I think part of that is because with the whole Xavier's School concept and the way mutantcy first manifests at puberty, it would make the most sense if you start at the beginning that the X-Men would be teenagers. And a lot of people don't seem to want to deal with the whole teen hero thing with the X-Men unless it's a spinoff property like New Mutants or Generation X (nevermind that most superhero characters don't really act much like real world adults as it is. Hell, Wolverine is known for being moody, sullen, disliking authority and being hung up on a girl he can't have. He's one of the oldest X-Men and also the most adolescent).
Meanwhile, I've been saying for a while "X-Men Evolution it". That show showed as close to a starting point for the X-Men as anything has. Mutants weren't new but public knowledge of them was. So, start 'em as teenagers but use a mixed group instead of the O5. Let them grow into the roles and give the franchise some longevity.
I really don't know what the best solution could be.
But I do feel that the whole "they existed all along, but were hidden" is overdone by Marvel. It would feel to similar to Wakanda, the Eternals, the Witches, The Sorceress, The Ten Rings, Shang Chi's village....
I think I prefer the snap activating the mutant gene and maybe that's what causes people to fear and hate them, because they think their powers has something to do with Thanos and the big trauma humanity endured with the blip.
A picture would last longer darling...
The problem with the snap being the cause of mutants is that there's then no history for any of these characters like Logan, Xavier and Magneto. So basically Wolverine just became a mutant in the past five years, rather than being born one over 120 years ago. Same with Xavier and Magneto. I suppose if they want to take a drastic departure from both the FOX versions and the comics that could work, but if they don't want to deviate that much they have to have a solution that allows for at least some mutants (even if just handful) to have existed before the snap. Certainly the snap could be the catalyst that causes more and more of them to start popping up, though, with their X-genes activating due to cosmic energies unleashed by it.
I think no more than a few dozen mutants sprinkled around the world over the millennia works fine. Apocalypse could be reintroduced to Earth at some point after having been banished by the Eternals long ago in his Celestial Ship. Magneto could be in a SHIELD cryotube from the 60's. You could reframe his and Xavier's meeting set later, after he had been reanimated(amnesic, say, 10 years ago), so Xavier is still in his 30's/40's; maybe Xavier accidentally unlocks his memory in the near-present, unleashing a potent 'new' enemy upon the world. Mystique/Sabretooth/Logan etc can all be 120 years old or so, no problem, their powers are relatively lowkey enough to have not made too much noise. Weapon X can be a Hydra/SHIELD black budget offshoot, completely off common knowledge (even Black Widow's file drop).
Just start the main X-Men (and other mutants) as having just recently manifesting since the Blips(college aged at most), and they are still very rare, but now increasing geometrically. After 10+ years of films/D+ shows adapting the classic canon you can start playing with the bigger mutant population concepts from the Morrison and Hickman eras, but a ragtag group of disparate strangers from various corners of the world popping up at random really was the original approach, and lends nicely to the 'mutant hysteria' undercurrent that the franchise requires(for example: video of a kid accidentally eyebeaming a skyscraper goes viral, blamed on 'newly discovered' mutants, other locations having incidences too worldwide, triggering massive public outcry, ushering in mandatory 'X-gene' PCR tests, registration[M-passports], and Sentinel scanning and enforcement AI drones developed by Dr. Trask of the WHO and UN mutant taskforce in response, etc, etc.), this sparks Xavier[and Magneto, Mystique, Hellfire Club, etc] into action recruiting and training the few mutants out there and we are off to the races!
Last edited by yogaflame; 09-27-2021 at 12:50 PM.
Let the flames destroy all but that which is pure and true!
I don't get how the multiverse changes the core function of mutants. They're still mutants who gain power from the X-gene at puberty
As for Sentinels, I'd hold off on that. We saw that a few times in the other movies.
Last edited by MentalManipulator; 09-27-2021 at 07:00 PM.
A picture would last longer darling...
Well, I just meant shared history with some of the other MCU characters. But I suppose Logan could’ve still crossed paths with Captain America in WWII, Isaiah Bradley in the Korean War, Black Widow and Winter Solider during the Cold War, etc. We just don’t know about it… yet.
without him there, there really wouldnt have been any reason why he would have come up; that would have been out of context. Also Logan's history shouldnt be assumed to be the same as it was in the comics or other medium. For example, the Black Widow was born in the 80s in the MCU and not the 1940s so she wouldnt have the decades long history that she and Logan shared in the books
That is what I said. There have been mutants here and there, but they are very rare and usually are regarded as myths, hide, or are covered up by the govt. The snap and the release of all that strange cosmic energy starts a cascade effect witch kick starts the x-gene into high gear making more and more people start developing powers.
This is what I wrote in another thread with a few tweaks:
I'd make it so that in their first movie X-men is already an active team. Jubilee would be the audience surrogate, a new recruit to the team like Wolverine was in the first X-men movie. Charles was mindwiping anyone who witnesses an accident involving mutants like in X-men Evolution. He could do that since until multiple snaps mutants were extremely small in number around the world. This way history of Apocalypse, Logan, Selene etc. remain intact. He's also working with SHIELD to make sure that any footage involving mutants doesn't make it to the press. X-men usually handles only mutant related business and leaves other hero business to others to differentiate them from the Avengers. The villain would be Magneto and his brotherhood (I know some people are bored of him but he'd be the villain of only the first movie to set the stage). Seeing that mutant numbers are increasing across the world he fears their existence would become public so he plans to make the first strike against humanity. At the end of the movie the world learns about mutants existence. At the post credits scene Fury visits Xavier telling him that with Westview and flagsmashers governments are wary of powered individuals and now the world knows of mutants' existence X-men should join SHIELD so that when world governments and humanity come for them, SHIELD can vouch for them and keep them safe. Xavier rejects him saying that X-men are students not soldiers and they will keep the world safe but they will do it in their own terms. Fury says the next time they meet they may do so as enemies and they part ways. The movie ends with X-men leaving the mansion as it is no longer safe so in the next movie we can have Genosha/Utopia/Krakoa etc.