Introduce the X-Men to the MCU

[Gnostic]

The O5 team is the one that gets revisited the most. Every few years Marvel is putting out some type of book whether its a mini, ongoing, oneshot, etc...about them)

Yes, because the franchise started with them. However, their original characterizations are still unpopular. Hence why the O5 era is often reimagined.

I'd also suggest that maybe Jean and Scott were kept around by CC for a reason.

In Jean's case, it seems that Claremont wanted to make up for the sexist treatment she got during the Silver Age. Turning her from the weakest X-Man to the strongest.

[Rev9]

Perhaps what the X-men really need for life action is a regular season length TV show, with the series actors then used in high budget cinema movies, which serve as events stories taking place in between seasons.

Hence why the lack of team dynamic and building, character development and interaction and backround adventures that justify the team's existence, aren't as much of a hinderance anymore because they occured within the tv show and the movie can just build on them with short introduction moments for the movie only audience.

Essentialy what Star Trek did with the original series and Next Generation, but done while the show still runs or in between season, rather than happening after it ended.

Perhaps with leaving some characters like Wolverine out or reduced to guest appearances, so they can reserve a high profile actor for him, which would have the benefit of making his appearance in the show and movies alike more striking, rather than being just the attention hog.

Of course this is just an oddball idea and doesn't match the pattern Marvel studios is so very keen to follow because it worked for a good chunk of he MCU's golden age, but the X-men arguably have a problem that the 2 hour movies can never deliver on what the majority of the IP's fans know of them from pop culture and previous cartoons and the MCU version has an uphill battle to not also fall into it and just feel like the "Wolverine show, guest staring the X-men", all over again.



And yet the Guardians of the Galaxy worked despite also being a full team assembled from scratch (rather than previous movies) and filled with characters who were complete unkowns to the casual audience (all Avengers characters had appeared in cartoons before).

However it should also be considered that things were stacked a lot more in favor of the Guardians (better character designs, better personalities for the characters, better supporting characters, better setting, better villains, better development, a stronger director's vision, stronger ties to the "event story" the MCU was heading towards, appearing during the pre-Endgame "heyday" of the MCU, etc.).

And it could indeed be considered possible that The Eternals was a test run of sort, since the idea of an ancient group of earthly super beings could appear with the implication of always having been around, is pretty close to one of the assumption about how mutants could have existed in the MCU.

Likewise delivery is very important, whereas the post Endgame MCU has been rather lacking in that quality.

And the X-men actualy have a rather major disadvantage in that they are allready well known to most of the casual audience, so rather than having a complete blank slate potential like the Guardians, the X-men actualy need to compete with... well themself and their various previous incarnations.

I think X-Men 97 may be their attempt at this blueprint via a cheaper option.Definitely because that story is not contemporaneous to the films it feels less of a buildup, but it may give them.a feel for the 'pulse' of the audience, character or storyline reception. Amid the current floundering and missteps they'll have more riding on an animation than they realise. Then again who knows if Marvel can pull off the Xmen at this point.

[Gray Lensman]

In Jean's case, it seems that Claremont wanted to make up for the sexist treatment she got during the Silver Age. Turning her from the weakest X-Man to the strongest.

Counterpoint: Polaris.

[bat39]

See, I don't buy this idea that you have to depict the X-men's origins and early years again for audiences to relate to them. In fact, there's precedent in the MCU itself for not doing that in the case of characters who've already had previous adaptations and/or are already somewhat established among general audiences. The Incredible Hulk wasn't an origin story. Neither was Spider-Man Homecoming. Its not just characters who were previously established though - we technically never really got a Black Panther 'origin story' in the conventional sense either! We start with a T'Challa who's already been Black Panther for a while and we pick up his story once he needs to ascend to the throne, and explore the world of Wakanda and its history from this vantage point.

Traditionally, X-men hasn't been a franchise with a lot of focus on origin stories (especially the origins of the team itself). The TAS had an established team of veteran heroes (with Jubilee serving as our audience surrogate). Ditto with the Fox movies (with Rogue and Wolverine as the audience surrogates introduced to the X-men's world). X-men First Class is the only significant adaptation focused on the actual origin of the team (though its mainly the Xavier/Magneto backstory), with X-men Evolution as the only significant adaptation really focused on the X-men's early years as teenage heroes.

I think the MCU X-men will be a lot closer to the TAS or Fox movies in their portrayal than it will be to the likes of X-men Evolution for sure.

