There's been a lot of fan concern in recent months over rumors that Marvel is downplaying the X-Men and Fantastic Four comics so that the company can place more emphasis on those franchises to which they own the movie rights -- like The Avengers, Inhumans, and Guardians of the Galaxy, plus the Sony-shared Spider-Man. While it's not clear how much truth these rumors hold, it is clear that Marvel is making every effort to downplay these franchises when it comes to merchandising. There's a distinct lack of X-Men and FF representation in video games, toys, clothing, and other licensed products. This is cause for concern, because ultimately the ones that suffer most are Marvel's fans.

This Hardees ad was the best Fox could manage last year.

Maybe this is how.

This issue was highlighted this week when a Singapore-based collectible company called XM Studios revealed they've been “asked to put a hard stop to all X-Men characters” indefinitely. This forced the company to cancel several products in mid-development, including a statue of the cybernetic mutant soldier Cable and a massive diorama depicting the X-Men battling a Sentinel. XM also confirmed that the Fantastic Four are similarly off-limits. It's a disappointing turn of events, especially considering that XM already produced this work of art:XM is hardly the only company to be affected by Marvel's increasingly hardline ban on all X-Men and FF merchandise. Companies like Diamond Select Toys, Topps, Kotobukiya and Sideshow Collectibles are also being limited in what characters and franchises they can focus on. Video games like Disney Infinity 2.0 and the recent mobile game Marvel Future Fight are completely devoid of X-Men and FF characters.Marvel has been fairly tight-lipped about the whole situation, though Executive Editor Tom Brevoort did address the issue when a Tumblr user asked about the lack of new X-Men toys. Brevoort said , "If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you’d be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn’t you?"Financially, it's hard to argue with that logic. Thanks to the terms of their contract with 20th Century Fox, Marvel doesn't earn a great deal of revenue from the various X-Men and Fantastic Four films (only about 5%, according to The Wall Street Journal ). Couple that with the fact that Marvel has to share licensing revenue for movie-based merchandise and you can see why the company might be disinterested in focusing on those franchises. It's why we haven't seen a dedicated line of toys for an X-Men movie since 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and why there's not going to be many Fantastic Four products this summer.Superhero movies are a lucrative business, but it's about far more than just the movies themselves. A superhero movie that makes $500 million at the box office may in turn generate millions or even billions more in licensing revenue. It's a feedback loop where action figures and video games and fast food toys fuel hype for the film and the film in turn drives consumers to buy these products even more. Marvel has ensured that this feedback loop doesn't exist for the X-Men and Fantastic Four films. There's little merchandise or multimedia representation for these properties, and less all the time. Fox is forced to rely solely on the movies themselves for revenue. Marvel is essentially starving out Fox, assumedly until the studio shows a greater willingness to cooperate and play by Marvel's terms.That all makes sense from a business perspective. No doubt Disney's shareholders are pleased. But what about the people that don't have a vested financial interest in this icy war between rival corporations? What about the fans who collect the toys and play the games and just want to be able to show their love for these characters? Marvel isn't just losing money on potential sales of X-Men toys, they're alienating these consumers and running the risk of driving them away altogether.And what of the characters themselves? Who's to say Marvel isn't doing long-term damage to the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises by burying them in other media? The longer this situation drags on, the more superhero fans will grow accustomed to the idea of a Marvel Universe without these characters. The outcry for an Avengers movie featuring Wolverine and Doctor Doom will die down. The brand recognition of these incredibly important and influential franchises will decline.The message Marvel is sending with their increasingly tight licensing restrictions is that the only characters that truly matter are the ones bringing in the most money. It's not even just the X-Men and FF characters being slighted. Bleeding Cool posted this photo of a shirt currently being sold in Walmart:While that image is based on Mike Zeck's classic cover to Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1, the character roster is suspiciously different. It crudely replaces an iconic superhero lineup with only characters who are starring or will soon star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. An image that once featured five Marvel heroines is now reduced to one. Marvel may own the movie rights to the Wasp and Monica Rambeau, but apparently they have to go sit in a corner until they have Hollywood blockbusters of their own.The worst case scenario is that Marvel's restrictive approach to the X-Men and FF bleeds into the comics themselves. I wish I could say there’s no evidence that this is happening. Unfortunately, it’s hard not to be concerned about the downward trajectory of the Fantastic Four comics in recent years. Not long ago, Fantastic Four was a two-book franchise that attracted some of Marvel’s biggest and best talent. In 2014 it shrunk back to one title before ultimately being canceled last month. One of the fundamental pillars of the Marvel Universe doesn't even have a comic to call its own anymore.The X-Men are in a healthier state, but the fact remains that sales are slumping and the two most popular and lucrative characters in the X-Men franchise, Wolverine and Deadpool, were both killed off in the past year and aren’t a part of the main Secret Wars summer event comic. How does Marvel go from hinging the franchise on those two characters to wiping them off the table in such a short time?It's worrisome to think that these storytelling choices and book cancellations might be influenced by completely outside factors like licensing revenue and movie rights. Ultimately, Marvel is a corporation owned by a bigger corporation, and their primary goal is to make money. But they’re also a company predicated on storytelling and acting as stewards for characters with decades of history and millions of fans. Their behavior regarding the X-Men and Fantastic Four is beginning to make Marvel look like one of the many sinister, money-grubbing corporations in their own comics. Perhaps holding these characters hostage is good for Marvel’s bottom line, but it’s not good for the characters, and it’s not good for the fans who adore them.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN