10 Little-Known Comics Industry Facts That Shocked Fans

4. Marvel Seriously Tried To Replace The X-Men With The Inhumans... Because Films

This one isn't so much obscure as it is absolutely crazy, but the House of Ideas genuinely attempted to excise their most iconic superhero team from their mythos over a spat with 20th Century Fox.

An unintended consequence of Marvel mounting their own challenge to Fox's comic book movies with the MCU, the publisher received an edict from perennial nuisance Ike Perlmutter that any characters used by Fox in Marvel's comics should be expunged from the record. Perlmutter is the chairman of Marvel Entertainment and was most famous for reportedly almost causing Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige to quit the company for good.

Anyway, back to the X-Men. Marvel's mutants have been at the foreground of their publishing efforts for close to sixty years, and consistently for about fifty. They were the premier property before the Avengers movies, and so you can understand any effort to replace them in the comics wasn't exactly greeted enthusiastically. The team have conveniently mounted a resurgence in the build-up to and aftermath of the Disney-Fox merger, but it was obvious to see what was going on even before.

The Inhumans, to be fair to them, are actually a fascinating property - but they could never hope to replace the X-Men, and certainly not as a result of petty corporate politics.