Spoilers Mutants and the MCU-- What's Next? (Full Spoilers!)

[Mage]

My one biggest hope is that the MCU will bother making X-Men a proper ensemble and not just the Logan show all over again.

And before anyone says "The other X-Men characters are boring and need a leading man like Logan", Guardians of the Galaxy easily disproves that. Right from the start it wasn't "Peter Quill and some other people", it knew how to do a real team movie

I do not enjoy agreeing with you, for many reasons.
But for once, you have a point I can agree on. Guardians is a movie series where everyone gets an equal share and you actually feel they are a unit. Considering the MCU's ability of tackling that, I have faith they can pull of the X-Men. And, with them being able to create a more coherent universe, the movies might actually connect better.

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, the reason why FoX-Men kept bringing back Jackman was because when they tried to do one without him (First Class) it didn't make as much money. But that's because they didn't try hard enough to do a clean break and because they'd focused too much on Jackman from X1-X3 in the first place.

A new series making it clear they're not associated with FoX-Men will have less of that problem

 

[Thestral]

I think Deadpool and Wolverine did a masterful job of truly closing out the Fox Marvel era, so I don't wanna see a whole lot from there in Secret Wars. With a few possible exceptions - Cyclops (either version), Magneto (either Fassbender or McKellan), Evan Peters' Quicksilver, and maybe one of the New Mutants' cast?

Oh, and Channing Tatum's Gambit.

Going forward, I agree with whoever suggested leaving Wolverine out of the first movie - if it's Logan. If it's Laura played by Dafne Keen which would be my preference, I'd say include her from the start as a way to differentiate this version of the X-Men and as a living memory of the past.

Mutants under the radar sounds good to me; maybe an X-Men: Evolution style setup where they're actually teenagers that go to a normal school but live at the mansion where they get training and safety? Have Hank and Storm (and Laura if they bring her back) as the adults, and then have a roster of younger ones - Scott, Jean, Bobby, Jubilee, Kitty, Piotr? - as the focal point.

 

[Christopher]

Mutants under the radar sounds good to me; maybe an X-Men: Evolution style setup where they're actually teenagers that go to a normal school but live at the mansion where they get training and safety?

Maybe for the first act of the movie. I felt that Evolution's first two seasons were way too slow-paced, and the storyline didn't really engage me until mutants were outed at the end of season 2. I've come to feel in general that stories about superheroes or otherwise exceptional characters keeping their identity/powers secret from the world, or at least from their friends and family, are less interesting than stories where they're out in the open and the possibilities for interaction and consequences are less restricted.

 

[FreezeC77]

The trickiest thing is Magneto. I think most other mutants can be introduced as having developed in a later time period... But Magneto is so associated with the holocaust as his origin. Obviously there have sadly been many other genocides and groups targeted because of their ethnicity or religion since then, but to change his origin to a different group would really trigger a storm of outrage.

 

[UssGlenn]

Anyway, the one thing I do feel strongly about is that the MCU is sorely lacking in Squirrel Girl. I mean, who else are they gonna get to beat Doctor Doom?

Yes! and they have even already perfectly cast the role with Milana Vayntrub, so it's even easier to bring her in.

 

[Christopher]

The trickiest thing is Magneto. I think most other mutants can be introduced as having developed in a later time period... But Magneto is so associated with the holocaust as his origin. Obviously there have sadly been many other genocides and groups targeted because of their ethnicity or religion since then, but to change his origin to a different group would really trigger a storm of outrage.

As mentioned above, it's already canonical that Namor was born as a mutant centuries ago. So we know mutants have been around, they've just been rare and/or under the radar. So there's no issue with Magneto.

Isn't the mutants' origin in the comics connected to experiments by the Eternals or Celestials or something?

 

[Anwar]

And as for people who are going to say "Well, Cyclops is boring so he shouldn't get much focus"

...At the time the first X-Men movies were made, Cyclops hadn't been an important or relevant character in the comics for over a decade. From when he came back in X-Factor in the mid 80s and for ALL of the 90s (when the X-Men were at their biggest exposure), no one knew what to do with him. He got no stories to himself, no arcs, anything he did get was tied to useless 90s fad characters and his portrayal in the 90s cartoon came down to him yelling "JEAN!" a lot.

