Sequels Should the X-men be the next "Avengers?"

[-JKR-]

Yeah, I read the topic......

 

[x-er]

Browsing online i see there is still interest in bringing in Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in the MCU...

 

[psylockolussus]

He had his time plus it was his choice to stop playing the role. Find some one else for the MCU.

 

[smallville fan]

Bare with me. But I think the best way to get mutants into the MCU is have some already exist (Apocalypse, Shadowking, The Maximoff Twins, Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine etc... ) this explains there absence.. most have been in hiding, "in the closet", or written off as National Enquirer tabloids. The population is pretty low so it's easy to stay hidden.

Cool. Here's my approach to the MCU X-Men.

I think the mutants are out there and in hiding on Genosha which is a full fledged city and more or less want to be left alone.(Hidden from the world by Charles's powers and co-led by Magneto and Nick Fury knows about it authorises their activities provide they don't cause trouble) Mutation can be triggered under certain pressures (Wanda and Pietro more or less opened the door for it with the genetic experiments) and are like 0.00015% of the world population. Professor X and Magneto both from time to time go out into the world collecting mutants detected by Cerebro and bringing them back to Genosha.

The event which made finally made Charles and Magneto form the X-Men would be the Thanos Finger Snap in Infinity War where half their population disappears (and of course returns in Avengers 4). From there, they pledge to train teams of mutants to take on outside threats, Charles with his team (later becoming the X-Men) and Erik's with his (later becoming the Brotherhood). On a side note, I think it would be really cool if they show Danger Room scenes with both teams taking on the big battle sequences in the MCU's greatest hits like the Chitauri in the New York, Ultron robots in Sokovia, and the Outrider Aliens from Thanos' army in Wakanda. In addition we could also show Hydra agents from The Winter Soldier as well just to show how both Xavier and Lensherr were really tuned into world events. To make it really cool and really fan-servicey, they could have simulations of all the Avengers they can fight.

That's pretty much establishing the backstory. And to kick off events for the first solo movie, I figure that even though plans to bring this character to the screen happened have fell through, they can bring him here. The villain will be former Hydra scientist Nathaniel Essex who moonlights as "Mr. Sinister" who experiments on mutants and plan to create more unnaturally using Baron Von Strucker's experimental ideas with a synthetic energy source mimicking Loki's staff and the X-Men who venture out of Genosha have to take him on. The plan goes through but they defeat Essex. Because mutants are now out there in the world, with too much that Genosha couldn't possibly sustain, Professor X decides to take the X-Men to Westchester Mansion to establish a private mansion and school to help these mutants while Erik holds down the fort at Genosha.

The team I'll have will consist of Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler, Beast, Jubilee and Iceman. Storm and Gambit are teachers under Professor X. Wolverine will not be in this movie at all and will be introduced in a sequel as time moves on as Magneto becomes more evil.

 

[x-er]

He had his time plus it was his choice to stop playing the role. Find some one else for the MCU.

I do wanna see X-23 come back but I agree a change may be in order. Plus, new cast means lower budget and more opportunities for other actors and actresses.

I was on Youtube recently and watched a few fans theorizing on Wanda/Scarlet Witch's powers in the MCU. They touched on the fact that she has previously implanted a vision in Thor's head which later turned out to become reality in Thor III. Perhaps it was subconscious on her part, but say her powers could change reality. What if she were to come back and consciously weave "mutation" into their current reality?

My theory is Thanos has way too much power with the infinity stones in his possession if he can dispose of 1/2 of the population of the universe at random. If someone like Scarlet Witch reverted that, the missing population could be brought back and Thanos' power could be distributed at random via mutation. One of the stars of the X-Men franchise, for example, is Kitty Pryde and she is known for being a pretty typical American girl. It's like balancing the scale of power post-Thanos for the Avengers.

I mean, Marvel is probably going, wait a minute, if she completely wiped out most of the mutant population just by wishing it during M-Day ("No more mutants!") couldn't she easily have been the one who brought them into existence in the first place... ? She's pretty effin' creepy that way.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Cool. Here's my approach to the MCU X-Men.

I think the mutants are out there and in hiding on Genosha which is a full fledged city and more or less want to be left alone.(Hidden from the world by Charles's powers and co-led by Magneto and Nick Fury knows about it authorises their activities provide they don't cause trouble) Mutation can be triggered under certain pressures (Wanda and Pietro more or less opened the door for it with the genetic experiments) and are like 0.00015% of the world population. Professor X and Magneto both from time to time go out into the world collecting mutants detected by Cerebro and bringing them back to Genosha.

