I recently visited CBR and noticed a forum that included a podcast by Rob Liefeld. In the podcast it explains that thanks to Fox X-Men can't get it's recognition it once had in back in the 90's. The podcast explains that because of the botched contract Fox made with Marvel, The X-men are basically the adopted child looking for their parents. In the contract it states that Marvel has no Intellectual property over the X-Men Movies; Hence the outrageous storyline and characterization that was First Class. It also states that Marvel only gets 5-10% revenue from any of the X-Men movies which is another strike against the deal.

So in a word Marvel is screwed on any piece of the X-Men franchise out of it's own comic. And because Fox has to make at least a movie every two year will have to be prepared for more rushed out crap not sticking to the material. So this brings us to Marvel the House of Ideas, they're in a rut because their Children of the Atom are all but lost to the clutches of 20th century so they go to there other not so big but a cash cow nonetheless The Avengers; the big new Movie were spending four to twenty dollars on events (or those who bought MVC3 and then screwed over with Ultimate) to fund yes since this is all under Marvel's movie studio they get it all. So like any good businessmen and their ventures they back the hell out of it which is why there are two avenger and an iron man cartoon why Hawkeye is in a fighting game over Juggernaut, Psylocke, or Black panther (you know because he was too much like Taskmaster...yes they actually said that) and why there's so many Avenger titles out. Now don't start running to the comments and calling me some X-Fan boy here to bash on The Avengers no, there are so many X-Titles because as stated earlier Marvel can't get enough out of X-Men like they want so what better way to get back what you put in by pushing out more, now don't quote me on that it's just theory of mine.

So this brings me to the final point on why Fox is evil, because it has kept the franchise and it looks like there's no sight of it letting loose it's grip, Marvel really doesn't want to consider anything new to the X-men now I'm not sure if Liefeld meant this Movie-wise or Comic-wise either way were going to have to settle in to the continued ridiculousness that is the current X-Men meaning no new mutants, Big bads being thrown here or there and not where they need to be (in big events or at least long drawn out story-arcs dammit) to sell issues, and worst of all X-Movies not making a lick of sense to comic continuity. So to conclude the Children of The Atom are going to be pushed to the side for Earth's Mightiest for awhile.

I agree that once Fox had the rights to the X-Men movies, the X-Men franchise just went down because the movies won't stick to the source material. But then again, most movies are like that and there was one good thing that Fox did for the X-Men franchise and that was make Wolverine more popular, even though it didn't make any sense to have all the X-Men movies focused on him most of the time.

With Marvel owns movies they stay with the material or even re-imagine it to make it better, with Ironman it's just as easy to make it like the original comic instead they used a more modern day setting and stuck it with modern day problems and it really turned out good. First Class tried to do this but it just came off campy and scared to go there mixed in with the WTF timeline and you've got a sub-par popcorn flick that amazed normal audience but pissed off comic fans.

I hate Fox. I heard when first class came out Mathew Vaughn just wanted Magneto and Prof X but fox thought it would have not as made as much money is that true?

- In retrospect it was a terrible idea to give control of the X-Men film rights to Fox, but nobody back then ever thought that comic movies would have been the money machines they turned out to be.

- Marvel had been on shaky financial ground for some time and the revenue without risk was probably needed badly at the time.

- If we are lucky Marvel can get control of the franchise with some kind of alternative financial arrangement in which we all win.

I dont really care if they keep it close to the comics but these movies cant even keep in with there own cannon.

It was Marvel's fault to sell so many film rights of their franchises to begin with. Hopefully they can get back X-Men and Spider-Man (the two big ones) but I can look past convoluted continuity if it's for something like First Class, which was a great movie.

@SuperAquaMan:This is very much true after X-Men Last Stand came out there was already talk of a Magneto origin's movie and like many they questioned how it could work with the first film filling in most of the blanks so they said how about we just add other mutants in and put the most emphasis on Magneto's journey to becoming a villain.

@A-Strondinaire: ugh that makes me so mad. Magneto was so kick ass in first class hes my favorite villian. He deserves more

The thing I dont understand is why does FOX not use a more direct version of X-Men history, there is a lot of it and it would give them plenty of different stories to tell. Was X-Men: First Class a bad movie. Well for someone not farmilar with the stories in the comics I`m sure its fine but for those of us with more knowledge of the X-Men it makes my skin crawl. Also I do agree to a point that in the last few years the X-Men have not been getting Marvels best efforts while the Avengers seem to be riding high in terms of importance right now and this will likely continue for a while. X-Men characters are now part of the Avengers, which I hate and the Avenger Civil War event was a ripoff of a long running threat hanging over mutants in the Marvel universe, the mutant registration act. Though if Marvel really felt strongly about getting control of the movie rights they could hire some former special forces guys or corporate spys and sabotage the next movie so it never gets made or at least delayed in time for the rights to revert back to Marvel, but I doube they have the guts for that.

Great post! finally someone else who agrees that First Class was a load of crap and that the squeal probably will be to

@lorex: Exactly i don't know what it is but it's like Fox goes deliberately out of it's way to screw up the storyline either that or their paid lackey. I felt First Class was cool action-wise (which is why most moviegoers loved it) but continuity and character wise it's utter crap. I also agree Civil war was trying to be painted as this deep storyline but it was the X-Men's entire lives rehashed (In an Ironic twist they were pushed to the neutral standpoint) with a promise of Captain American and Ironman duking it out at the center, seriously did anyone at Marvel not notice this. I don't think Marvel would put someone in the Fox corp and sabotage the movie because they wouldn't risk losing money over a contract lawsuit, but i suggest getting there money together (preferably from the sales of The Avengers movie) and hire a junkyard lawyer to destroy the contract.

i miss the days when it use to be a cash cow .........................fox is EVIL!!!! and marvel is stupid for losing their rights

- I can accept that changes need to be made in the transition from comic to movie, but the sheer amount of changes and wholesale rewriting of history in X-Men FC almost had to be on purpose.

- To someone who is not familiar with the source material this is not a big deal, to a fan it boggles the mind.

I believe x-men comics are doing better again than avengers comics as based on number of comics sold for November,