10 Times Marvel Went Too Far

6. All But Erasing The Fantastic Four And X-Men

Rogue Ultimatum
Marvel Comics

This one is interesting because, rather than being a single plot point or an entire storyline, this was an executive creative decision made by Marvel for several years. The reasons for doing so are varied and most of them have the words "allegedly" in front of them, but the results are the same: Marvel, for several years, set about erasing two of their most iconic properties from existence.

Marvel have all but reversed this policy following Disney's acquisition of Fox, with the X-Men and the Fantastic Four back at the forefront of the publisher's lineup, but for the longest time, the mutants and Fantastic Four had less and less impact on the Marvel universe.

Whether because Ike Perlmutter didn't want to advertise comics they didn't own the film rights to at the time, or because they wanted to advertise The Inhumans more because they had their own series coming up that would never actually see the light of day because my GOD that pilot was bad, the point is that Marvel spent several years knowingly shooting themselves in the foot by refusing to make use of two of the most expansive libraries of characters they had at their disposal.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?