The event which made finally made Charles and Magneto form the X-Men would be the Thanos Finger Snap in Infinity War where half their population disappears (and of course returns in Avengers 4). From there, they pledge to train teams of mutants to take on outside threats, Charles with his team (later becoming the X-Men) and Erik's with his (later becoming the Brotherhood). On a side note, I think it would be really cool if they show Danger Room scenes with both teams taking on the big battle sequences in the MCU's greatest hits like the Chitauri in the New York, Ultron robots in Sokovia, and the Outrider Aliens from Thanos' army in Wakanda. In addition we could also show Hydra agents from The Winter Soldier as well just to show how both Xavier and Lensherr were really tuned into world events. To make it really cool and really fan-servicey, they could have simulations of all the Avengers they can fight.

That's pretty much establishing the backstory. And to kick off events for the first solo movie, I figure that even though plans to bring this character to the screen happened have fell through, they can bring him here. The villain will be former Hydra scientist Nathaniel Essex who moonlights as "Mr. Sinister" who experiments on mutants and plan to create more unnaturally using Baron Von Strucker's experimental ideas with a synthetic energy source mimicking Loki's staff and the X-Men who venture out of Genosha have to take him on. The plan goes through but they defeat Essex. Because mutants are now out there in the world, with too much that Genosha couldn't possibly sustain, Professor X decides to take the X-Men to Westchester Mansion to establish a private mansion and school to help these mutants while Erik holds down the fort at Genosha.

The team I'll have will consist of Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler, Beast, Jubilee and Iceman. Storm and Gambit are teachers under Professor X. Wolverine will not be in this movie at all and will be introduced in a sequel as time moves on as Magneto becomes more evil.

there's some neat ideas there, but i really doubt they'd do another hidden city cloaked from the rest of the world like wakanda. it's already going to be stretching it if we ever get the savage land and Atlantis too

 

[x-er]

another theory! It's all in Wanda's head.

 

[psylockolussus]

Lol no.

 

[x-er]

If New Mutants features X-23 as is rumored, it means Fox may still have plans for an X-Men universe set in the future. I know I post this a lot but my idea of a good trilogy for the present timeline of X-Men is:

(1) Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men; this one would be a great psychological / sci fi thriller and a great way to set up a team with Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, and X-23. -- I mean, if you don't die on screen you can always come back, right?

Spoiler

There's a really compelling suicide scene, Emma Frost plays with Scott's mind to disable his powers (no visor), Kitty Pryde steals the show several times and eventually sacrifices herself for the team, and Emma Frost is all sorts of creepy

Whedon's Team:

Cyclops without a visor:

Spoiler

Wolverine's already introduced his successor to us and I think she could really get people excited to watch a new trilogy.

(2) Asteroid M based on X-Men Legends I (the video game) - Magneto gathers most of the mutants left in the world to populate a mutant nation literally in the stars by building them an asteroid orbiting outside of Earth. You'd have to see how it plays out in this classic video game, but it ends with Magneto shrouding the world in darkness by covering the planet with smaller asteroids, the X-Men take the x-jet into space to stop Magneto but General Kincaid and his Sentinels interfere and the Asteroid falls straight down to Earth. Charles Xavier, although not present, wins the lifelong debate he had with Magneto about whether to coexist with mankind and be equals (the X-Men way), or to segregate and be superior (Magneto's way). In the comics, Magneto's Asteroid falls back to Earth, landing in the ocean.

Spoiler

Instead of having Kitty Pryde's sacrifice in the first film, have her do it in this one instead. She can save the day at the end by phasing the Asteroid through Earth, similar to Magma's role in the videogame.

Here's Magma:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eixe9Y6XMrQ&t=338s

Here's Kitty:

(Whedon had Kitty phase a gigantic bullet right through Earth to save the planet. She succeeded, but she melded with the bullet and died.)

Spoiler

Rogue could be introduced as a Brotherhood member who eventually rejoins the X-Men.

Gambit could be a potential "hottie" to replace Hugh Jackman. He could be introduced as a neutral opportunistic character (neither villain nor hero). Eventually, Rogue and Gambit would fall in love, great arc to develop over two films.

We could see the Morlocks come out of the sewers to live on the asteroid. We could get some supporting and much needed roles from Northstar and Bishop as well as cameos from Marrow, Dust, Surge, and Hellion, etc. Cable could be teased at some point for the next film.

(3) Messiah Complex - On the verge of extinction post-Asteroid M, the X-Men discover the location of the first mutant baby born in years. Several groups on both the human and mutant side race to find it and either kill it or save its life. In the comics, it ends

Spoiler

with Cable disappearing into the future with the baby.