Technically, 66 issues since the others were just reprints. My point is that the Silver Age characterization and stories were not strong enough to keep reader's interest. Just about every X-Men adaptation skip over the Silver Age. The closest thing to an adaptation of the Silver Age was X-Men: Evolution and even that took more cues from Chris Claremont's run. Jean in that show was nothing like her Silver Age comic counterpart and was much closer to how she was depicted during the Claremont era, she didn't even have the "Marvel Girl" alias.

Yeah, in contrast to most other big-name Marvel franchises created by Stan Lee, the X-men's Silver Age tends to get swept under the rug, particularly when it comes to adaptations.

Look at how many times the original 60's Lee/Dikto and Lee/Romita Spider-Man runs have been adapted in one form or the other? Or the Lee/Romita Fantastic Four run? And contrast that with the X-men, where its mainly the Claremont era that serves as inspiration.

I'd also suggest that maybe Jean and Scott were kept around by CC for a reason.

Although some of the reasons the O5 get revisited so much are that One: they come from a more innocent time, and can provide a better contrast than any other iconic grouping of X-Men are capable of. A team with Banshee and Wolverine in it can't even begin to tell that type of story, they were already quite experienced from the moment of introduction. Even Nightcrawler had seen the darker underbelly of society, as it's how we first see him.

Two: the stories that initially feature the O5 weren't Stan's best, the entire idea of mutants was just something he came up with to dispense of writing origin stories. If it was some kind of landmark of storytelling I think fewer writers would be trying to put their own stamp on it, the risks of being overshadowed by the greatness of what came before would be too great.

We don't see much in the way of revisits to the X-Factor O5 run, despite being the same characters. Largely because not only is it much better storytelling, but they were past that innocent stage which makes for such a contrast with the current narrative.

Never thought of it that way...great point.

[Jackraow21]

Josh Brolin posted this on his Instagram today…

IMG_8112.jpg

… interesting timing, with Deadpool 3 resuming filing now.

[Gnostic]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Marvels had a -78% drop on its second weekend domestically, which the worst drop of all time for a superhero film. Holy ****! That means the movie has horrible word-of-mouth. I hope this doesn't effect the Box Office of Deadpool/Wolverine since the movie teased at the X-Men.

[Omega Alpha]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Marvels had a -78% drop on its second weekend domestically, which the worst of all time for a superhero film. Holy ****! That means the movie has horrible word-of-mouth. I hope this doesn't effect the Box Office of Deadpool/Wolverine since the movie teased at the X-Men.

Nah, very different kind of film, plus they won't have the problem of actors not promoting the movie. But hopefully it will be a sign Marvel has to stop focusing in these side projects and work on the big guns

[Hakka84]

Samuel L. Jackson was 59 in Iron Man and was 74 in The Marvels.

RDJ was 43 in the first Iron Man and 53 in Endgame, the last MCU movie he did.

Cate Blanchett was 48 in Ragnarok.

Anthony Hopkins was 73 in Thor and 80 in Ragnarok.

Angela Bassett was 60 in Black Panther and 63 in Wakanda Forever.

Benedict Wong was 45 in Doctor Strange and 51 in Multiverse of Madness and No Way Home.

Mark Ruffalo was 44 in Avengers and 54 in She-Hulk.

Between this conversation and the reactions that Pedro Pascal is "too old" to play Reed Richards, it's truly baffling how so many superhero fans think characters need to be unreasonably young for audiences to get attached to them.

You've picked actors who were meant to not return in any other movie (so passing of time in real life doesn't matter), secondary character or heavily CGIed (Ruffalo).
RDJ was picked for a character that wasn't young in his comics origins either. He's an unique case that won't repeat itself.
The issue is not that TODAY you have Pascal play Reed. The issue is that, theoretically, Pascal should play Reed for the next 10 years in the span of (say) three movies that will be in-universe set in the same year or in a range between 2 and 4 years. So, while we fans wouldn't care for a 40yrs old playing 20ish X-Men character, Marvel Studios would not want to get an >40 actor for a role (of a character meant to be in their 30s) that this actor will be meant to play for the next 10years.

[Gnostic]

Nah, very different kind of film, plus they won't have the problem of actors not promoting the movie. But hopefully it will be a sign Marvel has to stop focusing in these side projects and work on the big guns

I think the actor's strike only played a minor role in this movie flopping. Just because the actors can't promote it doesn't mean the studio can't. Five Nights at Freddy's still happened up to 80 million despite the strike.

