There is no source. This is reading between the lines to find the only plausible explanation for the difference between the facts five years ago and the facts now. Apart from the Skrulls situation I outlined above, there's also the fact that Marvel's licensing division has quietly lifted the ban on Fantastic Four merch (F4 Marvel Legends figures were revealed at Comic-Con and the out-of-print F4 expansion for the Marvel deckbuiling game, which had commanded absurd prices on eBay for the last 3 or 4 years, finally got approved for a reprint), which as they made no secret was in place to undermine Fox's hold over the film rights.
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