Does Fan-Fiction ever become Fan-Reality?

Lately I've been tinkering with the idea of writing an X-men fanfic. I've been wanting to get back into writing, so I thought up an original story that, as far as concepts go, I'm pretty proud of.

It's always been a dream of mine to go proffesional with my writing, so I want to take the project pretty seriously. That's when I started wondering about the possible relationship between comics and fanfics.

I know when it comes to fanfics for TV shows or videogames, the odds of that work becoming something official are pretty nonexistant. But does the same apply to comics? With so many alternate universes and ever-changing writers, I was wondering if the odds for writing for the comic biz (especially a well-known series like X-men) were perhaps a little more favorable? After all, I can't imagine Marvel hired an experienced writer to produce crap like the following:

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/davisjes...Mangaprev2.jpg

But yeah, what does it take for someone to get noticed by the big name companies? One suggestion I was given was to have artwork to go along with my writing. Positive word-of-mouth was another. I'm also wondering what would be a good place to host my works other than fanfiction.net (that pond's a bit too full...and polluted).

So even if my odds are still zilch, I appreciate any information you can give me.

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I wasn't really planning to send the fanfic directly to them (unless it turned out they do more than just toss it aside), but rather host it online somewhere and silently hope Marvel or some other company takes a look and thinks "hey, this guy can write".

It isn't so much the fanfic itself becoming professional, but rather that the work itself generates a favorable buzz for me.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

This article from a link provided by someone does a good job at answering my question about writing for an established media series.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/media.htm

So I understand now that no writer, no matter how famous, can volunteer to write for something big or well-known, like Star Wars. I still have two questions left unanswered though.

1. Does the same rule apply to comic series? I'm going to assume that it does, but I just want to make sure.

2. So let's say I continue with the fanfiction idea (and I certainly would like to, because I've got some really good ideas that I'd hate to waste, plus it would be fun if nothing else). Then, sometime later, I actually hit it big with an original publication. My name actually becomes notable to other publications, comic or otherwise. Now let's suppose Marvel comes up to me and requests that I dabble in something for them.

So what happens if I were to say "hey, I wrote this fanfic a bit back, how about you take a look?". Are there any legal loopholes to keep them from considering something I already wrote and put on the internet? I'm just wondering if hosting anything in a website like fanfiction.net automatically voids that story from ever becoming something proffesional, even if the writer himself has managed to.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.