How would you approach an X-Men reboot in the MCU?

[NealKenneth]

It seems to be agreed upon here that you need the idea of mutants in Marvel because they are crucial to the identity of the X-Men. I disagree because mutants have always been a poor metaphor for minorities/homosexuals/oppressedflavoroftheweek.

Whenever this theme has showed up in the films or comics, it has always felt forced and out-of-place. Here are a few reasons why:

1) The mutant population is not large enough that persecution of them would realistically be a social problem. The fact is that if Xavier can only find a few hundred students for his school from all around the globe, that means most people aren't going to come across mutants in their day-to-day lives. If they never see mutants, they simply will not care about them. People carrying billboards saying "God hates mutants!" would be viewed as fanatics and largely ignored.

2) In certain times and universes where the mutant population IS large enough to cause a social problem, the idea of superpowers stops being interesting. To quote The Incredibles
Mrs. Incredible: "Everyone's special, Dash."
Dash: "Which is just another way of saying no one is."

3) Mutants have no obvious unifying traits, so it would be impossible to stereotype them. Nobody goes around making fun of people with Type-AB blood...all these mutants have in common is a gene. Some have extra arms, some don't. Some can make things explode, some can't. Some look totally normal. How do you even talk about them as a single group, much less oppress them?

4) Teenagers randomly and suddenly having superhuman powers is a legitimate safety concern, unlike homosexuality or differences in physical appearance due to ethnicity. When Scott Summers goes from A-student to blowing a hole in the wall just by looking at it, I get why the parents are frightened and try to find solutions.

5) If the average human loves The Fantastic Four and The Avengers, why would they hate mutants? To the average human, these are all just people with superpowers...would they really care how they got those powers?

6) Exceptional gifts are usually celebrated in society, not shamed and persecuted. There were no mobs out to kill great minds like Einstein or Beethoven. None of the parents wanted to kill the dunker on your high school basketball team because he was "too tall." What's wrong with the people in Marvel that they hate mutants so much?

That's just a few reasons off the top of my head, and I could probably come up with many more with more time. In my opinion, the X-Men have always failed to be a metaphor for oppressed groups, so I don't believe that metaphor is worth trying to preserve in the MCU.

Mutants are also not necessary to the X-Men from a narrative angle. Xavier could run a fake boarding school for teenagers who get superpowers for whatever reason...it doesn't have to be that they are mutants and therefore inexplicably hated by everyone (including their family.) Magneto could be someone who believes superhumans should stay away from normal people for their own safety, but then seek to rule over them, while Xavier could help people with superpowers finds ways to use their gifts to work WITH normal people. They don't have to be mutants to have these conflicts.

7) Stan Lee literally only came up with the idea of mutants because he was too lazy to keep writing origin stories. "I couldn't have everybody bitten by a radioactive spider or exposed to a gamma ray explosion. And I took the cowardly way out. I said to myself, 'Why don't I just say they're mutants. They were born that way'."

It wasn't to make some statement about society, and it has never worked when later authors have tried to use them that way, partly for the other six reasons I have already listed. You don't need mutants to have the X-Men.

 

[Flint Marko]

It seems to be agreed upon here that you need the idea of mutants in Marvel because they are crucial to the identity of the X-Men. I disagree because mutants have always been a poor metaphor for minorities/homosexuals/oppressedflavoroftheweek.

Whenever this theme has showed up in the films or comics, it has always felt forced and out-of-place. Here are a few reasons why:

1) The mutant population is not large enough that persecution of them would realistically be a social problem. The fact is that if Xavier can only find a few hundred students for his school from all around the globe, that means most people aren't going to come across mutants in their day-to-day lives. If they never see mutants, they simply will not care about them. People carrying billboards saying "God hates mutants!" would be viewed as fanatics and largely ignored.

2) In certain times and universes where the mutant population IS large enough to cause a social problem, the idea of superpowers stops being interesting. To quote The Incredibles
Mrs. Incredible: "Everyone's special, Dash."
Dash: "Which is just another way of saying no one is."

