OK, let’s get right to it: Marvel made us all into comic book nerds, but nowadays - it’s mainstream to love Marvel. You can’t go six months without a movie opening in theaters. Having far surpassed other major franchises like Harry Potter and Batman, Marvel is not planning on slowing down. It’s been the most dominant universe when it comes to superhero movie franchises. Ever since Iron Man dropped in 2008, they’ve – mostly – rejoiced us with their 20 movies to date, including Ant-Man and The Wasp, which came out this Summer.The popularity of nerd cultureI don’t know if you’ve noticed – but nerd culture has truly taken a turn. Loving video games, Star Trek and science is cool nowadays, as opposed to us (millennials and older) being called nerds and geeks in high school – as an insult. According to Odyssey, the recent movement of nerds and geek culture becoming cool can be boiled down to these four possible factors: the internet, the evolution of the different mediums of geek culture, famous celebrities that are not afraid to show their nerdy side, and finally our society has become a more accepting of people's differences.So, how can geek and nerd culture evolve? By bringing in a bigger audience with action packed movies and television series of course! Great examples are Game of Thrones, Transformers, Star Wars and… The Marvel Universe. By loading these movies and shows with intense action sequences, they’ll attract people who wouldn’t necessarily call themselves nerds or geeks: this way, the nerd culture expands and becomes more popular. Fun fact: people are even naming their babies after Marvel characters. Hey little Hawkeye, do you want a cookie?World-building in fantasy and science-fictionHow did Marvel become so popular? Well, Marvel awesomely applies the method of world-building perfectly to its comic books and movies. World-building is crucial for any fantasy of Sci-Fi story – since it lends an immersive richness to your writing. Simultaneously, it also gives readers the information they need, to fully understand characters, plot lines or even laws and rules. Marvel introduced their biggest comic book heroes – such as Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America - one by one in solo films that all took place within one broader world. Plus, these Disney smart asses found a way of making some extra dough by placing all of them together in The Avengers – which is a common tactic in comic-book publishing, but it was never done before in Hollywood.What about the very foundation: comic books?While we’re on the topic of comic books, they’ve actually increased in popularity as well. Of course, this is partly due to the steady flow of blockbuster comic book movies. Comichron’s John Jackson Miller has announced that “dollar orders of comics and graphic novels in June were at their highest level in more than 20 years, $58.59 million in a five-week month.”Sales has hugely improved in the past years (from 4.4 million copies in 2011 to 6.5 million five years later) and the industry is developing a wider range of comic books, since they want to cater to a growing group of people enticed by these characters - thanks to their presence in games, movies, and TV shows. Again, nerd culture expansion! YAS!! So don’t be afraid of enjoying a comic book or two it is actually the very enjoyment of reading comics that makes comic readers smarter. Great news guys, does this count for watching Marvel movies as well? BTW: let’s do this in Amsterdam. See ya there, nerds!