To be fair, there was much more smoke from F4 than there is or ever was for X-Men. The assumption for X-Men came from the fact that Fox also owns the rights to the X-Men as far as live-action interpretations go. Marvel can't get away with expunging the X-Men, they can get away with the Fantastic Four.
Marvel Fan (Avengers, Guardians, Spider-Man, X-Men, Inhumans, you name it), DC Fan (Too Many Just to Name), Smash Wii U Tournament Organizer/Competitive Player, Overall Gamer
That has only been my stance, though, that it is a matter of IF they can ever get away with it, and for them that might not mean the same it does to any of us. With the other SW (Star Wars) in the mix now, that is going to be priority for talent and marketing, they may not have to kill X-Men quickly as much as just neglect it until it is as expendable as F4 became.
I certainly agree that you can't trust anything Marvel says. But if we look at the objective evidence, I can't see any reason why they would cancel X-Men and every reason why they will have at least a few X-books going forward (even if streamlined from the current number).
The Fantastic Four has been on a downward slide ever since the 60's. For the vast majority of the time it could only sustain 1 book and the sales on that book haven't reached any great heights for decades now. You just can't compare it to the X-Men.
I think part of this fear is maybe that people know the books need to be streamlined, but fear maybe that one or more of their favourite characters will be benched for a significant amount of time as a result. I think this is just a reality though. I don't see how the current number of monthly books can be maintained. Especially with Marvel, understandably, eager to branch out and broaden the appeal of it's comics.
Look at Spider-Man. He used to have 4 monthly books devoted solely to him and at least one limited series going on at any one time. Now he has one monthly. Is Marvel looking to get rid of Spider-man? No. It's that what came before could not be sustained. The market had changed. And incidentally, until Superior, Spider-man had been pretty crap in my opinion. But then other people liked that stuff, so it is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.
Last edited by mikef; 02-21-2015 at 12:17 AM.