By any reasonable metric, the superhero genre is dying.

Box Office?

• Marvel released 3 films in 2023. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was the only one that made money, bringing in $124 million after expenses. Ant-Man 3 and The Marvels combined for a nearly $300 million loss, so all-told Marvel took a roughly $175 million bath last year. Their lone 2024 release—Deadpool & Wolverine—made $1 billion after expenses, but its success is largely due to excitement over the first-time team-up and thus not exactly repeatable.
• DC released 4 films in 2023—The Flash, Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman 2—which is the exact opposite of a murderer's row. Those movies combined for an estimated loss of $100-200 million. The studio's only release this year, the much-maligned Joker Folie à Deux, is expected to lose $200 million all on its own. At least DC is better than Marvel at something.

Nielsen?

• There's more to be said about Marvel's Disney+ experiment than I have the space for here, but basically... a) There are too many of these things; 2) They've watered down the brand to the point that I, a life-long fan, no longer care; and c) we have collectively stopped tuning in. (Btw, don't be confused by Echo's inflated numbers... they dropped the entire 5-episode series on day 1, so it's definitely not apples and oranges; I'm including it mostly for completeness.)

• DC has basically no television presence to speak of, unless you count animated shows and CW-esque teen melodramas, none of which is tied to their film universe; Marvel makes it look so easy! The Penguin is the obvious exception—and the entire point of this article—but since DC/Warner Bros. treats it as a sideshow to their latest attempt at copying Marvel's homework, they clearly don't count it either.