Are comic movies ruining comics? Part 3 Conspiracies and combined universes

If you are an avid reader of comics you're no stranger to big events. By this I mean a new book, usually a mini-series, will feature several heros banding together and facing some new threat. It's like the biggest team up stories. We get to see all of our favorite characters conversing with one another outside of their individual books. Historically it's been going on for quite some time, but recently it tends to happen a few times a year.
In fact some of the big ones have had movies named after them. Civil War, Age of Ultron, Days of Future Past, and Age of Apocolypse. These four were the big ines in recent years. These four titled events in comics were huge and took the characters we liked and took them to places we really hadn't seen them go before. One thing the movies did though was take these titles in name only, and didnt completely reflect the stories as they were presented in comics.
Now to be fair the closest was probably civil war. The comic essentailly had Iron Man and Captain America facing off with one another. The movie captures that pretty well and gave us enough back story through previous movies that it made sense. Days of future past was also close. They at least jumped from the past to the present but the characters involved weren't quite same. The other two I mentioned took the name only and did what they wanted.
That's fine I'm not here to argue about that. I'm not the biggest fan of it but whatever.
The thing is the four movies I mentioned were two different teams. Two were Avengers movies and two were X-men movies. Now some of you who aren't avud readers or don't really pay attention to movie studios or movie/comic news may be wondering why haven't the X-men and Avengers teamed up in a movies yet.
Well I'm here to tell you why.
Even though in the comcis the two teams have worked together on several occassions the likely hood of thwm doi g so in film is slim. X-men film rights are owned by Fox while we all know now that the Avengers Marvel filming properties are owned by Disney. Two completely different film studios. Who it seems do not want to share. Now that may not be true if Disney because they got Sony, who owns filming rights of Spider-man to share him, so maybe Disney is willing to share and Fox wants to keep the mutants to themselves.
Some of you may be thinking that can't be true. Fox wouldn't do that.
Fox has been releasing X-men movies pretty consistently since first class and with each one, in my opinion, I feel like they've missed the mark. They're big exciting special effects fight 'em ups but not much story. At least not the kind that made us all fall in love with the X-men years ago. The thing is as long as Fox keeps making X-men movies they get to keep the filming rights, and it appears to me they don't want to give them up.
Marvel it seems has recognized this in not only the films but the comics as well. Since the X-men are mutants I believe the rights to the term mutants are tied together so in Marvel movies they can't use mutants. Except it seems the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are no longer mutants. At least according to the Avengers Marvel movie universe. Fox also has the Fantastic Four filming rights and despite the less than mediocre movies they've produced they're still going to make more.
Insert joke about beating a dead horse here.
Anyway now that I've told that story lets get into conspiracy. What I'm about to say is pure speculation but I believe on some level it's the truth.
Avid readers of comics will have noticed this change but those who aren't I want to fill you in. The X-men don't really exist in the comics anymore. Now thats not to say the they've been wiped from existance within the confines of the Marvel universe but they don't matter. X-titles used to make up a huge portion of Marvel titles and in the 90's helped to carry the company. When the Marvel films really got kickstarted with Iron Man, heroes like him began to come into the spotlight, and because the X-men movies had come out earlier, they were all sharing in the same succes. The characters in the Avengers began to grow and th X-men were growing with them. The events I mentioned earlier always involved both teams in big ways. Then the success of the movies began to grow and fans were flocking to Iron Man movies and Captain America movies because dammit Marvel was doing it right, and the future X-men movies not so much.
Earlier I mentioned that comics have started to reflect the movies in some respects. Characters would look like their film counterparts and some stories would change just enough so that film and comic were parrallel in a lot ways. It appears that recently this has escalated beyond costume and power modifications. Such as the combination of universerses and the loss of focus on other characters.
Now here we are in the present and if you walked into a comic star you would notice a surprising lack of X-men and Fantastic Four comics. The charcters still exist in the pages but they've been moved to the back burner. Fox owns both film titles and doesn't seem to want to give them up. Mo matter how bad the movies they put out are. While in the books Marvel is queitly sideling the characters or moving them from other teams. That's not to say they're no X-men books left but the quality of them has dropped. The original Fantastic Four seems to be nowhere in sight. According to the more recent Secret Wars mini-series. They are buildinf universes.
This I think makes a great segway to the combining of universes and Secret Wars was the book where it happened.
By all appearances the Ultimate universe was on its way. There were several series that led to the demise of that universe, but it all wrapped up nicely in Secret Wars.
I won't go into that book really. I feel that series really needs its own blog, but imagine a series where DrDoom is god and he rules a planet compiled of the multiverse. Whatever you picture in your head is probably pretty accurate.
Anyway now the original Marvel universe exists with some Ultimate flair mixed in it.
(something by the way a certain editor amd cheif said would never happen, and if it did then they had run out of ideas... Just sayin) I havent see Nick Fury yet but part of me thinks he will be Sam Jackson Nick Fury. The Agents of Sheild from the Tv show now exist within the pages of the Marvel U. The Inhumans who have been utilized in the Marvel cinematic universe are now big characters and apart of big ongoing plots.
What I'm getting at is old movies deals and who owns certain cinematic rights are affecting our comics. Whether this is a bad thing or a good thing I leave that up to you. Personally I would like more X-men in my comics and I don't want to see Marvel movies to stop coming out, so in a lot of ways I'm okay with it. I also have to give thecreators at Marvel tremendous credit at putting out such great stories, while working with out characters that used to be top sellers. What they're doing are making you appreciate classic characters that had small followings of people who would snatch up the most obscure of appearances when they could, but now those characters are headlining books.
I think it's a great time for comica and movies and if I know anything about either is it will change. It always does. If you aren't happy with the current events happening take a break for a few months and come back it will be very different.
Thanks to everyone who made to part 3. I hope you enjoyed it.
Till next time readers.