Spoiler

Sinister makes an appearance and he could be present throughout the trilogy. He could have ties with Frost and Gambit and X-23. And this is probably where the plot thickens...

Spoiler

One major antagonist in the comics is a religious mutant-killing cult known as the Purifiers Purifiers (and they've been introduced in Fox's the Gifted).
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In the X-Men Legends video games there are mutant riots much like the scene above. Scenes like these could probably be used anywhere in the three films. I would have Beast's human love interest die during one of these riots.

Two characters who would stand out to me as a viewer would be Emma Frost and Gambit. Fox hasn't realized how out-of-the-box it is to have characters that you can't strictly categorize as heroes or villains. One example of that is Black Panther's Killmonger who already broke the classic supervillain mold in the MCU.



No idea if it could tie into the MCU.

 

[psylockolussus]

New Mutants won't be part of the MCU, and definitely won't be the first mutants film set in the MCU.

 

[x-er]

I read somewhere that was the reason behind all the reshoots but whatever. a hard reboot could do the x-men some good in the MCU, especially since they've shot themselves on the foot so much with the continuity and partly with the storytelling/universe-building.

 

[x-er]

I found this really neat selection of X-Men issues on Marvel Unlimited today. It's called X-Couples and they offer an issue for each of the most noteable romantic relationships in the X-Men comics.

https://marvel.com/comics/discover/1060/x-couples

I figure it's a good reference for Fox, since they rarely put the characters together right. I particularly liked the one for Beast. There is a TV episode using that same concept and I'd love to see it on the big screen someday. After 18 years, we've seen less and less development in terms of how humans and mutants interact on a personal and social level, most of it has been political.

 

[x-er]

I'm going to vote yes to Marvel/Disney acquiring X-Men. Who gets X-Men better than the guys and gals who created them? Marvel does! When you compare them to Comcast/Universal, you see there's a big difference in the type of movies they'd be putting out there.

Disney's films may be a little generic at times (and Marvel's gotten some criticism for this too) but they get superheroes a bit and they get how to make inspirational films about underdogs and minorities. Take films like Zootopia and the Incredibles. Marvel's Phase 3 films have also shown us they can make films in a more complex but engaging way.

Universal's currently going on a lot of action movies but no superheroes, for example Fast & Furious and a lot of horror films, some of which don't really resonate with the X-Men (the purge films & most of Jason Blum's work). And I know Fox was going down a different route with X-Force and New Mutants, but the focus should still be X-Men as a positive superhero team for me and I don't think Universal/Comcast would know how to do that. Unless I'm misunderstanding the potential outcomes of the deal.

So what I get after comparing their filmography is:
Disney could make a positive change with X-Men
Comcast could have a negative impact with X-Men

Also Disney would put the X-Men and Fantastic Four in the Avengers universe unlike Comcast. I'd love to see a rebooted Storm alongside Black Panther, Rogue vs. Captain Marvel, M-Day, and all those other fan moments you guys are waiting for.

 

[psylockolussus]

Disney is much better handling their franchises than Universal/Fox. Anyway its for the best.

 

[x-er]

I don't mean to make anyone's eyes roll, but I've been thinking and I find Fox should consider fixing a few characters and making us an X5-X7 before calling it quits. This is because (and this is an example) when you compare the three different cinematic versions of Spiderman in the last two decades, you realize they all have a different take on the character but they're valid takes, with good character development and story-telling. With X-Men it's a whole other story; a lot of characters have been ruined by Fox either by neglect or extreme misuse. I'm namely thinking about Cyclops, Rogue, Beast, Emma Frost, Gambit, Kitty Pryde, and the list could go on.

There is a plethora of directors out there and I am no good a picking them but James Mangold did a great job of bringing X-23 to life. I wouldn't mind him coming on board for something. Whedon's also done a great job with X-Men (comics) and Avengers (films). Mad Max: Fury Road makes me think Miller would be a great director for a Messiah Complex film too. And then there's Asteroid M which I think would need a supremely inspired director.

I feel it's worth trying. Jackman and Stewart withdrew with an academy nomination but there are still characters left to fix before calling it a day. I'm not sure how expensive the cast would be, but it is technically only James Marsden, Anna Paquin, Ian McKellen and Ellen Page from the original cast.

 

[x-er]

Also, I don't mean to nag or sound delusional, but if you take a closer look at the ending scene in X2 (which is on HBO I think), you'll see Rogue and Cyclops were standing very close to Professor X, probably because they were supposed to be the biggest characters in X3 and they are huge in the comics. I don't see why the hell not bring 'em back. Marsden's HBO show is big and Paquin's still riding the True Blood wave and she has an academy award and unlike Lawrence she's actually good in the roll, right now's the time.