[Havok83]

You've picked actors who were meant to not return in any other movie (so passing of time in real life doesn't matter), secondary character or heavily CGIed (Ruffalo).
RDJ was picked for a character that wasn't young in his comics origins either. He's an unique case that won't repeat itself.
The issue is not that TODAY you have Pascal play Reed. The issue is that, theoretically, Pascal should play Reed for the next 10 years in the span of (say) three movies that will be in-universe set in the same year or in a range between 2 and 4 years. So, while we fans wouldn't care for a 40yrs old playing 20ish X-Men character, Marvel Studios would not want to get an >40 actor for a role (of a character meant to be in their 30s) that this actor will be meant to play for the next 10years.

This right here. its about giving the respective franchises longevity. Hugh Jackman would unlikely to still be playing Wolverine had he been in his 40s when they casted him back in 1999 for example

[Gnostic]

You've picked actors who were meant to not return in any other movie (so passing of time in real life doesn't matter), secondary character or heavily CGIed (Ruffalo).
RDJ was picked for a character that wasn't young in his comics origins either. He's an unique case that won't repeat itself.
The issue is not that TODAY you have Pascal play Reed. The issue is that, theoretically, Pascal should play Reed for the next 10 years in the span of (say) three movies that will be in-universe set in the same year or in a range between 2 and 4 years. So, while we fans wouldn't care for a 40yrs old playing 20ish X-Men character, Marvel Studios would not want to get an >40 actor for a role (of a character meant to be in their 30s) that this actor will be meant to play for the next 10years.

The actors for Scott Lang, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange were the same age as RDJ when they made their debut, so it has been repeated.

MCU Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are also much older than their comic counterparts. So Marvel Studios doesn't necessarily care about how old a character was in their comic debut.

This right here. its about giving the respective franchises longevity. Hugh Jackman would unlikely to still be playing Wolverine had he been in his 40s when they casted him back in 1999 for example

Kevin Feige wanted to kill off all the original Avengers during Endgame after an 8-10 year run. So I don't think Marvel Studios wants to use the same X-Men characters for more than a decade.

[Grunty]

Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne suggest otherwise.

Thinking about the possibility of them going that route.

While using the old actors to play "legacy" incarnations of their FoX-Men versions of characters to introduce a new group of yet unused major characters for the MCU X-men could be an interesting idea, the caveat to consider is how much the FoX-men movies allready burned through a lot of major names, twice in some cases and messed up their ages through appearing in the First Class timeline aswell.

So there would be a major headache from having to find characters which had not been used up too much yet, but also has enough roots in the comics to feel valid as alternatives and have not yet appeared as characters in the movies.

Though on the flipside the X-men to have plenty of satelite characters yet untouched.

Look at how many times the original 60's Lee/Dikto and Lee/Romita Spider-Man runs have been adapted in one form or the other? Or the Lee/Romita Fantastic Four run? And contrast that with the X-men, where its mainly the Claremont era that serves as inspiration.

The X-men's success arguably really only started with the much more colorfull All New All Different incarnation followed by Claremonts take on them, which also introduced the majority of popular characters that helped form their popular image.

Something which hasn't been that uncommon in the comics.

While Jean and Cyclops are essentialy "must haves" on the team in some form or another and Beast and Icemen are popular enough that their complete absence would be missed, the 05 as main team just don't seem to draw people's interest and while the comics have to acknowledge them as the starting point (stories like First X-men or similar retcons be damned).

I think X-Men 97 may be their attempt at this blueprint via a cheaper option.Definitely because that story is not contemporaneous to the films it feels less of a buildup, but it may give them.a feel for the 'pulse' of the audience, character or storyline reception. Amid the current floundering and missteps they'll have more riding on an animation than they realise. Then again who knows if Marvel can pull off the Xmen at this point.

Animation seems to have been something they frequently neglect or underestimate when it comes to getting more out of their characters beyond the movies or testing the water for characters (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur was a positive suprise in this regard).

As for getting the X-men right, it feels like a coin toss at this point, which is not a good situation.

[Havok83]

The actors for Black Panther and Doctor Strange were the same age as RDJ when they made their debut, so it has been repeated.

MCU Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are also much older than their comic counterparts. So Marvel Studios doesn't necessarily care about how old a character was in their comic debut.



Kevin Feige wanted to kill off all the original Avengers during Endgame after an 8-10 year run. So it doesn't seem like Marvel Studios wants to use the same X-Men characters for more than a decade.

To be fair Hank and Janet were not brought on to be superheroes in the MCU. They passed on the Antman and Wasp mantle to much younger characters

Yet he didnt kill off all the original Avengers and many of them are still being used. Anyways the MCU is a mess right now so I wouldnt take quotes from a years ago to inform how they proceed going forward. They are gonna have to approach the X-films differently

[Hakka84]

The actors for Scott Lang, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange were the same age as RDJ when they made their debut, so it has been repeated.

