It's a combination of timing - licensing agreements had to run their terms, etc - and pressure from the money-men to keep the momentum going at all costs. The corporate types assume that the public has the attention-span of a mayfly and the memory of a goldfish and that if a year goes by without a Marvel release people will forget its existence and not be interested when a new one comes along. They'd run out of big fishand are trying to keep us happy with minnows. It's not working,and it looks bad, but the money-men aren't giving the creatives any options.