Spoiler

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combined with Keen's X-23, Page's Kitty Pryde, McKellen's Magneto, Brolin's Cable, and rebooted versions of Beast, Emma Frost, Gambit, Colossus, Bishop... ??? You've got a solid trilogy.

And I hereby promise to stop with my endless ranting. : P

 

[SumT]

reboot version of Beast?? Kelsey Grammer is perfect casting, and he's still making movies and is a great actor. He was up to continue his role after Dofp.

But Fox gotta do Fox and go back to the cheaper cast/cheaper-mediocre writer and forgot about the most popular/beloved cast.

Marsden, Grammer, Foster, Page... all had amazing potential with their characters. But when you have a studio like Fox and a non fan director and a mediocre writer now as main producer/director.... well, what can you expect from this context?
very little

 

[BaronZemo]

Also, I don't mean to nag or sound delusional, but if you take a closer look at the ending scene in X2 (which is on HBO I think), you'll see Rogue and Cyclops were standing very close to Professor X, probably because they were supposed to be the biggest characters in X3 and they are huge in the comics. I don't see why the hell not bring 'em back. Marsden's HBO show is big and Paquin's still riding the True Blood wave and she has an academy award and unlike Lawrence she's actually good in the roll, right now's the time.

Spoiler

[YT]TTDWk5GzNuI[/YT]

combined with Keen's X-23, Page's Kitty Pryde, McKellen's Magneto, Brolin's Cable, and rebooted versions of Beast, Emma Frost, Gambit, Colossus, Bishop... ??? You've got a solid trilogy.

And I hereby promise to stop with my endless ranting. : P

You don't mean to sound delusional but you are. There is no X5 or whatever happening. This universe is dead. Acceptance can be difficult but cathartic.

 

[x-er]

I am a bit. But I think Fox may be shamed when they start comparing versions of Rogue, Cyke, Beast, Emma Frost, Gambit, etc. if Marvel reboots, which is a good incentive for Fox to give fans a long overdue and much deserved conclusion to X-Men.

 

[Last Skywalker]

As far as i'm concerned... there is only one true way to handle the Fox merger.

The Fox Movies become Movies within the MCU. This has precedent... reference the character of Patsy Walker's origin and merger with the MCU (now portrayed by Rachael Tayor on Jessica Jones).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy_Walker

Patsy and Hedy made a cameo appearance in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965), establishing them in the Marvel Universe. The superhero-team comic The Defenders #89 (Nov. 1980) further established that the earlier stories were fictional works published within the fictional Marvel Universe itself, and written by Patsy's mother Dorothy Walker though based upon Patsy's own life and friends.

After that... do whatever the hell you want with the X-Men, the path will be clear. Personal favorite would be to make their creation one of the side-effects of reversing The Snap.

To further seperate them from the Fox Films, I also would have them start out as humans who suddenly get abilities with absolutely no control over them. Literally, they should be killing people all over the place and humans straight up murdering anybody who has so much as an epileptic seizure. That then gives a progression path for Xavier to find a way to bring them under control as the conceit of the first film.

So, as an example, in A4... they should succeed.. and then the first credit scene is someone who is watching the news from their apartment and suddenly they starts looking at their hand and their body starts glowing red, and then the next shot is the top of the building being blown off(the implication being that person died and took a lot of people with them through no fault of their own).

More Credits.

After Credit Scene shows a couple government agents talking about the rise in a severe amount of mutations within the human race, with most dying, and likely killing anyone close to them, almost as soon as they occur.

'Do we have a name for this yet?'

'Well... we started giving them names, but so many occurred... now we just call them X-men'.

End A4.

 

[Big Bang]

As far as i'm concerned... there is only one true way to handle the Fox merger.

The Fox Movies become Movies within the MCU.

Just....no. The Fox movies were in many cases half baked. Absolutely no reason to plug them in when Marvel Studios can do a far better job with the property.

 

[psylockolussus]

Well said!

 

[x-er]

What if the Avengers traveling back in time in Avengers 4 changes the past by spreading a worldwide mutation that leads to a future full of mutants?

 

[CyclopsSummers]

In x-men Fox old timeline, US government knows existence of the mutants in 70's but hid that from people until 2000's

Just make the same in MCU, government and Gen.Ross known mutants already exist since long time but kept it secret

 

[x-er]

But then there'd be superpowered beings popping up all over the world all along and characters like wolverine would have already been used as government weapons, no? there would already be mutant superheroes.

Although that theory has come up a lot. The "the mutants were hiding" theory.