What you probably don't realise is that Marvel Comics editors have been working tirelessly to change that for nearly two decades – but may actually have done some damage in the process.
There's a lot to say about all three topics, but today, we're focusing on the oft-stated decline of Marvel Comics and its connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's own fading fortunes; both are the wounded victims of their own success.
But how did we get here? And more importantly, how do we get back?
The audacious idea of tying four blockbusters into a subsequent crossover was proven successful – and it changed Hollywood cinema forever. But besides its eye-watering budgets, the MCU came at one additional cost: corporate synergy.
In the realm of comic books, synergy across mediums isn't a new concept.
(Spider-Man: Brand New Day now appears to be adapting that same 'Man-Spider' story arc, bringing things full circle.)
But as the MCU grew into an unprecedentedly large franchise, so too did its influence become a disruptive force in the eyes of many readers.
View Green Video on the source websiteWhen the MCU was at the height of its success (i.e. up until late 2019), there was some tolerance for these decisions, even if it stuck in the craw of longtime followers of the affected characters – those who now resemble canaries in the coal mine.
But the Richter scale registered a major quake during the tumultuous period from 2014 to 2017, which saw two of Marvel's most beloved teams caught in the crossfire of an apparent corporate feud: the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
In the stated period, efforts were re-doubled, with ill-fated reboot 'Fant4stic' (as the poster regrettably stylised it) preventing those rights from lapsing, while X-Men prequels Days of Future Past and Apocalypse kept that franchise chugging along.
When it became clear that Fox wouldn't be relinquishing its grip on either property, Perlmutter ordered that the historic and decades-long Fantastic Four comic book be axed.
The most notable product of this era was Kamala Khan, a teenage girl from New Jersey, who quickly became Marvel's most prominent Muslim character after her latent Inhuman gene was activated. Her eventual fate is a grand irony.
During this period, Marvel fans had a strong suspicion that MCU-affiliated characters were getting preferential treatment in the comics, but editors were firm in their denials that any such strategy existed.
View Green Video on the source websiteStill, the perception bled out of comics and into other mediums, including video game sequel Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, released in 2017, which scrapped long-standing characters like Wolverine, Magneto and Storm in favour of an MCU-dominated roster.
"We knew a year or so out that the Fantastic Four, as a property, wasn't going to be published at Marvel past 2015," he added.
Cut to: May 2019. Avengers: Endgame shatters records to become one of the most successful films of all time at the global box office, ultimately reaching a staggering gross just shy of $2.8 billion.
In fact, the Disney/Fox merger (completed two months earlier) only promised more frontiers to conquer, bringing the X-Men and Fantastic Four 'home' to Marvel Studios and, in conjunction with Sony Pictures' Spider-Man deal, 'completing' the MCU.
With so much more work to be done, Feige was handed the keys to the entire kingdom in October, going from president of Marvel Studios (films only) to chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment (including comics, TV/streaming and animation).
After his sidelining of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, Perlmutter hadn't endeared himself to fans. Bob Iger claimed in his memoir (via Variety) that Perlmutter's office had objected to greenlighting the MCU's first female-led and Black-led films.
By contrast, Feige was the friendly face behind dozens of generally well-received Marvel adaptations. But more than six years on, some comic readers have become apathetic to the machine that he represents.
Or, as editor-in-chief CB Cebulski put it in December 2023 (via SciFi Now): "If you take Marvel Studios as a body, Disney+ is now the head. The arms are our games and our animation division. The legs are the consumer products – the T-shirts, the bedsheets... but Marvel Comics is the heart."
However, if we're to go along with this analogy, one could argue that an infection in a certain part of the Marvel 'body' might conceivably cause a life-threatening case of sepsis in the larger organism.
In that year alone, the MCU had seen a string of critical and commercial disappointments, including Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels and Disney+ series Secret Invasion. It hardly seems a reassuring transfusion.
View Green Video on the source websiteYet synergy efforts sustained, from a resurgent Kang the Conqueror in the pages of Timeless and The Avengers (an arc that inadvertently coincided with Jonathan Majors's firing) and a second Secret Invasion that proved as successful in-universe as it did in real life (not very).
Coming up, comic book event Avengers: Armageddon (is that a synonym for Doomsday?) kicks off its plot in Doom's homeland of Latveria – although the big man himself (soon to be played by Robert Downey Jr) is notably absent.
A source close to Marvel Comics told Radio Times that Red Hulk's central role in Armageddon has nothing to do with the character's recent appearance in the MCU. Rather, it was the independent choice of writer Chip Zdarsky.
"When there's [an adaptation] going on, you want to have things that can take advantage of that cultural zeitgeist," he said on the Word Balloon podcast.
To be fair, it isn't the case that all of Marvel's comics look identical to the MCU, with notable experiments including its horror-tinged Hulk stories ('Immortal' and 'Infernal') and the twisty Ultimate Comics line (set in an alternate reality).
