Are 20th Century Fox characters banned?

OzarkBoatswain
OzarkBoatswain Posts: 689 Critical Contributor
edited May 2016 in MPQ General Discussion
The last Fox-owned character MPQ got was X-23 in October 2015. I've heard that other Marvel games haven't gotten Fox characters (X-Men, Fantastic Four) in around the same time frame. Will we ever see the remaining X-Men?
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Comments

  • TheWerebison
    TheWerebison Posts: 431 Mover and Shaker
    I'm sure we'll see more. Probably a lot of the reason we've been getting other characters is due to other media coming out about that character.
  • Pongie
    Pongie Posts: 1,410 Chairperson of the Boards
    Well they missed an opportunity to do a tie in with the release of Xmen: Apocalypse

    Would have been nice to see nightcrawel, angel or havoc? Apocalypse would have definitely been the boss battle
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think the latest is Phoenix or OML? Or do I have my release schedules wrong? Anyway, they are not banned, but the designers are very much encouraged by Marvel to introduce characters relevant to the franchises and properties that they are currently pushing instead, which are many, all the time. I expect that the devs have a backlog of X-Men characters that they dust off whenever there's a lull in requests from Marvel. And then, when there is one they still have to get the approval from Marvel, so that's chance for them to say "uh, suuuure, buuuut hrmm oh yeah! we have this new comic featuring Drax, what about him instead?"

    I think some of our best hopes right now are Rogue and Kitty Pride mostly because they are doing stuff out in the bigger Marvel Universe, distanced from the X-Men.
  • Dragon_Nexus
    Dragon_Nexus Posts: 3,701 Chairperson of the Boards
    Marvel are running a campaign of trying to de-value the properties they don't own movie rights to. Specifically Fox owned ones.
    Hence there is never any X-Men merchandise like clothing or toys when a new movie comes out because they still own the mechandising rights to all that.

    They've been trying to make the X-man brand worth little to Fox so they can get it back and it nearly worked after trash like Xmen 3 and Xmen Origins Wolverine. But then they had to go and make First Class and get things back on track.

    So I imagine Marvel is only going to promote X-men themed characters only so far as their current line of comics goes. Deadpool still makes them some good bank in comics, so he's safe.

    It's not to say Marvel will never do anything X-men or F4 related, but they're not going to be pushing that as much as their other interests, especially when it comes to the MCU.
  • Soitswritten
    Soitswritten Posts: 102
    This is pretty much where we're at. As an example exactly ZERO xmen characters exist in MAA2. Think about that, we have what? 5 Wolverines in this game. Two cyclops, 2 Jean etc. that game is fairly new and none of them are in it with zero signs that they're coming. It sucks for the consumers as the X Men characters are some of our favorites. Hell, Heimdall, Angela and Nebula are in that game and zero xmen. Honestly the devaualation of the xmen is such a gut punch to the consumer and it sucks.

    Side note: Decs they have Electro playable and he's a great character and a good villain. Perhaps he should come on over here as well?
  • Mawtful
    Mawtful Posts: 1,646 Chairperson of the Boards
    This is pretty much where we're at. As an example exactly ZERO xmen characters exist in MAA2. Think about that, we have what? 5 Wolverines in this game. Two cyclops, 2 Jean etc. that game is fairly new and none of them are in it with zero signs that they're coming. It sucks for the consumers as the X Men characters are some of our favorites. Hell, Heimdall, Angela and Nebula are in that game and zero xmen. Honestly the devaualation of the xmen is such a gut punch to the consumer and it sucks.

    Side note: Decs they have Electro playable and he's a great character and a good villain. Perhaps he should come on over here as well?

    Well, I guess the argument is that the game is "Avengers" Alliance, so the focus is on Avengers characters first and foremost. Presumably characters like Electro and The Shocker get a pass as complementary villains for key heroes (Spider-Man). Of course, such an argument needs to discount those X-Men who have been avengers (Wolverine is the most glaringly obvious omission, since he could probably be used to sell just about anything).