3) Mutants have no obvious unifying traits, so it would be impossible to stereotype them. Nobody goes around making fun of people with Type-AB blood...all these mutants have in common is a gene. Some have extra arms, some don't. Some can make things explode, some can't. Some look totally normal. How do you even talk about them as a single group, much less oppress them?

4) Teenagers randomly and suddenly having superhuman powers is a legitimate safety concern, unlike homosexuality or differences in physical appearance due to ethnicity. When Scott Summers goes from A-student to blowing a hole in the wall just by looking at it, I get why the parents are frightened and try to find solutions.

5) If the average human loves The Fantastic Four and The Avengers, why would they hate mutants? To the average human, these are all just people with superpowers...would they really care how they got those powers?

6) Exceptional gifts are usually celebrated in society, not shamed and persecuted. There were no mobs out to kill great minds like Einstein or Beethoven. None of the parents wanted to kill the dunker on your high school basketball team because he was "too tall." What's wrong with the people in Marvel that they hate mutants so much?

That's just a few reasons off the top of my head, and I could probably come up with many more with more time. In my opinion, the X-Men have always failed to be a metaphor for oppressed groups, so I don't believe that metaphor is worth trying to preserve in the MCU.

Mutants are also not necessary to the X-Men from a narrative angle. Xavier could run a fake boarding school for teenagers who get superpowers for whatever reason...it doesn't have to be that they are mutants and therefore inexplicably hated by everyone (including their family.) Magneto could be someone who believes superhumans should stay away from normal people for their own safety, but then seek to rule over them, while Xavier could help people with superpowers finds ways to use their gifts to work WITH normal people. They don't have to be mutants to have these conflicts.

7) Stan Lee literally only came up with the idea of mutants because he was too lazy to keep writing origin stories. "I couldn't have everybody bitten by a radioactive spider or exposed to a gamma ray explosion. And I took the cowardly way out. I said to myself, 'Why don't I just say they're mutants. They were born that way'."

It wasn't to make some statement about society, and it has never worked when later authors have tried to use them that way, partly for the other six reasons I have already listed. You don't need mutants to have the X-Men.

Take all these issues up with Marvel, they've built up 50+ years of comics around the idea and have millions of fans invested in the mythos so have fun trying to undo all of that.
You're basically arguing for a group of generic super-powered people called X-men that are no different from the Avengers, which would never work. Ever.

 

[SuperT]

Yea, seriously. Why even call them the X-Men then? In that case, they'd be no different than any other superpowered team of heroes so what's the point? The biggest factor that helps X-Men stand out from all the rest of the Marvel universe is that they are persecuted simply for what they are yet still protect mankind. The strong correlation between mutants and persecuted minorities in real life is what brought and still brings a lot of people to their books and movies.

Problem isn't with the X-Men itself, their universe and stories are fine, it's just that they haven't and still don't really fit amongst the entire Marvel comic universe. It's never made any sense why humanity would like The Avengers, Hulk, Fantastic Four etc. yet hate mutants. I'd be more than fine if some reboot happened and the X-Men simply weren't apart of the Marvel comic universe anymore. In fact, I think that would do both wonders.

 

[NealKenneth]

Take all these issues up with Marvel, they've built up 50+ years of comics around the idea and have millions of fans invested in the mythos so have fun trying to undo all of that.
You're basically arguing for a group of generic super-powered people called X-men that are no different from the Avengers, which would never work. Ever.

The thread is about ways we think Marvel should approach including the X-Men in the MCU. In my opinion, it would be a good idea to leave behind the idea of mutants/X-gene...why do I have to take this up with Marvel? We're all just shooting ideas here (except you, notably, who has only posted criticisms of my ideas so far.) Does everyone else have to run their ideas past Marvel too? What is your problem?

Also, the X-Men would be generic and no different from the Avengers just because they are no longer mutants? Are you kidding?

If you're just upset with me because I trounced you in that debate about whether or not Iron Man 3 was a failure, this is a pathetic way to respond to that and you would be better off growing up instead.

 

[SuperT]

Also, the X-Men would be generic and no different from the Avengers just because they are no longer mutants? Are you kidding?