In Cebulski's own words, the current style of storytelling is intended to grant "easy access" to the world of comic books for those who have first encountered Marvel via films, streaming shows or video games.
According to industry trade ICv2, the North American comic book industry was commercially stagnant between 2016 and 2018, while the MCU was in rude health and synergy was operational (see event books Civil War II and Infinity Wars).
In October of that year, Variety even wrote that "comic books create relatively little revenue for Marvel", before disconcertingly describing the artistic medium as "R&D [research and development] for TV and film" – as if it were a Silicon Valley start-up.
In short, while sales data is not comprehensively available to the public, the connection between Marvel's box office success and its total readership has never been strikingly obvious from what we do know.
As far back as February 2015, IGN columnist Jesse Schedeen was warning that a fixation on MCU-affiliated characters could cause Marvel's comic books to "become boring and repetitive".
Both of the 'big two' publishers have found recent success in boldly re-imagining their characters as part of surprising and subversive alternate universes (see Marvel's aforementioned 'Ultimate' line and DC's range of 'Absolute' comics).
View oEmbed on the source websiteIndeed, the Ultimate line has been a source of comfort to anyone disillusioned by the editorial's comparatively pedestrian stewardship of the main '616' universe (i.e. the majority of titles).
It's a situation that starkly contrasts with life at DC Comics right now.
In a notable example, writer Skottie Young expressed relief to Off Panel podcast that his new monthly Lobo comic wasn't expected to line up with Jason Momoa's version of the character (featured in this summer's Supergirl film).
View Green Video on the source websiteFortunately, that proved not to be the arrangement. "I really can't believe they let me do some of the stuff I've done in that first issue, and say some of the stuff I've said," added Young.
Estimated figures suggest that DC Comics took pole position in the fourth quarter of 2025 (via ICv2), fuelled by its Absolute titles, action-packed event DC KO, and a popular range of budget-priced manga-sized collections, dubbed 'Compact Comics'.
It's not schadenfreude or fanboy-ism, but genuine disappointment that is fuelling dissent in the community.
In the short-term, Marvel readers have less to be excited about. But further ahead, the adaptations regularly homaged by today's comics would also suffer if the stream of original ideas slowed down to a trickle.
View oEmbed on the source websiteAs mentioned above, the geeky teenager gained extraordinary abilities when her Inhuman gene was activated (at a time when the fictional group was getting more attention as a proposed substitute for the X-Men).
When it came time to introduce Ms Marvel to the MCU, the Inhumans were effectively a non-entity in live action (besides an isolated Black Bolt cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which ended rather badly for him).
It's ironic that a character created as part of a wider effort to chip away at the X-Men's monopoly on misfit young heroes would ultimately defect to the more popular team. It also sent Marvel's comic book universe into violent convulsions.
Ms Marvel was killed off in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man in May of the following year, having nobly sacrificed her life to save Mary-Jane Watson... from a throwaway villain named 'Emissary' (don't worry, it's not important).
In fact, Ms Marvel was gleefully bounding back into action by July of that same year, with her comeback being announced (through Entertainment Weekly) a mere two days after her poignant funeral comic in a baffling piece of scheduling.
A source close to Marvel Comics told Radio Times that, contrary to a heavily reported claim made by comic book writer Cody Ziglar, there was no pressure from the film and TV division to turn Ms Marvel into a mutant.
Following the Disney+ series, Marvel Comics editors saw the potential to tell exciting stories with Kamala in the X-Men books – and they weren't wrong to do so. In the years since, she has somewhat settled into that corner of the universe.
But the backlash was less about Kamala's mutant status being transferred over, and more to do with the manner of its implementation; a strange sequence of events widely considered rushed and not befitting of such a meaningful figure.
View oEmbed on the source websiteIt's a technique that has left scars across the universe, appearing to place characters and storylines at the mercy of MCU plans.
Speculation quickly simmered that this decision may have been influenced by the return of the classic X-Men in Avengers: Doomsday and the brewing plans for an MCU reboot that would likely hew to a traditional team dynamic.
But the knee-jerk reaction to blame synergy when controversial choices are made speaks to a lack of trust in Marvel's editorial independence and the wider fatigue felt towards the MCU.
This includes the mysterious Avengers: Armageddon and the top secret projects set to follow it.
View oEmbed on the source websiteRecently, readers have questioned whether the comics are honouring their side of that agreement. Of course, nerds getting angry about stuff is not, in itself, headline news, but in this case, there is at least a valid argument to be heard.
After years of ever closer union with the MCU and a recent editorial tendency to 'play the hits', it's not hard to imagine the comics themselves falling into a similar lull, unless bolder creative choices do materialise. Synergy giveth and synergy taketh away.
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