User blog comment:ADour/Official title for Marvel's The Avengers sequel announced!/@comment-4651179-20130721032030/@comment-1895174-20130724000232

Sure, we might see other characters typically associated with Batman. Even if the entire film is set in Gotham and villain is one of Batman's rogues, all those characters are now part of the new Superman series. No interconnected universe has been created. No less than any of the characters who debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine or The Wolverine are part of the X-Men series although those movies are spin-offs.

Speaking of them, I wouldn't exactly call Deadpool your average supporting character, either. He's one of Marvel's most popular characters. He can be found all over the place - X-Men, Spider-Man, his own stories, etc. But introducing Deadpool didn't make the X-Men franchise an interconnected universe, and a stand-alone Deadpool movie is still referred to as a spin-off.

On the other hand, Doctor Doom isn't just a Fantastic Four villain. He's fought pretty much everybody at one point or another. Yet, Fantastic Four didn't expand beyond that team and hint at the Avengers just because Doom was there.

You know what does make an "interconnected" universe? Taking a bunch of heroes with tangential connections to each other, maybe even with the help of some connective tissue, and put them together in one movie that's the culmination of years of work.

Even if they started with a Justice League movie and gave the individual heroes their own movies after that, those are still just spin-offs of the initial movie.

''No, buddy movies haven't waited for the sequel. This one will.''

So buddy movies aren't a reasonable comparison. Also, they're opposing each other in the movie. Axel Foley and Billy Rosewood weren't shooting at each other.

''Of course Batman/Superman movie is the sequel to Man of Steel. But in the same way that The Avengers was a sequel to Iron Man 2.''

Again, no. Marvel's The Avengers is not Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 is Iron Man 3, not Iron Man 4. But Batman vs. Superman is Man of Steel 2.