Yea, they would be generic and kind of repetitive. The X-gene and mutation is the entire basis and core of the X-Men mythos, remove that and how are they any different from The Avengers, Inhumans or any other super powered beings?

 

[NealKenneth]

Yea, seriously. Why even call them the X-Men then? In that case, they'd be no different than any other superpowered team of heroes so what's the point?

By this logic, we'd never have had Great Lakes Avengers, X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur, The Runaways and on and on and on. The point is, there could be other (more interesting) reasons they are a seperate group from the Avengers than "Hurrdurr, you can't be part of our group because our blood is special." Seriously, Wolverine has been part of the Avengers, it's the X-Men who are discriminating in that case. I've never noticed that before, but what hypocrites!

Problem isn't with the X-Men itself, their universe and stories are fine, it's just that they haven't and still don't really fit amongst the entire Marvel comic universe. It's never made any sense why humanity would like The Avengers, Hulk, Fantastic Four etc. yet hate mutants. I'd be more than fine if some reboot happened and the X-Men simply weren't apart of the Marvel comic universe anymore. In fact, I think that would do both wonders.

I agree that they clash with the rest of Marvel, but I think this is due to the idea that they are mutants. I would be pretty upset if they nuked the potential for crossovers rather than just getting rid of the idea of mutants/X-gene.

 

[Flint Marko]

The thread is about ways we think Marvel should approach including the X-Men in the MCU. In my opinion, it would be a good idea to leave behind the idea of mutants/X-gene...why do I have to take this up with Marvel? We're all just shooting ideas here (except you, notably, who has only posted criticisms of my ideas so far.) Does everyone else have to run their ideas past Marvel too? What is your problem?

Also, the X-Men would be generic and no different from the Avengers just because they are no longer mutants? Are you kidding?

If you're just upset with me because I trounced you in that debate about whether or not Iron Man 3 was a failure, this is a pathetic way to respond to that and you would be better off growing up instead.

You tried to argue a movie that premiered to good reviews, a billion dollar box office, and 400 million in home media sales was a failure, and now you're trying to say the X-men should throw away everytbing about them that makes them the X-men. Yeah, I don't take you all that seriously if I'm being honest.

 

[Stormz96]

I think if marvel ever gets x-men back (which won't be for a while, let's not kid ourselves here) it'd be cool if they established them in a series of tv shows. Start with X-Men, then Jump into X-Factor and X-Force and so on.

 

[NealKenneth]

I don't take you all that seriously if I'm being honest.

If you don't take my posts seriously, you don't have to respond to them. I'm happy to address any actual concern you have about my points, but if you're just going to follow me around, quote whole posts of mine and just say "This is terrible." what are you contributing to the conversation?

 

[NealKenneth]

I think if marvel ever gets x-men back (which won't be for a while, let's not kid ourselves here) it'd be cool if they established them in a series of tv shows. Start with X-Men, then Jump into X-Factor and X-Force and so on.

What is the status of film rights for those teams? It's weird to think Fox bought the rights to second and third-stringers like X-Factor and X-Force, but no one has been speculating about these teams at all. I am also aware the word "mutant" isn't allowed to be used in the MCU right now. Does that imply Fox also has the rights to every other X-team as well as X-men?

 

[MbJ]

Take all these issues up with Marvel, they've built up 50+ years of comics around the idea and have millions of fans invested in the mythos so have fun trying to undo all of that.
You're basically arguing for a group of generic super-powered people called X-men that are no different from the Avengers, which would never work. Ever.

I was about to just say that. If they aren't about fighting prejudice and social injustice then they aren't the X-Men. There's no point in bringing the X-Men into the MCU if you strip away the thing that made them stand out in the first place.

 

[John Locke]

I would have mutants be the cause of the Civil War. Instead of Nitro and some reality show it's caused by mutants. This event would bring the existence of mutants to light and cause the Superhero Registration Act. That will be resolved but people would still hate and fear mutants since they're untrained. Which would explain why people would fear mutants in a world of superheroes.

 

[Flint Marko]

If you don't take my posts seriously, you don't have to respond to them. I'm happy to address any actual concern you have about my points, but if you're just going to follow me around, quote whole posts of mine and just say "This is terrible." what are you contributing to the conversation?