Did comic movies ruin comics? Part 2 The birth of new universes

On part 1 I reflected that the X-men movies only brought on a costume change. Now this was true but as time went on the costumes did go back to a superhero feel and not so much the biker leather look the movies gave the films. This was of course a minor change at first and was one, I feel, we as comic readers could handle. The X-men did go through another big change because of films later but I'm not going to get to that just yet.
It will makes sense later I promise.
Let's very quickly reflect on Sam Raimi's vision of Spider-man. As a Spider-man film goes it was quite good. Never before have we seen the wall crawler swinging around Manhatten with such ease. It was beautiful for it's time. Well I believe the first two were. The third unfortunatley was plagued by fan demands, an exhausted Raimi, and an impatient studio, so I don't blame him for an emo Peter Parker dancing down the street.
That particular movie did have some effect on the comic but not in our regular Spider-man books. Instead it helped to create a new universe. It's what came to be known as the Ultimate universe. It should be noted here too that the X-men movies also helped this new universe get established because at the time it and Spider-man were the only marvel movies out there that were doing really well, also they were first two books in the ultimate universe, Ultimate Spider-man and Ultimate X-men.
Now for those of you unfamiliar with the Ultimate universe I'll give you a quick summary. The Marvel comics we all know from our youth started in the 1960s, roughly. Some heroes like Captain America and Namor actually started in the forties, but Marvel really established itself in the sixties with Spider-man, X-men, Hulk, Fantastic Four, etc. Essentially teenage Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider in 1961.
In the Ultimate universe however Peter Parker gets bit by a radioactive spider in the year 2000. The Ultimate universe is essentially the Marvel universe if it started in modern times. It was a good idea. New and old creators could build new worlds and tell new stories they might not have been able to tell in the old universe because the old universe had such a long continuity, but with the Ultimate universe anything was fair game. It was also great for new readers. They could come into stories about their favorite characters from the ground up and not feel burdened with years of back issues that they feel they have to read to be caught up on the current story.
Whew! Thats the shortest I could sum it up so lets continue about movies.
I told you that story about a new universe to tell you this one. 2008 comes around and Iron Man makes it to the big screen and it is a huge success. I won't go into what made it a big success but if you follow the superhero movies you know why. This was the movie that essentially started it all. It's what brought us to Captain America Civil War today. Iron Man waa a movie about a B level hero, C in some cases, that bumped him to A level status and jump started a whole new film universe. Eight years of Marvel films and tv shows that all share the same universe. When I was kid reading comics I would dream of this happening, and it didn't start happening till I was almost 24.
Better late than never.
Now being an avid reader as I've proudly expressed you can't help but notice what they do with certain characters and story plots. If you've ever read a book and seen the movie you'll understand. Unlike a book though comics are perpetually in a state of act 2, with no act 3 coming. (Not going to lie I got that from Kevin Smith. I like the guy, he knows what he's talking about.) In saying that superhero movies based off of an ongoing property can virtually end up anywhere and with anyone in them. If a comic has been going on long enough it's probably covered any eventualality you can imagine, and some have gotten strange. Anyway the big thing we all noticed I think was the reveal of a character we never expected. He was tucked away at the end of the credits. Come on you remember...
That's right, Nick fuckin Fury.
Except he was, as shown in the comics, the Ultimate universe Nick Fury. Who is black and was by played by the great Samuel L. Jackson. Hell even in the comics he's drawn to look like Sam Jackson. Where as in the regular Marvel universe that started in the 60's Nick Fury was white.
Personally I've been swayed over time that the Sam Jackson Fury is a good choice.
Now just hold on minute because it's going to get interesting. I can tell I'm losing some of you in the back. 
The thing is the Iron Man they introduced in the movie was the regular Marvel U. Iron Man. With the exception of him being in Iraq instead of Vietnam. To avid comic readers who follow both universes it looks as if the films are combining the two universes. It was strange and I know some didn't like it but it worked well together.
It also sold a lot of comics.
Comics that started to change. Not at first but subtle and slowly. The Ultimate Marvel universe started releasing more books. Newer titles of our favorite characters being brought up in the modern world. Sometimes these books and characters looked as if they were pulled straight from the movies and others looked like they were ready made to be movies. Costumes didn't look too fantastic that they couldn't exist in the real world and yet surreal enough that the characters could still be identified as superheroes.
Now because the Ultimate universe was new there wasn't really changes per say but additions to a new universe. The regular Marvel universe changed the most. Old characters got updated looks and personalities. Origins were slightly updated. As new Marvel movies came out villians that may have been low level were brought into the spotlight because they were featured in the new movies. It was an exciting time, tons of new stories were being written. Characters we've heard from maybe once a year, those characters that had cult followings began to take the spotlight. Marvel went through a series of large events that kept changing the status quo every year and with each new year came new movies and with that year the comics would still try and reflect what was happening in the movies or copying their look.
Granted the events Marvel went through weren't entirely movie driven. There was some great writing being done and some awesome art as well. The stories being told were huge and all encompassing in their scope of the entire Marvel brand. It was a good time but a dark time. The villians were winning for quite a while, and the heroes had few victories. What victories they had were epic and kept the readers hungry for more, new and old alike. Everything was changing as were the movies. The comics reflected the movies and the movies reflected the comics. It was a fans dream in a lot of ways.
Then something happened. I'm not sure what it was or who made the decision but two universes started become one and two long running series were not on the forefront of the comics anymore, while others were pushed to the front and all because of movie studios and legal jargen and quite possibly some greed. 
Next time I'll dig into that and wrap up this series of "are movies ruining comics?" I will have an answer at least about what I think anyway. Thanks for reading everyone and stay tuned for part 3.