He was relegated to "Hard Leader guy who loves Jean and clashes with Logan a lot" and nothing more. A Caricature.

It wasn't until the early 2000s when the 90s fads had mostly imploded and new writers who disliked characters like Wolverine came onboard that he underwent his Renaissance and became the more dynamic important character he is nowadays in the comics. But these all happened after the first 2 FoX-Men movies so it was too late to try and incorporate it because the damage had already been done. Because all the other FoX-men movies were too attached to how the first two movies did things, they didn't bother either.

So when the MCU starts adapting him, they'll have more to work with.

And BTW, don't bother bringing up the Madelyne Pryor stuff as a reason why he "sucks" because I don't care. Scott leaving Madelyne wasn't the bad writing. Meeting her, marrying her and having a child with her was the actual bad writing. Their whole relationship was a giant mess that never should have happened.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Isn't the mutants' origin in the comics connected to experiments by the Eternals or Celestials or something?

Well, yes and no. The original 'Eternals' series by Jack Kirby was not connected to the Marvel universe when it was first published - In it, the Celestials visited Earth millions of years ago and experimented on select group of early primates/hominids; creating The Deviants, The Eternals and Homo Sapiens.

In Kirby's version, the Celestials planted a 'seed' in Homo Sapiens, that, in time and theory, would lend itself to humanity making an evolutionary jump and join the Eternals and Deviants on the cosmic scale.

After the series was cancelled, other Marvel writers retroactively brought the Eternals/Celestials/Deviants into the Marvel Universe and incorporated other cosmic beings such as Starfox and Thanos as part of their history. The 'seed' that was planted in humans then became one that would lead to the rise of mutants; one of the first being Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur).

 

[Turtletrekker]

I thought we'd pretty much all agreed that Logan is its own Elseworlds tale, and not a sequel to DoFP? Its premise that there haven't been any new mutant children in ~10 years isn't at all compatible with the cheery ending to DoFP, and I don't think "Xavier had a brain fart and killed everyone, womp, womp" is a plot point Feige and the Russos will want to be bound by when deciding how to structure Secret Wars. (Nor is it the case that Logan meaningfully referenced any prior movie other than X1.)

Oh, I agree. I'm just referencing the fact that Deadpool and Wolverine seemed to imply that it was all one big happy timeline. And I also agree that, yes, it's a Deadpool movie and perhaps not everything said there should be taken as gospel. However, if that's the take Marvel Studios as a whole wants to take towards any potential X-Men appearance in Secret Wars, they can still fit it into the timeline as established.

 

[Turtletrekker]

And BTW, don't bother bringing up the Madelyne Pryor stuff as a reason why he "sucks" because I don't care. Scott leaving Madelyne wasn't the bad writing. Meeting her, marrying her and having a child with her was the actual bad writing. Their whole relationship was a giant mess that never should have happened.

Actually, the bad writing was in bringing back Jean Grey in the first place.

Not that I'm saying that Scott falling in love with an exact physical duplicate of his previous love was great writing, but it worked for the story Claremont was trying to tell in X-Men 175.

 

[Christopher]

Well, yes and no. The original 'Eternals' series by Jack Kirby was not connected to the Marvel universe when it was first published - In it, the Celestials visited Earth millions of years ago and experimented on select group of early primates/hominids; creating The Deviants, The Eternals and Homo Sapiens.

In Kirby's version, the Celestials planted a 'seed' in Homo Sapiens, that, in time and theory, would lend itself to humanity making an evolutionary jump and join the Eternals and Deviants on the cosmic scale.

After the series was cancelled, other Marvel writers retroactively brought the Eternals/Celestials/Deviants into the Marvel Universe and incorporated other cosmic beings such as Starfox and Thanos as part of their history. The 'seed' that was planted in humans then became one that would lead to the rise of mutants; one of the first being Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur).

Which is simply a "yes" for my purposes, because I'm asking whether the idea exists for the MCU to draw on now. Bucky wasn't retconned into the Winter Soldier for decades. Iron Man's origin story was in Vietnam to begin with, but it had been retconned to the Middle East by the time the movies came along. The Guardians of the Galaxy members featured in the movies had replaced the original characters using that name only a few years before. And so on.