I'm not following you around, I frequent the Marvel Films forum quite regularly. You had a bad idea and I pointed it out, and other people have as well. I'm not seeing the issue here.

I would have mutants be the cause of the Civil War. Instead of Nitro and some reality show it's caused by mutants. This event would bring the existence of mutants to light and cause the Superhero Registration Act. That will be resolved but people would still hate and fear mutants since they're untrained. Which would explain why people would fear mutants in a world of superheroes.

This is a pretty good idea, but Civil War will be way in the past if Marvel ever gets the rights back.

 

[Stormz96]

What is the status of film rights for those teams? It's weird to think Fox bought the rights to second and third-stringers like X-Factor and X-Force, but no one has been speculating about these teams at all. I am also aware the word "mutant" isn't allowed to be used in the MCU right now. Does that imply Fox also has the rights to every other X-team as well as X-men?

I think any team that was conceived as an x-men spinoff was handed to fox in their contract. So anything with that X on it is property of fox as far as I'm aware

 

[NealKenneth]

I'm not following you around, I frequent the Marvel Films forum quite regularly. You had a bad idea and I pointed it out, and other people have as well. I'm not seeing the issue here.

Let me explain. The issue is not that you said my idea is bad. Other people have done the same thing and I don't have a problem with any of them.

What sets you apart is that I addressed your criticism in a very long and thorough post that I clearly put a lot of time and thought into, and you just responded with the same exact thing you said the first time. It was the Iron Man 3 debate all over again...I stated something, you disagreed, I explained why your reasoning was flawed or your evidence was inapplicable, then you disagreed again anyway for the same exact reason. When evidence totally overwhelmed your stance in that debate, you just ignored it and begged for the debate to stop.

The issue here was that I treated you like someone who is open to new ideas and can tolerate having their opinion questioned. This was my fault, and I will not make that mistake again.

I would have mutants be the cause of the Civil War. Instead of Nitro and some reality show it's caused by mutants. This event would bring the existence of mutants to light and cause the Superhero Registration Act. That will be resolved but people would still hate and fear mutants since they're untrained. Which would explain why people would fear mutants in a world of superheroes.

This is a pretty good idea, but Civil War will be way in the past if Marvel ever gets the rights back.

I was thinking the same thing. This would actually give normal people a reason to hate mutants, but unfortunately it's too late to take this route.

 

[Flint Marko]

When evidence totally overwhelmed your stance in that debate, you just ignored it and begged for the debate to stop.

Actually on both occasions I realized I was talking to someone whose mind was made up on the matter, and didn't want to waste my time. Despite multiple people disagreeing with you, you won't budge, so what's the point? You can choose to look at this way if you want to though. I, again, tire of this back and forth quipping with you so this is my last post on the matter.

 

[NealKenneth]

Actually on both occasions I realized I was talking to someone whose mind was made up on the matter, and didn't want to waste my time. Despite multiple people disagreeing with you, you won't budge, so what's the point? You can choose to look at this way if you want to though. I, again, tire of this back and forth quipping with you so this is my last post on the matter.

Sure it is, Flint...whenever you are willing to use reason, logic or actual evidence to support your stances, I will be happy to assess your points. So far I haven't seen a compelling reason why the mutant/X-gene plot point is necessary and I've already explained why it's use as a metaphor is extremely flawed and causes the X-Men to feel out of place in the Marvel universe.

Anyway, something else that I think the MCU ought to do should they somehow get the rights is make Nightcrawler more of a priority. The guy stole the show in X2 but we haven't seen him since. And let him use swords!

It would be trickier with Magneto, but I agree whoever earlier said that it would be a good idea to hold him back from main-villain status until the second film, as I think he and Wolverine are the two most over-exposed characters in Fox's series. Both cool characters and great actors, but it just seems like everything revolves around them.

The only alternative origin villain I can think of is the Juggernaut. He's Xavier's brother so it's easy to imagine that he'd feel personally responsible for his actions and set his students out on their first mission in order to stop him. The whole film could be about the X-Men trying to stop the Juggernaut and that's it. Have Magneto break him out of prison at the start of the second to join the Brotherhood and you've got a series.

