Marvel’s a world apart from DC

The shared universe was one of the hallmarks of the Marvel universe. Dominant DC suddenly was squaresville, while Marvel was what the cool college kids kept in their dorms, and Marvel overtook DC as the No. 1 comics publisher.

Now, going on five decades later, Marvel is at it again.

At the end of the credits of the current blockbuster “Iron Man,” there is a coda with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, the head of a secret organization, SHIELD, inviting Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark to be part of the Avenger Initiative. Sit past the credits with a group of geeks and you’ll hear gleeful titters of recognition.

Next, Stark will pop up in June in Universal’s release of “The Incredible Hulk.” Marvel more than hinted that Hulk, Fury and others will surface in the 2010 and 2011 releases of “Iron Man 2,” “Thor” and “Captain America,” leading up to “The Avengers,” which will team all these heroes — and hopefully the respective actors first creating them onscreen — in one movie.

“We are … able to have characters pop up in each other’s movies and make those movies more interesting and get visibility and promote our future films,” Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel says.

That’s something that Warners and DC have yet to master.

- From THR