So if the mutants' origin is linked to the Celestials in the comics, the MCU can use that and tie the mutants into The Eternals if they want. Say, maybe the big Celestial guy almost hatching out of the Earth triggered the activation of a bunch of dormant X-genes, so that mutants, formerly extremely rare, have suddenly become far more common.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

As mentioned above, it's already canonical that Namor was born as a mutant centuries ago. So we know mutants have been around, they've just been rare and/or under the radar. So there's no issue with Magneto.

Isn't the mutants' origin in the comics connected to experiments by the Eternals or Celestials or something?

The issue with Magneto is that the new X-Men movies will presumably take place in modern times, so too far away from the Holocaust for Magneto to keep his traditional backstory unless he's immortal/unaging for some reason.

But the issue will probably be fixed by just importing Magneto from a different universe where he lived closer to the Holocaust. They're already importing the Fantastic Four and possibly Dr Doom, so a few more holdovers from alternate universes wouldn't make a huge difference.

Or maybe they just don't use Magneto in general.

 

[theenglish]

So as far as I'm concerned, the X-Men films basically have two timelines, the original and the post-DOFP. At most there's a third, since Logan seems more consistent with the original in some ways while still seeming to reference the revised one.

In my own head, I stopped trying to resolve any continuity issues after First Class. I consider the Logan movies a thing of their own; I group the first three X-Men together, and then everything after First Class. The bottom line is that FOX never put that much thought into thinking about how the films fit together so I figure I shouldn't bother either.

In terms of the MCU, which is a more coherent connected universe, I think the obvious solution is to use any mutants we see in Avengers 5/6 as coming from different time streams in the multiverse and then just reboot everything following Secret Wars and start fresh.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The issue with Magneto is that the new X-Men movies will presumably take place in modern times, so too far away from the Holocaust for Magneto to keep his traditional backstory unless he's immortal/unaging for some reason.

There are workarounds. Perhaps in the MCU Magneto's mutation slows down aging the same as Namor's did.

Or maybe they just don't use Magneto in general.

My actual preference.

 

[theenglish]

The trickiest thing is Magneto. I think most other mutants can be introduced as having developed in a later time period... But Magneto is so associated with the holocaust as his origin. Obviously there have sadly been many other genocides and groups targeted because of their ethnicity or religion since then, but to change his origin to a different group would really trigger a storm of outrage.

As much as I think that Magneto's origins in the Holocaust are important and poignant, it is also important to remember that this was a late recon created nearly twenty years after the character first appeared. It is not necessary to have that backstory for him--and doing so would require some kind of other reason for him and probably Xavier to explain their lack of aging. The character just needs a motivation to hate humans, for whatever reason.

I agree with what you are saying about the importance of his ethnicity and religion in the modern world, especially when we are at a time when the horrors of the Holocaust are being forgotten. I don't have a solution, but I'm not being paid to do that.

EDIT: I also agree that the best solution is to not introduce Magneto to the MCU. There are many other antagonists for the X-Men without rehashing their greatest hits in the MCU.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

There are workarounds. Perhaps in the MCU Magneto's mutation slows down aging the same as Namor's did.

My actual preference.

Yes, plenty of possible workarounds to choose from.

But ultimately all of them have their own issues. Slow aging, for instance, means you either have to have Xavier also age slowly (which means he's super creepily older than all the kids he's recruiting, almost heading into vampire story territory) or you lose the Erik/Charles relationship dynamic. Time travel has the same problem, but slightly less so, with the added bonus of feeling repetitive after Captain America.

They could also choose to adapt the backstory to a different event - maybe Magneto's parents were holocaust survivors and Magneto himself survived a similar fictional event, possibly an anti-mutant purge (Genoshan, perhaps). Some people also talk about making him a survivor of or a bystander of the Rwandan genocide (supposedly it could be done realistically without making him not Jewish anymore). But even in the best of circumstances you're losing at least partially the power and meaning of the Holocaust as a symbol. Though it could be argued trying to get people to recognize the same power and meaning in other genocidal events is a good thing since as long as we treat the Holocaust as this completely different thing from everything else, it's a lot easier for people to ignore the awful parallels in the modern world by focusing entirely on the Holocaust which is safely in the distant past.

