James Gunn couldn’t have asked for a better lead-in for his newly refurbished DCU than this one. Although Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is still to come, Blue Beetle is — by Gunn’s own decree — the first DCU movie, which means the next age of DC is already here. And Marvel fans are playing right into the former Guardians of the Galaxy director’s hands by complaining that the MCU isn’t more like Game of Thrones… The very fantasy franchise he’s turning to for inspiration.
Over on the r/MarvelStudios subreddit, one fan got the people talking by complaining “I wish Marvel had George R.R. Martin’s ability to make a complex world with multiple characters that click together.” The OP argued that what would make the MCU feel more cohesive these days as if the continuing expansion felt more like “clockwork spinning together,” which is how the fan describes the feeling of Martin’s world-building in his A Song of Ice and Fire novels.
Unsurprisingly, many other commenters in the thread agree with this sentiment, although one hilariously argues that maybe “Marvel learning world building from a guy who has not been able to complete one book in more than a decade” wouldn’t be such a good idea, after all. Issues of speed and procrastination aside, though, it just so happens that Gunn has already pinpointed this flaw in the MCU and he’s already looking to correct it in the DCU.
The new head honcho of Marvel’s big rival has previously revealed that he cannot wait to get into the “true world-building” of creating the DC universe, which he views as “a little bit like Westeros” with its many fictional cities and locations, such as Metropolis and Gotham. Gunn has even just admitted that he’s already developing a full world-map of the kind you find at the beginning of fantasy novels. In other words, any Marvel fans looking for more GoT-like world-building know exactly where to go.