    What I do find interesting (and I've mentioned it here before) is that in the absence of X-Men/Brotherhood characters, you do get some fairly interesting additions - in AA2, you've got characters like Moon Knight and Spider-woman; In Avengers Academy, you've got Enchantress, Taskmaster and they're currently adding Sif. I definitely feel like MPQ could have done more with expanding the list of Asgardians than expanding the list of "Spider-" characters. I get that Gwen is popular and Miles is in the All New, All Different Avengers line up, but they've done nothing with those characters since they were added. In fact, we've got a full component of All New All Different Avengers and there's still not been an event focusing on them (not even an off season PvP)!

    Even if the lack of X-men is a direct result of depriving FOX's licence of value, there's still a bunch of MCU characters which are un-represented or simply poorly represented. Hawkeye and Black Widow are right at the top of that list, but then also consider that the only MCU Villain we have to play with is Loki. Red Skull, Whiplash, Mandarin, Malekith, Yellowjacket, Ronan, etc. are all absent.

    But we got a bunch of symbiote goons and a new version of Venom which isn't even Venom (Space Knight), so there you go.
  • Thevipper
    Thevipper Posts: 90
    This is pretty much where we're at. As an example exactly ZERO xmen characters exist in MAA2. Think about that, we have what? 5 Wolverines in this game. Two cyclops, 2 Jean etc. that game is fairly new and none of them are in it with zero signs that they're coming. It sucks for the consumers as the X Men characters are some of our favorites. Hell, Heimdall, Angela and Nebula are in that game and zero xmen. Honestly the devaualation of the xmen is such a gut punch to the consumer and it sucks.

    Side note: Decs they have Electro playable and he's a great character and a good villain. Perhaps he should come on over here as well?

    Marvel future fight is the same way no xmen/ f4 chars and they just added moon knight to that and they got crossbones right before that
  • Chrono_Tata
    Chrono_Tata Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    While there hasn't been a new X-Men or Fantastic Four character since X-23 in October 2015, the whole month of February 2016 was Deadpool Month, meaning a whole month in the game dedicated to a Fox-licenced character. So no I don't think there is a ban on them. The release schedule just worked out that way.

    With X-Men Apocalypse out I'm hoping we'll see an X-Men character (hoping that "Look Sharp" is a clue for Archangel), but we'll see. While they don't cross-promote with the non-Marvel Studio films directly, so far we've seen corresponding events or character releases: Deadpool Month for Deadpool, and Galactus Hungers and Mr Fantastic for Fantastic 4.
  • jgomes32
    jgomes32 Posts: 381 Mover and Shaker
    The only other Marvel game i play is MAA. The last X-Men was Cannonball back in july 2014, Rogue and Magik got new alts in january 2015.
  • Quebbster
    Quebbster Posts: 8,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    One can argue that Fresh Cut was Apocalypse related since Psylocke is in the Movie. It's not much, but it's something at least.
  • Azoth658
    Azoth658 Posts: 348 Mover and Shaker
    Quebbster wrote:
    One can argue that Fresh Cut was Apocalypse related since Psylocke is in the Movie. It's not much, but it's something at least.

    It's certainly a stretch but I'll allow icon_cool.gif

    Need go watch me some Apocalypse at some point this week
  • Quebbster
    Quebbster Posts: 8,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    Azoth658 wrote:
    Need go watch me some Apocalypse at some point this week
    It was OK but not great. Wife enjoyed it though, and she's not a superhero fan normally, so that's something.
  • hodayathink
    hodayathink Posts: 528 Critical Contributor
    Quebbster wrote:
    One can argue that Fresh Cut was Apocalypse related since Psylocke is in the Movie. It's not much, but it's something at least.

    This was brought up in the May thread, but the Deadpool movie got its PvE run at the same time, and the Fantastic Four movie last year had a Galactus run timed with it and, apparently, the release of Mr. Fantastic. I think nothing movie related right now is more due to the Civil War hype machine still being in full effect than the "Marvel is banning Fox characters" thing you hear bandied about all the time. But with no other Marvel comic but not Marvel studios owned character movies coming in the near future, I don't think we'll have another chance to test this for a while.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    Anyone notice how, prior to Civil War, all the 5* were non-MCU entities?

