Originally Posted by
Zealot
Alright, if you want to do this.
2005 - House of M. At its conclusion, the Scarlet Witch says "No More Mutants." Millions of mutants around the globe are depowered. 198 "known" mutants are left (though we see through comics such as Avengers: Initiative that other mutants like Typhoid Mary are still powered, just not included on the "official" list).
Following House of M, Beast is seen consulting with the greatest minds of the Marvel Universe, human and mutant, hero and villain, to try and restart the mutant gene. He is finally told by the High Evolutionary that mutants are a dead-end and it is hopeless to pursue them further.
2007 - Messiah Complex. Hope is born, the first new mutant to be created by Marvel in the span from House of M to present. There are no new mutants from between 2005 and 2007 except Hope.
2008 - Iron Man is released and makes almost $600M, launching the MCU.
2009 - Second Coming. The culmination of the Hope storyline. Hope discovers her powers (she can mimic the powers of any mutant she is in close proximity to) and destroys Bastion and his Nimrod Sentinels. Following her X-gene activating, 5 more mutants suddenly manifest (the "Five Lights"). These are Transonic, Velocidad, Primal, Oya, and Zero, the first actual new "mutants" since 2005 (excluding Hope). A "sixth light" whose powers manifest in vitro has its x-gene suppressed by Hope at birth due to the danger of its powers, another mutant who manifests commits suicide immediately afterwards. Zero turns on the team and is killed (now down to 4 new mutants, excluding Hope).
This same year, Disney buys Marvel.
2010 - Iron Man 2 debuts, out-grossing the original.
2011 - Thor debuts to the tune of $443M worldwide, Captain America: The First Avenger makes another $370M.
2012 - AvX. The Phoenix comes for Hope. A terrible throwaway story designed to make more Avengers titles ensues. At the conclusion, the Phoenix is destroyed but new mutants - the first new mutants since 2005 besides the Lights - begin appearing all over the globe.
Despite this, the only new additions to the mutant world were in the form of Cyclops's New Xavier School (exactly four actual new named mutants that became ongoing characters - Tempus, Triage, Goldballs, and a new Morph).
This same year, The Avengers movie debuts and becomes the third-highest grossing film of all time, earning over $1.5B worldwide. This is important BECAUSE -
2013 - One year after the Avengers movie crushes the box office, Marvel publishes "Inhumanity" and changes the status quo. This was because of a deliberate change in direction pushed on Marvel by the movie division to halt the creation of mutant characters in favor of Inhumans, because they could potentially use Inhumans in film.
2014 - Marvel confirms an Inhumans film is coming.
2015 - Avengers: Age of Ultron makes another $1.4B, concluding Phase Two of the MCU.
Fantastic Four, the first superhero Team made by Marvel, is cancelled, with low sales cited as the reason. Internal sources say Isaac Perlmudder was so upset at Fox's refusal to return the movie rights that he determined the comic would be cancelled rather than relaunched or given a new creative team. All artwork featuring the Fantastic Four is removed from Marvel promotional material.
Post-Secret Wars, it is confirmed that the Terrigan Mists which create new Inhumans all over the world (and the new Inhumans are facing intolerance, fear, bigotry, etc, etc., yet fighting for a world which fears them!) also suppressed the X-Gene so no new mutants will ever manifest, sterilized all existing mutants so that they can't have children that could possibly be mutants, and also started a disease called M-Pox that is killing off existing mutants. It is also revealed that Reed Richards and Cyclops are both dead.
The Inhumans also get a new title - The Uncanny Inhumans.
They have created a few new mutant characters in the past decade. However, the only thing saving X-books from cancellation is that they remain popular and no one at Marvel values vindictiveness over cash. That said, however, they will not be creating any more mutant characters for the foreseeable future and have barely made any (even most of those they have are already gone from comics, including Hope) in the past decade. The movies are a multi-billion dollar industry and Marvel doesn't want a penny of it going to other companies (they will still gladly profit off of movies they can't stop, see: upcoming Apocalypse War storyline to coincide with the Age of Apocalypse movie). Furthermore, while there are certainly a lot of X-Men ongoings, there are fewer mutant-headed ongoings now than at any point since 1991 (Extraordinary X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, All-New Wolverine, and All-New X-Men, if you don't include Deadpool titles) and at the same time there are 3 Inhuman ongoings (Uncanny Inhumans, All-New Inhumans, and Karnak), more than...any time ever.
So yes, Marvel is pushing the Inhumans and trying to take the focus off of mutants (see: recent absolute nonsense revision of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver), and it is because of the movies.