Marvel's lists of successes is almost as long as the Avengers' of collateral damage: turning B-, C- and even D-list heroes into masthead names; showing ensemble team-ups can not only be done, but done well; making so much money even Tony Stark is jealous. But far and away the MCU's biggest success is in the masterful execution, and as a result widespread popularisation, of the cinematic universe. Everyone's getting in on the act - DC are giving their Extended Universe a jolt-start with Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Legendary are starting to build towards King Kong Vs. Godzilla, Transformers are throwing around the phrase shared universe as if people actually care about their plot and the new Star Wars saga appears to be as much about spin-off stories as it is the ongoing Episodes. The entire landscape of blockbuster cinema has changed and it's all thanks to Marvel. Well, kinda. Yes, the MCU has certainly popularised the idea of having movies take place in an interlocking continuity (something cribbed directly from the comics), but it was far from the first to do so. Not only were superhero crossovers rampant in the years and decades before Iron Man first shared a barb with Captain America, but there have been plenty of other franchises that actively built shared universes, either explicitly in homage to graphic novels or to otherwise have a bit more fun. For the sake of simplicity, let's define a "shared universe" as being a world inhabited by two or more separate sub-series, where movies exist independent of each other while still being in the same continuity.