 

[Silvermoth]

To me it's not tricky at all. Prejudice doesn't make sense.

I mean why are the same people who love lesbians so annoyed at gay marriage? People are stupid and in the marvel u when they hear the m word they respond to the stigma not the facts.

The xmen could totally work in the MU

 

[CB Fan]

I would have Magneto be the villain of the first film with a big plan to secure mutant supremacy but once he's defeated he wouldn't be in another film until he's ready to launch his next big plan. The x-men have many villains that can carry a film some of them contribute to the themes of prejudice and injustice some don't, not every film needs to have the same theme bashed over our heads.

I would also make sure that places like Astroid M and the Savage land could exist without seeming out of place. The X-Men have a whole universe of characters and places to utilize and adapt so the scope can be big or small depending on the story.

 

[DACrowe]

6) Exceptional gifts are usually celebrated in society, not shamed and persecuted. There were no mobs out to kill great minds like Einstein or Beethoven. None of the parents wanted to kill the dunker on your high school basketball team because he was "too tall." What's wrong with the people in Marvel that they hate mutants so much?

You do realize that Einstein had to flee to the United States in 1933 to escape persecution in his home country of Germany when the Nazis rose to power, don't you?

He wasn't alone. Freud fled Austria in 1938 for London and died in exile. Billy Wilder who would go on to make iconic Hollywood films like Double Indemnity and Some Like it Hot was a Jewish screenwriter in Berlin when he fled to Hollywood. Fritz Lang who was already an international star for making the masterpiece "Metropolis" fled Berlin in 1934 because he was Jewish. Conradt Veidt, an international film star who appeared in the German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the American The Man Who Laughs emigrated to the UK because his wife was Jewish.

Also, Musicians like Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg also had to flee the Nazis.

And in far less radical times, only until the last five years, American officers and soldiers, if they wanted to keep their career and serve their country, had to pretend they were not gay. While not the law of the land, everyone from athletes to movie stars had to do the same until very recently.

That's just a few reasons off the top of my head, and I could probably come up with many more with more time. In my opinion, the X-Men have always failed to be a metaphor for oppressed groups, so I don't believe that metaphor is worth trying to preserve in the MCU.

I can see why.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Even now in the US, racial tensions are at their highest since probably the early 90s.

 

[NealKenneth]

You do realize that Einstein had to flee to the United States in 1933 to escape persecution in his home country of Germany when the Nazis rose to power, don't you?

He wasn't alone. Freud fled Austria in 1938 for London and died in exile. Billy Wilder who would go on to make iconic Hollywood films like Double Indemnity and Some Like it Hot was a Jewish screenwriter in Berlin when he fled to Hollywood. Fritz Lang who was already an international star for making the masterpiece "Metropolis" fled Berlin in 1934 because he was Jewish. Conradt Veidt, an international film star who appeared in the German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the American The Man Who Laughs emigrated to the UK because his wife was Jewish.

Also, Musicians like Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg also had to flee the Nazis.

These are irrelevant examples because I was talking about how society embraces exceptional people. These people were not persecuted because they were exceptional individuals, they were persecuted because they were Jewish.

Society could not view mutants as a collective to be stereotyped or persecuted because every single one is so different from the next. They have no similar qualities except for a gene.

And in far less radical times, only until the last five years, American officers and soldiers, if they wanted to keep their career and serve their country, had to pretend they were not gay. While not the law of the land, everyone from athletes to movie stars had to do the same until very recently.

Again, because each mutant is so different from the next, they could not be viewed the same way as homosexuals are. They would each be seen as exceptional individuals rather than a collective.

Mutants would need to share a quality more obvious than a common gene in order to be persecuted as a collective. It wouldn't matter what it was, if they all had the same skin color, nose shape, number of arms, etc. it would make sense. If they all shared a quality that made them different, society could persecute them. As they are, it is totally unrealistic that they would be persecuted and I roll my eyes any time they try to shove this metaphor down our throats yet again.

