"The Great One" Brian Bendis says Marvel has no plans to cancel all the X-Men titles, as suggested in a rumor no one believed in the first place.

"The Great One" Brian Bendis responded to the recent outbreak of rumors about Marvel's plans to put the Fantastic Four on hiatus to spite Fox, who owns the movies rights, by taking to Tumblr to assure readers that Marvel in no way has plans to cancel all of the X-Men books. Wait, what?

It seems that Bendis may be taking some cues on misdirection from rotund Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort, who has himself attacked the rumor multple times without explicitly denying it. Just to be clear, the rumor being reported on credible sources, including Marvel promotional website Comic Book Resources, never claimed that Marvel planned to cancel all the X-books; it said that Marvel planned to put the Fantastic Four on hiatus, and to promote the X-Books a lot less, in order to screw with Fox's movie plans. Some versions of the rumor also include building up the Inhumans to take the place of the X-Men in heavily promoted stories. But it's an obscure forum thread on CBR that Bendis seems to actually be responding to, where an anonymous tipster made the following somewhat more ridiculous and easily refuted claims:

Most of you reading this will initially react to what i have to say with skepticism. I'm a brand new poster with no posts. That's understandable. But i can only assure you that what i have to say in at this time and present is 100% true and will happen. I obviously can't release my sources but it's actually become an open secret within the marvel offices, and many are NOT happy. There have been a few leaks by various ''in the know'' people who work at marvel within the community and on personal blogs over the last few days. Don't be surprised when other sites/blogs start to come forward with more information soon. Obviously, these leaks on personal blogs have been redacted very quickly. Onto the dire news: Marvel WILL be rebooting their entire line next summer, and they will be rebooting it without the X-Men. Without mutants at all. This includes Wolverine, Storm & Cyclops. Every mutant is gone. However, The Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver will be reintroduced as Inhumans. Although this won't apply to any other X-Men related characters. Currently unsure what will happen with Namor. It's currently unknown if any of the X-Men will ever return to the comics, but if they do it won't be for quite a while. The X-Men as we know them will cease to exist by the end of Axis. Whatever this means, the end result is that the X-Men are finished. For the second time in 3 years the Avengers office will be hijacking what's going on in the X-Books to further their own stories, and once again Cyclops, as the face of the X-Men, will be portrayed as a villain. They're having him go full Magneto and he will die at the end of the event in shame. Bendis is NOT happy about having his stories hijacked by the higher ups, but he's going to be documenting Cyclops decent into insanity in the post ''Will'' issues of Uncanny so his characterization in Axis fits. Once Cyclops dies and with Wolverine also dead the X-Men will be reunited under Havok's leadership for a few short weeks in real time until the reboot, where all X-Books will be cancelled. The idea is, with Cyclops dead and buried, Marvel no longer have to worry about their ''mutant problem''. I can also confirm that the Scarlet Witch is the ''hero'' of Axis. I know it sounds too crazy to be true, but i assure you it all is. There are clues for those who know what to look for ''out there'' already. I will update this thread as myself am updated.

Now that one's a lot crazier, and it's coming from an anonymous message board poster, not a lovable British rumormonger. So it makes a much more alluring target to discredit, and, by association, cast doubt on the similar but far more believable rumor that insanely rich Marvel CEO and possible racist scumbag Isaac Perlmutter is using the Fantastic Four and, to a lesser extent, the X-Men as pawns in a grudge match with other 1%ers at a rival entertaiment conglomerate.

Here's what "The Great One" had to say on the matter:

ebelsofshield asked: Outside of the CBR rumor, I've been hearing quite a bit of rumors lately that Marvel is gearing up for a reboot of their entire line. Can you shed any light on this at all? Somebody somewhere for whatever reason, be it a lack of attention at home, frustration with their own life, whatever it is that motivates such things, completely pulls something right out of their ass and posted it on the Internet. and sometimes, no matter how outlandish the claim, no matter how many people point to the lack of logic, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary… some people choose to believe it. I was told when I started writing the X-Men that there is a very small part of the readership that feels very persecuted. that no matter what Marvel does these readers think that marvel hates the X-Men with a fiery passion and are looking to destroy it. and this goes back way before movies or cartoons, this goes waaaay back, so even though the best artists on the planet and franchise writers have been put in charge of this very important part of the Marvel universe some people still think that Marvel is out to blow its own foot off. why THAT happens I cannot tell you. it just does. but, without any kind of spoilers, something exciting is coming next summer. definitely. for sure. for the marvel universe and the X-Men which happen to be one and the same thing and have been for 50 years EDIT: I just looked up what reboot means, uh, never mind :)

To top it all off, Bendis doesn't deny the reboot at all, choosing instea to attack X-men fans with persecution complexes (read: anyone who disagrees with Marvel). It's misdirection on top of misdirection! I don't know who to believe! Help us, Uncle Rich! You're our only hope!