If yall aren’t aware there was a recent interview Chuck Dixon did where they were talking about comics and the guy mentioned pandering to a female audience has been one of the things that have ruined comics. Third wave feminism to be exact. Dixon talked about his girls used to read comics like Archie, Little Lulu, romance comics, etc. He then mentioned that his sisters read Green Lantern because they thought Hal Jordan was cute (I can’t judge because I had every cd and now every album of Fiona Apple downloaded because I thought she was beautiful).
Some people took that to mean “see girls read comics” when he was essentially saying that if you make comics that cater to what girls/women like you can sell to them. Manga has proved this along with countless YA novels. For whatever reason Superhero comics and Sci-Fi don’t appeal to women in large numbers but that doesn’t seem to stop the IPs from sunken costs.
It's also a huge cultural generation thing. Comics used to be made by working class bros for a male audience. Most sci-fi books, movies, games all were as well.
Now, those same industries are completely filled with rich university kids who due to not only their real life, but their social media bubbles have no idea how to relate to a broad audience. Which, wouldn't even matter, because they are of the mindset of 'We will tell you what you should like, because it's good for you.' Rampant nanny safetyism and progressive righteousness.
Combine that with creatives in every industry being replaced by product managers.. Now it's a 1-2 punch of 'We're missing out on 50% of the market, and we gotta tell the customer what they have to consume.'
Nothing in the mainstream is being made by fans for fans. The exceptions are so rare. It's all little teams and individuals making the good shit now.
Also look at the life experiences of people like Tolkien or CS Lewis. It’s almost like you can’t expand the audience without getting rid of your core audience.