Don't really follow comics so much anymore,but loved them growing up. Was aware of the rights issues btwn Disney and Sony and Fox, but was not aware of the scorched earth approach Disney was taking with X-men comic publications.
Cliffs:Xmen were most popular comic property not too long ago, but because the lucrative film rights were sold to Fox prior to Disney-owned Marvel becoming a movie blockbuster factory, Marvel is pretty much doing its best to bury the franchise. They even killed off Wolverine.
Bodybuilding related: Looks like Thor and Cap are using less gear now that these movies are pretty much on auto-pilot.
It's astonishing how far Disney is going to bury the X-Menhttp://www.businessinsider.com/its-astonishing-how-far-disney-is-going-to-bury-the-x-men-2015-4At first it seemed coincidental that the X-Men were fading in popularity, while the Avengers were rising.
Then there was a conspiracy theory that Marvel, which was bought by Disney in 2009, was downplaying the mutant superheroes because their film rights were owned by 20th Century Fox.
Even as Marvel kept many X-comics on the shelves [as noted by @kimtish], comic book writers have dragged the characters through the dirt in the past decade, with a decimation of the mutant population, a negative portrayal of the team in a big crossover with the Avengers, the death of star hero Wolverine, and the retconning of two popular characters to cut their ties to the X-Men. More importantly, if less discussed, there has been a stark discrepancy in marketing dollars devoted to the characters whose film rights Disney owns and all others.
The theory was all but confirmed last summer, with reports that Disney forbade the creation of new X-Men characters and with Marvel senior vp of publishing Tom Brevoort telling a fan: "If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you'd be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn't you?"
Death of Wolverine McNiven coverMarvelThey actually killed Wolverine.
It's understandable that Disney would do this. As Alex Abad-Santos pointed out at Vox, "The Avengers" earned about twice as much in the box office ($1.5 billion) as the entire North American comic market in 2013 ($870 million). In other words, movies matter a lot more than comic books. Still, it's a shame to see the company squelch such a rich creative property — one that has millions of fans and thousands of official or unofficial cocreators — for cold, commercial reasons.
The more you look, the more you'll see just how much Disney is burying the mutants, even while continuing to publish several X-titles to keep fans from freaking out.
For instance, go to marvel.com and you'll find few prominent mentions of the X-Men or the Fantastic Four, whose film rights are also owned by Fox.
The top stories on the site right now feature Daredevil, the Avengers, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, and the Agents of Shield. Marvel owns the exclusive film rights to most of those characters, along with rights to its own versions of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and a profit-sharing deal for Spider-Man with Sony, which holds the film rights.
Marvel's shop page includes only three X-Men items in a list of 60 featured-product popular picks.
Marvel's subscriptions page features more than 50 titles, and only four of them star characters from the X-Men.
Marvel's movies page prominently features the Disney movies, and only by clicking the "All" tab and scrolling to the bottom can you find Fox's movies.
Games like Marvel's "Mighty Heroes" apparently don't have any X-Men:
(more at source)
