Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock, hit theaters last weekend as the latest superhero movie on the 2026 movie schedule, and with it, we’re officially multiple films into the somewhat newly revamped DC Universe, led by James Gunn and Peter Safran. Maybe predictably, a lot of people don’t like the movie and are already calling for Gunn’s firing…or something. To be honest, sometimes I just don’t get the complaints. The movie has underperformed at the box office, but I don’t think that means it's time to scrap the whole project, and you need look no further than the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU Didn’t Exactly Light The World On Fire At First, EitherLike the new DCU, the MCU kicked off with a hit. DC had Gunn’s own Superman last summer, and Marvel had 2008’s Iron Man. The next Marvel release, The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton, dropped a month later in June 2008. Marvel was on a high, and still, Hulk disappointed at the box office, much like it appears Supergirl will. Two years later, in May 2010, Iron Man 2 came out, and while it did fine at the box office, it’s usually one of the lower-rated MCU films. It really wasn’t until the first Avengers movie was released in 2012 (taking in more than $1.5 billion) that the MCU really started flying high. Sure, all the movies released before that, including Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, did decent, but they weren’t the juggernauts that MCU films would be throughout the rest of the decade. After 2012, and especially in the Avengers movies, the MCU crushed all competition, including, and especially, the sputtering DCEU.(Image credit: Warner Bros Pictures)There Are Other Factors InvolvedThis isn’t a perfect analogy, of course. In 2012, the world was gaga for superhero movies, but 14 years and about a million movies later, some people are understandably burnt out on the genre. Superhero movie fatigue is real, and I think that’s at play here. The reaction to Supergirl has been way harsher than it deserves. It’s not a perfect movie, I grant you. The villain is pretty ho-hum, and it is a little jarring, tone-wise, compared to Superman. However, as others at CinemaBlend have said, it’s a perfectly fine movie. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, Alcock is great, and it skips along at a brisk pace (and a reasonable runtime). I thought it was funny, in the same way that Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies are. In fact, I think the whole thing bodes well for the DCU, which is clearly going for something very different than the MCU (at least, as different as you can be in the same genre). Up next is a straight body-horror movie with Clayface, which will be out in October, before we get the sequel to Superman, Man of Tomorrow, on the 2027 movie schedule. I think after next summer we’ll have a much better idea just where the DCU stands and what kind of future it has. Calling for a shakeup now is impatient.