Marvel's Tom Brevoort continues to answer questions from the good, the bad and the ugly. And there's one he's been dancing around for a while.

But now he has come the closest to answering it. When asked,

"Why isn't there any X-Men cartoons? Why wasn't there any licensing for DOFP. WHY isn't there Goldball toys or any new X-Men toys? Oh and of course No real X-News at the Cup o Joe panel. Thanks foe your time"

He replied,

You're talking about issues involving licensing and animation, and those are questions you'd need to ask to our people that oversee those areas. I will say two things, though, both of which are pretty self-evident, I think. 1) There are only so many hours in the day, and so many initiatives you can have going at once,. So you need to pick and choose where you want to spend your time and your efforts. 2) 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?

This refers to Marvel's deal with Fox, made during the bankruptcy of Marvel when they were taking any deal offered to them. While the Sony deal with Spider-Man has been renegotiated in favour of Marvel since, that has not been possible with Fox, who have the X-Men and Fantastic Four TV and movie rights, and who also claim a percentage of other media rights as well.

Earlier this year, Bleeding Cool covered decisions made at the top of Marvel regarding the prominence of the Fantastic Four within the publisher, citing even posters being pulled down in the offices so that executives who had been dealing with Fox, would not have to look at them. We printed a memo sent out to sketch card artists for a recently published card set, instructed not to draw Fantastic Four characters. We have talked to creators on the FF and X-titles who have been ordered not to create new characters for the books. We talked to Marvel staff who told us that the word had come down from on high to even cancel the Fantastic Four titles. And we have covered the increase in prominence, size and influence in the Marvel Universe of the Inhumans, as a replacement property for the X-Men.

But until now, no Marvel executive has been in any way open about this kind of decision being made, never admitting that this is even an issue. Self evident they may be but they have not been self confessed. Marvel Senior VP Publishing Tom Brevoort has just changed all that.