The only thing more popular in Hollywood than innovation is imitation; after all, that’s supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery. The massive, $1.5 billion success of The Avengers changed Hollywood’s direction on franchises forever. No longer would an epic trilogy suffice; entire universes would be created in order to sustain movie studios for decades to come.

On the surface, more films like the ones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sound fantastic, as it would indicate more ambitious quality cinema emerging from more filmmakers. Instead, the three other studios with superheroes (Warner Bros. with DC Comics, 20th Century Fox with X-Men and Fantastic Four and Columbia Pictures with Spider-Man) are desperately trying to conjure up movie universes utilizing the characters they have.

Let’s take look at these three studios, how they’ve done so far and what their future contains.

Warner Bros. is the only one to have an entire comic book universe at their fingertips, so naturally one would assume they’d be next in line for glory. But the middling, controversial Man of Steel didn’t inspire any confidence in their filmmaking abilities and what little hope was left was dashed away once it was announced Man of Steel director Zack Snyder would not only be handling a new version of Batman (to appear in a Man of Steel “sequel” tentatively entitled Batman Vs. Superman) but also a Justice League film. What a waste, especially since the underrated Ben Affleck is a perfect fit for Batman, and Gal Godot isn’t the worst choice in the world for Wonder Woman. But as long as Zack Snyder remains director, with the despicable David S. Goyer onboard as writer, the Justice League project will likely be an overstuffed mess much like The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Oh man, what a waste potential that new Spidey adventure was. Supposedly, this was the movie (made by Columbia Pictures) to kick-off a new age of Spider-Man movies, which would have consisted of two more solo Spider-Man flicks (both set to be released in 2016 and 2018) and spin-off movies focused on Venom and the Sinister Six. So many elements and characters are introduced in TASM2 though, it not only makes Iron Man 2 look conservative, but also means they’ve sacrificed a potentially great movie in the service of building up this new “movie world”. Real pity, since Andrew Garfield’s a talented lad and deserves better than being the star of this trainwreck of a franchise.

Weirdly, it’s the X-Men that seem to be doing their best at creative a movie universe. Five years after butchering Deadpool and Gambit, the filmmakers (housed up at 20th Century Fox) behind these mutant pictures have been offering a mea culpa of sorts by creating some well crafted X-Men movies. I absolutely love X-Men: First Class, and while it went off the rails in it’s third act, The Wolverine still struck me as an unexpectedly ponderous flick. Their latest venture, X-Men: Days of Future Past, will use time travel to rectify the numerous flaws of X-Men: The Last Stand. While I am worried that it’ll suffer from the fate of TASM2 and have way too many characters and plot to handle, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt due to the excellent ensemble cast they’ve assembled. Plus, you guys know my love of robots and the ones in this movie look particularly awesome.