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So the big Fox merger means that legally it’s possible to put mutants into the MCU. But I actually don’t think you could easily adapt them and have the story make sense for a few reasons:

- The hatred of mutants doesn’t make sense in a world populated by other superheroes. How is Spider-Man beloved and yet the idea of mutants results in hysterical panic and racism. This is a major theme of the X Men. This might fly in a comic but it won’t make sense in a shared cinematic universe. If they hate mutants why don’t they hate other superheroes. Magneto needs to have a genuine reason to worry about the future of mutants.

- For the same reason a Hulk movie wouldn’t work in the MCU, it’s been pretty established that Shield was the government organisation. Would Shield really be party to something like the Weapon X project or building Sentinels to kill mutants? Why wouldn’t Shield have oversight over the mutant problem? How will there still be anti mutant sentiment after they side with the Avengers and save the Universe?

- The X Men films, generally, lean much more into our heroes fighting against the government whereas the Avengers have, mostly, worked with it. Why would the Avengers be okay with mutants being attacked or killed? These aren’t fights with Hydra or a little bit of fudging the rules; a large part of the society wants Mutants dead.

- How has nobody noticed mutants being around? Shield was actively looking for these individuals and if they keep Magnetos or Wolverines origin theme mutants have been a thing for a while.



As an aside, I do think it’s a real shame that they probably won’t do a Dark Phoenix storyline on account of the upcoming film since I do think they would do the cosmic segment of that comic. I mean Captain Marvel blows up a ship by flying through it, Jean blows up a sun....

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So the big Fox merger means that legally it’s possible to put mutants into the MCU. But I actually don’t think you could easily adapt them and have the story make sense for a few reasons:

- The hatred of mutants doesn’t make sense in a world populated by other superheroes. How is Spider-Man beloved and yet the idea of mutants results in hysterical panic and racism. This is a major theme of the X Men. This might fly in a comic but it won’t make sense in a shared cinematic universe. If they hate mutants why don’t they hate other superheroes. Magneto needs to have a genuine reason to worry about the future of mutants.

- For the same reason a Hulk movie wouldn’t work in the MCU, it’s been pretty established that Shield was the government organisation. Would Shield really be party to something like the Weapon X project or building Sentinels to kill mutants? Why wouldn’t Shield have oversight over the mutant problem? How will there still be anti mutant sentiment after they side with the Avengers and save the Universe?

- The X Men films, generally, lean much more into our heroes fighting against the government whereas the Avengers have, mostly, worked with it. Why would the Avengers be okay with mutants being attacked or killed? These aren’t fights with Hydra or a little bit of fudging the rules; a large part of the society wants Mutants dead.

- How has nobody noticed mutants being around? Shield was actively looking for these individuals and if they keep Magnetos or Wolverines origin theme mutants have been a thing for a while.



As an aside, I do think it’s a real shame that they probably won’t do a Dark Phoenix storyline on account of the upcoming film since I do think they would do the cosmic segment of that comic. I mean Captain Marvel blows up a ship by flying through it, Jean blows up a sun....

I could see them incorporating mutants as being a much more prevalent problem after resolving the Thanos Snap, where the returning population of humanity coincides with a sudden upsurge in visible mutants, whereas compared to before they were an outlier that didn't stick out too much, making it a more clear issue to the public eye. Also, consider the fact that not all mutant powers are easily controllable and are sometimes easily abusable, meaning there might be cries for government intervention once people begin manifesting more dangerous mutant abilities in public.

Iron Man vs. Magneto...crunch

Fwiw most of these issues exist and are generally glossed over in the comics as well.

I mean they could retcon Scarlet Witch into being a mutant. The infinity stone having awoken/accelerated her dormant mutant genes.

Maybe we can get Rogue and then she'll get rid of Captain Marvel.

Aren't the Sokovia Accords a direct parallel to the Mutant Registration Act? Scarlet Witch is a mutant, and has been happily interacting with the Avengers for some time.

Our government loves checks and balances. It's why we have the FBI and CIA, both of which have clear areas they can't operate. Weapon X could as easily be an Army research project. SHIELD might not have need to know, or may have been lied to about its purpose.Think instead about the disasters and infiltrations that SHIELD has missed- not the areas they are supposed to protect against.

Stuff can change. The MCU doesn't closely follow the comics. It tends to adopt a comics-accurate veneer, but then does what it needs to in order to tell its story. Some characters and groups are very different.

For instance, traditionally the Avengers weren't been a militarized, government-organized group. That was a Ultimate Avengers thing, but in the main continuity they were an independent group that sometimes ended up at odds with the government (hello agent Gyrich).

I'm sure the MCU can figure it out.

...and Mutants can start showing up 'now' instead of always being around.

Start 'now' in the MCU and just go from there.

And streamline their story even MORE then Fox did.

Or just keep them in an alternate universe, which is almost what Marvel does with the comics anyway.

People can still occasionally visit too, ala 'Into the Spiderverse".

