Source: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/11/5974743/mar...

Where it all starts: The movie rightsDecades ago, before Marvel was the ultra-successful blockbuster-making company it is today, it was actually teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. In order to get out of that bankruptcy, it struck licensing deals with companies like Fox and Sony around 1996. "Because the studios were in strong positions, they agreed to share only about 5 percent of the revenue from each film with Marvel," the Wall Street Journalreported.

Sony got Spider-Man. Fox got the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Marvel got the characters, villains included, that were not part of those franchises. Sony and Fox parlayed those rights into huge hits like X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002).

In order to keep these rights and keep making that superhero blockbuster money, Sony and Fox need to keep using the characters they have. Otherwise, as we saw with characters like Daredevil and Elektra (whose film rights were formerly owned by Fox), the characters revert back to Marvel's control.

What's in Marvel's best interest?From a completely cynical and business perspective: it's in Marvel's best interest for Sony and Fox to lose their rights to their big characters, because it would mean that Marvel would reclaim those popular, money-making franchises.

But there's also another layer to this: Marvel is also a comic book company. It's in control of the source material that Sony and Fox use, and it has say when it comes to cartoons, toys, and licensing. And this makes some X-Men and Fantastic Four fans nervous because Marvel could, if it wanted to, downplay their favorite characters by limiting the merchandise. For instance, Marvel has a deal where it benefits from Spider-Man's movie products even though Sony owns the movie rights.

Rob Liefeld, a comics creator who helped make the X-Force title, tweeted about a Marvel freeze-out of X-Men merchandise