If people really were ready to mob and riot against mutants, they would do the same thing against people with certain blood types. Real people don't persecute blood types, so it's unrealistic to think they would persecute a group of people just for sharing a gene.

 

[Shikamaru]

I honestly don't know how Feige could introduce the X-Men without a continuity retcon or dropping the Bond idea and letting the MCU age in real time.

Conceptually, the X-Men have always been the hardest property to integrate in the Marvel U in the first place. The idea that mutants would be persecuted while other superpowered beings are A-okay never really sat with me. Then there's the fact that the X-Verse feels in an entire league of its own with its vast amount of characters and tone.

The thing is that the X-verse makes claims about the Marvel-verse that we just don't see anywhere else. If there was a new species on the rise and humanity's life was in danger to the point where they sanction government drones to hunt them down, we'd hear about it a lot more often. Everything else would be secondary to the mutant issue.

But to complicate this even further, at least in the comics the X-Men were there from the very beginning. The mutant reveal debuted around the same time as Spider-Man, FF and the Avengers. Whereas the MCU already faces several more obstacles.

If there was a new sub-species on the rise by now, SHIELD would have known about it. They would have had meetings about it. Fury or Hill would have at the very least implied it whenever they were schooling someone on how the world is changing. We already know from Agents of SHIELD that [BLACKOUT]there's already some active inhumans in hiding that no one in SHIELD knew about[/BLACKOUT], so why would they know about mutants? They're either extremely small in numbers or there is something suppressing their X-gene.

Let's assume it's the latter (something is suppressing their X-gene). In that case, it's redundant of the whole Inhumans story they're planning since that's exactly what the Inhumans are all about. It'll be even more redundant if they give the persecution angle to the Inhumans. The X-Men definitely won't revert back to Marvel by 2019, so there's that to take in account.

Furthermore, wouldn't everything that's happened in the MCU go against Magneto's reasoning? At least in the comics, Magneto started his reign when there were still very few superhumans running around. But how many of them will be active post-Infinity War? At least 10 Avengers, the Guardians, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Strange, Panther, a few Inhumans at the very least...gods, mutates, aliens, AI's...so what would make Magneto think "it's human extinction or our extinction" when practically every other superhero under the sun has been accepted?

Only way I can see it work without a retcon is by letting the universe grow via real time, including letting the characters age. The explanation being that the current events of today led to nature creating more mutants for the future, or something. I'm not even sure if I would advocate going that direction, just that that's how I see it making the most sense.

 

[NealKenneth]

Conceptually, the X-Men have always been the hardest property to integrate in the Marvel U in the first place. The idea that mutants would be persecuted while other superpowered beings are A-okay never really sat with me.

Excellent post, Shikamaru. You're highlighting big problems with the idea of mutant persecution in the Marvel universe, something that I have already been trying to explain to other people in the thread.

I think it's a good suggestion in general to allow the MCU to age, because obviously the actors are going to age and we wouldn't want to dismiss an iconic actor just because he or she is getting too old. It would also allow the films to explore the same character at different stages of their life, which I have always found interesting.

The X-Men could then simply be a post-Avengers team of superhumans based on the vision of Charles Xavier. Marvel obviously couldn't be making GotG, Avengers, Inhumans, and X-Men movies at the same time without increasing their output to like five movies a year if they want to also release solo films. I don't see them going that route.

I don't think they are planning to have Avengers films in Phase 4. I think the team films will be GotG and Inhumans, introducing the Fantastic Four to close the phase possibly. I could definitely see Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four being the focus of Phase 5, probably introducing the Runaways to close and including another Avengers film. That puts the earliest X-Men film at Phase 6 by my estimation.

 

[BoredGuy]

I've been wondering

What do we think are the status of X-Characters created after the Fox deal????

I'm sure characters like Daken and X-23 might get automatically tied up to Wolverine's rights
But what about any of the younger students, New X-Men, Generation Hope, The Jean Grey School? Or other new-ish characters like Fantomex, Cecilia Reyes, Cassandra Nova, or even somewhere like the Breakworld...?

Obviously it might all get a little sticky
But it would be great if Marvel could throw Fantomex or X-23 into a movie just to screw with Fox