All characters that aren't young when they first get their powers. If they could, I think they would've picked a 20yrs-old for Panther or Antman too. IMHO.

Nevertheless, I can see Marvel opting for younger actors because they're more chance to find non-famous actors, so they can exploit them with a pluri-movie contract that ties the actors to more projects and low pay with few raises/a small percentage of raise if the movie does good.

Agree to disagree on the theme.
Not that I care about it or the choice to go for "older" would influence on my being interested or not in the franchise. Actually, I would freak out if they considered my fancastings for the Braddocks twins despite both of them being born in 1983 so hitting 40ys this year. As long as they pick actors that agree to the physical appearance of the character, and there's consistency with the age you want the character to appear (if you pick a 50s actor you don't pretend the character is in his 20s - if you keep Hank McCoy's FOX actor, you don't place him in a First Class-O5 movie with, say, 20yrs-old Jean and pretend they're around the same age), I'm fine.

Edit: what I think that makes the X-Men trickier is that the powers are supposed to come when you hit puberty, so hands are more tied than, say, Avengers-related characters, who can get their powers at the age you(author) want them to. So, you can have RDJ in an Iron Man origins movie. But you can't pick, say, Brad Pitt in an O5 origins movie for Warren.

[Gnostic]

Thinking about the possibility of them going that route.

While using the old actors to play "legacy" incarnations of their FoX-Men versions of characters to introduce a new group of yet unused major characters for the MCU X-men could be an interesting idea, the caveat to consider is how much the FoX-men movies allready burned through a lot of major names, twice in some cases and messed up their ages through appearing in the First Class timeline aswell.

So there would be a major headache from having to find characters which had not been used up too much yet, but also has enough roots in the comics to feel valid as alternatives and have not yet appeared as characters in the movies.

Though on the flipside the X-men to have plenty of satelite characters yet untouched.



The X-men's success arguably really only started with the much more colorfull All New All Different incarnation followed by Claremonts take on them, which also introduced the majority of popular characters that helped form their popular image.

Something which hasn't been that uncommon in the comics.

While Jean and Cyclops are essentialy "must haves" on the team in some form or another and Beast and Icemen are popular enough that their complete absence would be missed, the 05 as main team just don't seem to draw people's interest and while the comics have to acknowledge them as the starting point (stories like First X-men or similar retcons be damned).



Animation seems to have been something they frequently neglect or underestimate when it comes to getting more out of their characters beyond the movies or testing the water for characters (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur was a positive suprise in this regard).

As for getting the X-men right, it feels like a coin toss at this point, which is not a good situation.

That seems to be Marvel's thing lately with them setting up a new generation of Avengers. Characters like Laura (X-23/Wolverine) and Hope Summers have already been introduced recently. I can see Marvel wanting to use them in the near future, since Ryan Reynolds teased that X-Force was still on.

To be fair Hank and Janet were not brought on to be superheroes in the MCU. They passed on the Antman and Wasp mantle to much younger characters

Yet he didnt kill off all the original Avengers and many of them are still being used. Anyways the MCU is a mess right now so I wouldnt take quotes from a years ago to inform how they proceed going forward. They are gonna have to approach the X-films differently

Wouldn't be surprised if something similar was done with the X-Men in this saga.

Hulk and Thor are the only active OG Avengers left. The rest of them are either dead or retired. Mark Ruffalo suggested that he's done with the Hulk role after Secret Wars. Thor is likely to retire soon too after the inevitable reunion with Loki.

All characters that aren't young when they first get their powers. If they could, I think they would've picked a 20yrs-old for Panther or Antman too. IMHO.

Nevertheless, I can see Marvel opting for younger actors because they're more chance to find non-famous actors, so they can exploit them with a pluri-movie contract that ties the actors to more projects and low pay with few raises/a small percentage of raise if the movie does good.

Agree to disagree on the theme.
Not that I care about it or the choice to go for "older" would influence on my being interested or not in the franchise. Actually, I would freak out if they considered my fancastings for the Braddocks twins despite both of them being born in 1983 so hitting 40ys this year. As long as they pick actors that agree to the physical appearance of the character, and there's consistency with the age you want the character to appear (if you pick a 50s actor you don't pretend the character is in his 20s - if you keep Hank McCoy's FOX actor, you don't place him in a First Class-O5 movie with, say, 20yrs-old Jean and pretend they're around the same age), I'm fine.

Kevin Feige said that they are done locking actors to contracts and will not force them to return.