Once a time, Marvel Comics tried its darndest to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans. Even though no one at Marvel directly stated that is what they were doing, the writing was on the wall. The X-Men line of comics was shrinking until it was bare minimum. The Inhumans, meanwhile, suddenly found themselves with a plethora of new books.
The open secret was that Marvel's heads were upset that Fox Studios owned the live-action film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four as the Marvel Cinematic Universe was becoming really big. This led to the cancellation of the Fantastic Four comic and the push for the Inhumans. The Inhumans were set out to be the next big thing at Marvel, with a movie planned to happen at some point. However, things quickly fell apart for the Inhumans. Hardly any of the Inhuman comics sold well, and the planned movie became a critically panned TV show. With the X-Men rights back at Marvel, the company now wants their attempts to replace them with the Inhumans to be a distinct memory.
10 Cut Down The X-Men Comic Line (& Replaced Them With Inhuman Books)
Thanks to writer Chris Claremont and his successors, the X-Men comics were the most popular ongoings throughout the 80s and 90s. For the longest time, the Marvel brand was most associated with the X-Men and Spider-Man.
Fast forward to the 2010s, and the superhero landscape had completely changed. Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, characters like Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy suddenly became household names. Though the X-Men remained very popular, Marvel Studios didn't have the film rights to the characters, so the company decided to cancel many X-Men comics. In its place were books that resembled more so to the MCU, which included new Inhuman books.
9 Killed Off Major X-Men Characters
This could've been unfortunate bad timing, but considering how petty Marvel became towards the X-Men, it may very well be intentional.
During the early and mid-2010s, the X-Men franchise's linchpins were dying off one after another. Characters like Professor X, Cyclops, and Wolverine all perished within the comic books. Of course, death is mostly meaningless in comics, so all these deaths were done with the open knowledge that these characters will return eventually. Yet the coincidence that all the big X-Men characters were dying off as the MCU was flourishing makes it seem like it was all coordinated.
8 Added "Uncanny" To The Inhumans Book
Several Marvel editors and writers would give readers mix-responses when confronted with the idea that the company was phasing out mutants. Some denied it, while others were more or less willing to admit that was going on.
Despite the persuasive denial of some of the workers, to readers, it was self-evident that Marvel was slowly trying to get rid of the X-Men. The most obvious sign from readers was the Uncanny Inhumans book; Uncanny was the moniker for the X-Men, which was now repurposed as an Inhuman book. If a comic book fan wasn't aware of Inhumans replacing Mutants yet, Uncanny Inhuman made it very apparent.
7 Had The Inhumans Pop-Up In Other Marvel Comics
Before the great Inhuman push of the mid-2010s, the Inhumans only made sporadic appearances. They started as primarily Fantastic Four side-characters before evolving into their own sub-franchise. Despite being modestly popular, they didn't often appear in other books. Only on occasion would they guest star if the story demanded it.
However, because the Inhumans were supposed to be the next big thing in the MCU, the characters were now suddenly everywhere in the comics. For whatever reason, they were now involved with everything, which isn't how the characters acted beforehand.
6 Made Inhumans Important In Major Marvel Events
Marvel really wanted to remind readers that the Inhumans were now important to the Marvel universe. They wanted to hit the point so hard that they had Marvel event comics feature Inhuman characters heavily.
Beforehand, Inhumans would mostly be involved in intergalactic events, like in the War of Kings comic. During the big Inhuman push, they were suddenly involved in Earth-based conflict. Civil War II was all about a new Inhuman having the power to see into the future, and Secret Empire (2017) had a major plot point with the Inhuman Mosaic. It really dates these event comics negatively, especially since now Inhumans went back to their original role as an intergalactic empire.
5 Created An Absurd Amount Of New Inhuman Characters
It's hard to pinpoint how many new Inhuman characters were created during the 2010s, but estimates range close to a hundred, which is an absurd amount in such a short amount of time. After Marvel's Infinity events, the Inhuman's Terrigen Mist spread throughout Earth. The mist draws out an Inhumans power, so any human with Inhuman DNA exposed to the mist gained superpowers.
This was most likely done to make the new characters more like Mutants, as, like mutants, the Nuhumans were originally normal people before gaining superpowers that made others fear them. Since then, the Nuhumans were mostly forgotten, with Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl being one of the few standouts.
4 Replaced The X-Men On Promotional Images & Clothing
The websites Bleeding Cool and Gizmodo were the ones that covered this news around 2015, which was the height of Marvel's anti-mutant agenda. The two sites pointed out how some shirts have been photoshopped. These shirts have had the X-Men taken off, replaced by either an Inhuman character or another Marvel character that the company still owns the film rights to.
This was Marvel's most blatant action against the X-Men, and there were even rumors at the time that the heads of the company wanted to produce any more X-Men products no longer. If it seemed like there was a suspicious little amount of X-Men toys or posters being sold in 2015, then this was most likely the reason.
3 Refused To Acknowledge X-Men In Video Games
Marvel is more concerned with keeping a constant brand than giving fans what they wanted. Everything Marvel-related needed to match with the MCU, which means no more mutants or X-Men.
The lack of mutants in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite was extremely controversial among the gaming community. Though Marvel's X-Men banned has since been lifted, remnants of it can still be felt, with the recent Avengers video game by Square Enix having no mention of the team and instead has Inhumans be a major part.
2 Made The Terrigen Mist Deadly To Mutants
Because Marvel was so concerned with expanding their comics line that could potentially be turned into a live-action franchise, they lost interest in expanding the X-Men line in any unique way. Marvel's heads forbid the creation of any new Mutant characters, and a way to avoid that in the comic was with the Inhuman's Terrigen Mist.
The mist made mutants infertile and turned out to be deadly for them. This not only fulfilled the demands of the heads yet also forced writers to go over the same-old extinction line of comics that the X-Men have been facing since House of M. Fortunately, but the X-Men also prevailed in the Inhumans vs. X-Men event comic and are now a flagship title again under the penmanship of Jonathan Hickman.
1 Made Inhumans "Feared And Hated" Like Mutants
Since the X-Men's general pathos is a core aspect of the entire Marvel Universe, the Marvel company couldn't entirely get rid of the themes of being a Mutant. The idea of a group of people being hated and feared for the powers they were born with is still a relative metaphor.
The Inhumans were the closes thing to approximate those same themes, though it was always a flawed idea from the start. Though on the surface, Mutants and Inhumans are similar - they are both humans that gain power through biological means - the Inhumans are more of their own species. They live in an isolated society on the moon, acting more like aliens. Mutants are meant to be humans, so suddenly, giving Inhumans human traits felt forced, and the metaphor didn't land the same way.