too silly to be gritty.

Don’t get me wrong, comic book character due sometimes go through dark storylines. I’m not saying they can’t do it, I’m just saying that not every character should be set to gritty at the same time. But D.C. felt they could do it, so they did. Three times in fact and each attempt was worse than the last.

So when they made “Wonder Woman,” they didn’t follow the dark and gritty formula as close as they normally do. This led to the film actually being good on its own merits. But you know what film was in production alongside Wonder Woman but was still following the dark and gritty formula? That’s right, “Justice League.”

“Justice League” isn’t going to be compared to “The Avengers,” a film that came out over six years ago, it’s getting judge by the film that didn’t follow the formula. The one film that was good in their entire cinematic universe.

So if “Justice League” is going to be slammed, it won’t just be because the film was bad. It will be because it wasn’t as good as its big sister.

The plight of the youngest, always being compared to the eldest.

Now Justice League had to do some reshoots, so they might have corrected all the problems with the film and everything will end up just fine.

But we are talking about the studio that failed to make Superman vs. Batman interesting, so my hopes aren’t high.

And don’t try to give me any of that “Oh it wasn’t that bad” that some viewers try to perpetuate. Any film that has the name “Martha” be the thing that pulls two sworn enemies together, on top of several trailers for several different movies in the same movie, is not a good movie.

I could, and want to, be proven wrong on this front. I want D.C. to do well because they are the closest thing Marvel has to a competitor. Competition between companies should lead to better-produced products, that’s just common sense.

I’m not one of those fans who gets joy from watching D.C .shoot themselves in the foot. However, I’m still going to watch “Justice League” so I would like to watch something decent.

But this isn’t just about competition or cinema, it’s about the fact that D.C. rushed themselves into this whole business. The only reason we are even writing anything about the pressure on D.C. is that they couldn’t think twice about what they were making before they decided to make it.

Half of the cast lacks an origin story, which means we need to learn about three of the leads on screen in the span of a few hours. They all need to be flushed out and at least on par with Wonder Woman’s character development. The fact that they are being compared to the one character that had a decent movie, that doubled as her origin story, is proof that this is going to be an uphill battle.

Oh, and Superman is dead. That’s another hurdle they are going to have to overcome. The fact that they killed the living embodiment of hope on screen for a quick paycheck.

One of the mainstays of the Justice League died, in one of the worst movies of the year, and now D.C needs to walk it back. We all know he wasn’t going to stay dead, but for how long do they plan on keeping him dead? Resurrecting him halfway through the fill would make sense, but knowing D.C they’ll do it during the third act so they can throw in a Jesus metaphor.

Now, are you seeing the picture that I see? How every problem D.C has ever faced in regards to their cinematic universe is their own doing? Can you really blame me for being cautious despite the recent success? The company only scored one victory out of three attempts, that’s still a failing grade in terms of cinema quality.