In all this excitement with Marvel and their Phases, we seem to have forgotten that they weren't the first superhero franchise to dip their toe in the notion of shared universes. That honour goes to X-Men (well, technically Superman had the Supergirl spin-off, but cohesion and purpose somewhat rule that one out), which kicked off the rise of modern superhero movies and then moved into world expanding territory, with a spin-off for Wolverine in production long before Iron Man hit. It certainly didn't have the same impact as the MCU, in part down to Origins: Wolverine being terrible, and they've still not really mastered it fully since, with Deadpool sitting neatly out of continuity and any other spin-offs shaky prospects. Heck, the only reason X-Men is still plodding forward owes a lot to the shot in the arm the MCU gave the genre, but there's no avoiding Fox were pushing in this expansive direction before Marvel were. Of course, there may be some overlap with Marvel here. The initial announcement that the comic company was moving into movies with in-house productions of their remaining comic book characters (the big names being mooted then were Captain America and Doctor Strange) that would all overlap somehow came in 2005, while the Wolverine prequel project began being talked about around the same time, meaning it could have been somewhat preempting the MCU. However, the fact X-Men was already set up means the still beat The Avengers to the punch (even if Origins came shortly after Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk). Did any other franchises crossover before the MCU got in the act? Share any we missed down in the comments.