    Silver Surfer - Fox (Fantastic Four)
    OML (Fox)
    Phoenix (Fox)
    Spiderman & Green Goblin (Sony, albeit Spidey has now been acquired by MCU)

    I think this is because they know that 5*s cannot be acquired quickly and reliably (unless you spend literally hundred of thousands), there's no point in using them to cross-market with things they want to promote when the character is released. 5* Cap an IM were exceptions and that required of them to, for first time, give a 5* as a reward that could be earned straight away. I'd say that 5*s are our best hope at Demiurge being allowed to release characters that are not actively cross-promoted by Marvel.
  • Philly484
    Philly484 Posts: 173 Tile Toppler
    Well this is the reality of why there is a lack there of. Marvel still makes money on any character that falls under their comics regardless of who owns the right to make them into a movie or merchandising. Technically, and knowing a couple of individuals who work for Marvel/Disney, even when Sony or Fox make a movie with the characters they have the movie rights too, and merchandising, marvel still makes money off of this. Marvel studios has however made it clear they will not promote such characters until they acquire the rights back to use these characters in there movies. Hence why there is no new Fantastic Four comics out and about. Marvel made it clear that with the horrible flop of the last FF movie they are not going to go out of there way for these characters until the have all rights. Now onto the X-Men, they probably realistically didn't do an Apocalypse event to take away from Fox's franchise. I personally think Marvel needs to bite the bullet and Just dish out the money to get all of their characters rights, because we all know Disney clearly has the money to do so. Even if they spent close to a Billion they would make it back within a year since all their movies they release in year gross over that much World Wide. Look at Frozen it made over a Billion in sales after it's release, and continues to make them money hand over fist.

    Personally I am hoping that the "Stay Sharp" clue is for Archangel or any mutant. I am going to go as far to guess it could be "NightHawk" as well since he has a new comic, and the clue can be used for various aspects of his character. I'm going to remain hopeful that we will start getting a flux of mutants soon, since I know for certain that Emma Frost is a highly requested character for this game.
  • Mawtful
    Mawtful Posts: 1,646 Chairperson of the Boards
    Philly484 wrote:
    I personally think Marvel needs to bite the bullet and Just dish out the money to get all of their characters rights, because we all know Disney clearly has the money to do so.

    If only it were so easy. The issue isn't that Marvel/Disney are unwilling to purchase, it's that Fox is unwilling to sell. Film rights for X-Men and "mutants" is the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg. Marvel figured they could afford to bury the Fantastic Four, despite being such a prominent and established group. They figured that starving Fox of potential new stories/plots and/or new readers (long time readers are going to be more critical) they could hasten the rate at which selling the FF licence back to Marvel would be worth more to Fox than holding onto it. I think we've passed that tipping point, so it's probably only a matter of time.

    The X-men licence is a little harder. Marvel knows they can't realistically just stop printing X-men comics, so it's a much slower process. Characters like X-23 are definitely of great interest since she effectively replaces an established character. And Wolverine is the biggest goose in a whole flock of gold-egg-laying geese (this metaphor really got away from me) - Fox could probably just make Wolverine and Deadpool movies and the licence would still be valuable to them. Of course, the real value in the licence isn't necessarily Wolverine, or Deadpool, or "the X-Men". The licence covers "mutants" - and there's a lot of them. Scarlet Witch tried to kill off a bunch, but there's still just so many running around.

    Marvel still holds the trump card though. Inhumans. Inhumans have been moved into the mutant spotlight as far as Marvel is concerned. The great thing about Inhumans is they can have powers which a basically just mutations or they can have truly "out there" powers. And you can make more Inhumans pretty easily by having the Terrigen mist show up again. So I think if Marvel really wanted to just put a stop on Fox's party, they'd just make an event where it was revealed that all "mutants" are actually Inhumans - the X-gene is actually the Terrigen-gene (Terrigene?) and is the result of the mists doing some MacGuffin on Earth a long time ago (pick or create some villain who travels back in time to primordial Earth and unleashes the mists in order to first kick start evolution or something). Now they can use the Inhuman version of the character in the MCU and Fox has a specifically restricted set of stories featuring mutants.

