There’s been a lot of discussion about Marvel and its treatment of the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises. Disney and Marvel are trying to undermine and ruin both franchises in the comics because they want more money out of the film rights matter with Fox. Some hardcore Marvel fans dismiss this as conspiracy theory talk because they don’t want to believe a company like Marvel can be operated in such a crass, mean-spirited, greed-focused manner. They don’t want to believe a company like Marvel would be willing to purposely destroy something great just because some executives don’t like the current deal with Fox over film rights.
The usual answer to this is citing a lot of incidents, but in truth, even that isn’t necessary. This is the only real evidence I need to cite: Marvel absolutely refuses to acknowledge and use Polaris and Scarlet Witch as sisters.
There’s a massive amount of interest in their relationship. It’s only gotten bigger year after year, in spite of Marvel doing nothing with it. We keep seeing more fanart, more fanfiction, more cosplays of Lorna and Wanda together than before out of the fans. It never stops. It only grows.
Likewise, Marvel has been making these huge promotions about providing more diversity in the Marvel universe. We have female Thor. We have Miss Marvel renamed Captain Marvel. We have Kamala Khan as the new Ms. Marvel. We even have an all-female X-Men team and a coming all-female Avengers team. For all the complaints about how poorly the films and film-related toys are handling things, the comics themselves are pushing for greater representation.
… So why did Disney and Marvel utterly refuse to use and promote the most high-profile, most buzz-worthy sister relationship the comics had to offer?
Why did Disney and Marvel completely refuse to promote All-New X-Factor #14, the first and only issue of any comic of any version of the sisters in 6 years that allowed them to spend time together?
Why did Disney and Marvel wait to do anything at all with that relationship until a couple months before Axis would force a retcon on Wanda and Pietro’s parentage that made their status as sisters suddenly, according to Marvel’s plan, no longer the case?
Why, when we had so many events like Children’s Crusade and Avengers vs X-Men and Axis, was Polaris completely left out of those events despite having damn good reason to be involved in them, both considering and disregarding her relationship with Wanda?
Why is Marvel so desperate to find a replacement for Polaris, first by trying to make Enchantress look like Lorna on a variant cover with Wanda instead of just using both Lorna and Amora equally in Axis, then later by introducing “Luminous” as their “sister?”
For six years, Marvel refused to let Lorna and Wanda spend any time at all together as sisters, in ANY fiction, 616 or AU, comic book or cartoon or video game. They only permitted it as soon as they had a plan ready-made to destroy the relationship in the comics without ever even trying to do a damn thing with it.
This is why I KNOW, for a fact, that Marvel is trying to undermine and ruin the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises out of greedy self-interest over the film rights. If that wasn’t the case, we would’ve seen a hell of a lot done with their sister relationship over the past six years.
Certainly far, far more than a single issue of a single comic they worked so hard to bury that they refused to even release its cover until less than a week before it hit store shelves, for fear social media would make it a hit.
If you want to know why I’m never going to see Age of Ultron or any future Marvel films and shows, why I currently only read comics that star Polaris (as long as she’s treated well), why I support Fox owning the X-Men film rights and generally look down on Marvel as a whole company: this is why.
salarta 