The alternate universe workaround can avoid most (or all, assuming Xavier comes with him) of the pitfalls mentioned above, but still has Magneto (and maybe Xavier) as external figures who don't really come from the same world as the kids they teach/lecture about the world they're not even native to. Which would be less bad if all of the X-men come from alternate universes, but that would be a terrible change to the underlying metaphor of the franchise.

Just not using Magneto is the simplest and easiest choice. And it's justifiable for the time being since he was so wildly overused for the past 20 years. But it's questionable if they can stick to it and resist the temptation for any significant period of time.

 

[Christopher]

In my own head, I stopped trying to resolve any continuity issues after First Class. I consider the Logan movies a thing of their own; I group the first three X-Men together, and then everything after First Class. The bottom line is that FOX never put that much thought into thinking about how the films fit together so I figure I shouldn't bother either.

Sure, but history is full of cinematic universes whose installments only fit loosely together as long as you didn't worry about the details, e.g. Universal Monsters, Godzilla/kaiju, James Bond, etc. Historically, series continuity has been more a matter of broad strokes than granular details. It's all just pretend anyway, so if the movies pretend they fit together despite their inconsistencies, I accept that as the narrative intent.

I actually think the first couple of Wolverine movies fit pretty well into the X-Men movie continuity. Most of the discrepancies people talk about have to do with background characters who weren't even named onscreen or who only had a bit part, so it's easy enough to ignore or rationalize those. E.g. the diamond-skin mutant credited as "Emma" in Origins: Wolverine was never named in dialogue and was Kayla Silvermane's sister, so it's easy enough to assume she wasn't actually Emma Frost, whose diamond power worked differently anyway.

 

[Turtletrekker]

They could also choose to adapt the backstory to a different event - maybe Magneto's parents were holocaust survivors and Magneto himself survived a similar fictional event, possibly an anti-mutant purge (Genoshan, perhaps). Some people also talk about making him a survivor of or a bystander of the Rwandan genocide (supposedly it could be done realistically without making him not Jewish anymore). But even in the best of circumstances you're losing at least partially the power and meaning of the Holocaust as a symbol. Though it could be argued trying to get people to recognize the same power and meaning in other genocidal events is a good thing since as long as we treat the Holocaust as this completely different thing from everything else, it's a lot easier for people to ignore the awful parallels in the modern world by focusing entirely on the Holocaust which is safely in the distant past.

The alternate universe workaround can avoid most (or all, assuming Xavier comes with him) of the pitfalls mentioned above, but still has Magneto (and maybe Xavier) as external figures who don't really come from the same world as the kids they teach/lecture about the world they're not even native to. Which would be less bad if all of the X-men come from alternate universes, but that would be a terrible change to the underlying metaphor of the franchise.

Just not using Magneto is the simplest and easiest choice. And it's justifiable for the time being since he was so wildly overused for the past 20 years. But it's questionable if they can stick to it and resist the temptation for any significant period of time.

I was actually just thinking similar thoughts about Magneto being the descendant of a Holocaust survivor and being radicalized through family history rather than actual experience.

If the character were to be included, I would like him to be more of a background presence, much as I would like Professor X himself to be. The kids will talk about the Professor's friend Erik who comes over for chess games and have sometimes they can hear them having loud arguments, but they always end the night as friends.

I would much rather see students facing bigotry from humans in their day-to-day lives and how they learn to deal with it. Show us the anti-mutant hatred instead of telling us about it. Be daring. Lose a student to the violence. Amp up the hatred. Make it so when the Professor and Erik have their falling out, it means something to the kids as well as the people watching the story.

 

[Anwar]

Actually, the bad writing was in bringing back Jean Grey in the first place.

Not that I'm saying that Scott falling in love with an exact physical duplicate of his previous love was great writing, but it worked for the story Claremont was trying to tell in X-Men 175.

No it didn't, it was messed up right from the start. If Claremont wanted to retire Scott from the X-Men and get married and stuff, he should have brought back Lee Forrester the human ship Captain he was with before and sent Scott off on a long Cruise or something. Him having a happy marriage to a human woman would have been far more appropriate an "ending".