    Yes, yes, I do understand that mutants are considerably different from Inhumans, and that by taking away mutant status essentially invalidates the importance of a bunch of older stories (mutant genocide, etc.). I'm sure Marvel realises this too, and that's why they haven't done this yet. But if Fox refuse to play ball, Marvel definitely has the potential to force everything back under their control.
  • Soitswritten
    Soitswritten Posts: 102
    Deadpool is a terrible example of Marvel/d3 not ignoring the Fox characters. Deadpool is a cash cow and that was before his R-rated movie blew up the box office. Think about it, he got his own event in game when his 3* was released and has his own mode. Deadpool moves the needle with any light comic fan and cross promoting him was just good business. This game has enough X-Men characters already that any new player who downloads it because they're geeked from apocalypse will have plenty to chose from. Jean, Cyke etc.

    As far as others? Their are rumors of a Moon Knight TV show on Netflix. If that's real I wouldn't be surprised to see him sooner rather than later. The more people who are introduced to him through these games the more who may watch his show. Also rumors of things coming for Ghost Rider which explains his release. Their are others. Goes fly the only reason I don't think we've gotten Jessica Jones is because they weren't sure it'd be a hit and that she's not really a "hero" at this point. I'd imagine season 2 will see her hit the game. Hell, MAA2 is adding Sharon Carter and she's just a human. Oh, and if bet the spidey deal helped get GG into this game.

    I do hope we get Spider Woman, Wasp, Electro, and MK among others who are in other games.
  • hodayathink
    hodayathink Posts: 528 Critical Contributor
    So, they actually acknowledged a X-Men focus for this week without mentioning that there's a movie coming. And it looks like X-Force Wolverine's Clash of the Titans was moved specifically so that it came up on Apocalypse's release day. So while they won't explicitly tie it to the movie because it's not a Marvel movie, they're not afraid to promote Fox's properties. So the only question is whether that means we'll see another X-Men or FF character in the game anytime soon, or if they're going to make sure they run through every other fully Marvel owned property first.
  • Dayv
    Dayv Posts: 4,449 Chairperson of the Boards
    So, they actually acknowledged a X-Men focus for this week without mentioning that there's a movie coming. And it looks like X-Force Wolverine's Clash of the Titans was moved specifically so that it came up on Apocalypse's release day. So while they won't explicitly tie it to the movie because it's not a Marvel movie, they're not afraid to promote Fox's properties. So the only question is whether that means we'll see another X-Men or FF character in the game anytime soon, or if they're going to make sure they run through every other fully Marvel owned property first.
    I still want 5* Human Torch (ruler of the Negative Zone).

    But I don't think we'll be seeing any more FF characters for a long while, at least. Not only is the film franchise owned by Fox and universally reviled, but the comic is on indefinite hiatus.

    Personally I wouldn't be surprised to see another member of the X-Men creep in at some point, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.
  • Philly484
    Philly484 Posts: 173 Tile Toppler
    Well as far as the Mutants vs Inhumans, we only technically have 2 Inhumans in game, Kamala and Daisy (Quake). I understand as well that Fox isn't willing to sell their rights to the Mutant franchise yet or have an agreement due to that making them lots of money. My only tiff is don't make your fan base mad. I do understand that as time slowly goes on their will be less and less of us who are hardcore die hard X-men fans, but with many of the X-men also being affiliated with many other groups, D3 needs to release those mutants that have those affiliations at least. There are too many vast array of characters for D3 to keep just releasing variants of. I have said time and time again, that variants are annoying as to me they add no new depth to the pool of characters at our disposal. I'd rather have a consistent new story, and some new game dynamics then a new costume and ability for the same character already in game multiple times. Looks at Wolverine, Spider-Man, Storm, Iron Man and Cap....