 Alpharius wrote:
...and Mutants can start showing up 'now' instead of always being around.

Start 'now' in the MCU and just go from there.

And streamline their story even MORE then Fox did.

Or just keep them in an alternate universe, which is almost what Marvel does with the comics anyway.

People can still occasionally visit too, ala 'Into the Spiderverse".

That would work for the Fantastic 4, but you’d start running into problems if mutants only become a thing in the present. For example, Magnetos whole deal is that he lived through the holocaust and that’s why he’s so convinced that humans would kill mutants. Similarly, Wolverine has lived for centuries. The whole premise of the School is that people who grew up and mastered their powers teach the younger generation. Those things couldn’t work if Thanos snap made mutants start appearing.

An alternate universe would create a lot of plotholes. How has the existence of mutants not changed the plot of films like Captain America.

Exalted because I agree wholeheartedly. X-Men, even in the comics, function best on their own. Marvel has a large enough gallery of heroes to pull from without mixing the two groups together.
Some general issues.

1) Wolverine/Magneto/Professor X/Apocalypse/etc backstories would make no sense as they are just some of a few mutants that existed prior to the 1950's.
2) How do you resolve Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch being mutants (and family) to Magneto in the comics, but not in the MCU?
3) The defining aspect of the X-Men is that they are outsiders. That's never made much sense in the comics and would face greater scrutiny on film.
4) Shoot me for it, but their powers range from lame to absurd when tied in comparison to the current MCU cast.

Out of the current MCU cast only Spider-man has a 'goofy' power set, but even that is somewhat toned down. He's super strong and durable, with the odd part being that he can climb walls. Thank god he doesn't actually shoot webbing from his wrists.

Hulk, Captain America, and the Winter Soldier are all products of the super soldier serum in some form. Iron Man, War Machine, Ant-man, Wasp, and Falcon have no powers, just really good tech. Wanda, Vision, and Captain Marvel gained their powers from Infinity Stones. It's important to point out that for those three their powers are fairly broad in scope. Dr. Strange and friends are wizards.
The rest either have no powers or aliens/half-aliens. You can pretty much group all powers loosely as energy manipulation, superhuman physique, or superhuman skills. Mantis is really the only exception with her emphatic abilities.

X-Men have very specific and thematic powers. Magneto can only manipulate metal. Havoc/Cyclops can only shoot laser beams (I'm not a fan of either character). Storm can only manipulate the elements. Professor X is only a telepath. Logan has freaking bone claws. The list goes on.

Now, it's not that one style of hero is necessarily better than the other that's the problem. Both groups are great and I still think Logan is the best Marvel film from either universe, but the two styles of heroes are at odds with one another. The combination of backstory issues, mutants from nowhere, amongst other things, makes me doubt that the two groups can be mixed together in a cohesive fashion in the MCU.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Aren't the Sokovia Accords a direct parallel to the Mutant Registration Act? .

They were certainly inspired by the MRA, but because of the lack of mutants in the MCU, the Sokovia Accords wound up being a much more specialised thing (forcing the Avengers to become a registered and controlled entity, rather than a worldwide register of people with powers) and Captain America's resistance to them made much less sense (as it turned the story into the dedicated and patriotic supersoldier yelling 'You can't tell me what to do!' at the government, instead of being Cap standing up for personal liberty on behalf of mutants everywhere).


My one (fairly major) gripe with Civil War... bloody fantastic movie, otherwise.

It depends how they do it.

So far as we know, canonically Superhero’s really started with Iron Man. At least in the MCU’s public eye.

If Mutants have been forced to live in secrecy, only to see similar powers and abilities praised? Would that not create resentment? Slight rejig so Magneto is peed at Charles ‘I told you there’d have accepted us’ and so on and so forth.

Or there’s a mere handful right now, but post-snap, something was triggered, bringing more and more mutants out. Given they were originally thought to be triggered en masse by nuclear explosions, that’s a fairly close, in-universe approximation.

Lots of ways it could be done.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

- The hatred of mutants doesn’t make sense in a world populated by other superheroes. How is Spider-Man beloved and yet the idea of mutants results in hysterical panic and racism. This is a major theme of the X Men. This might fly in a comic but it won’t make sense in a shared cinematic universe. If they hate mutants why don’t they hate other superheroes. Magneto needs to have a genuine reason to worry about the future of mutants.

To be fair, there's actually a story they could tell here with this as the basis. It's never really come up in the mainstream comics aside from a couple of lines in Avengers vs X-men, but in Marvels by Kurt Busiek/Alex Ross, they kind of hit the nail on the head. The point of Marvels is to show the development of a superheroic universe from the perspective of a regular Joe, and in the issue that covers the events of the 1960s, they do an amazing job of confronting the hatred of Mutants/love of heroes. The two big events in the issue are the emergence of the X-men and the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, so in the space of a couple of pages you have this:



and this:


That wonderful juxtaposition of the glorifcation of the FF/Avengers and the demonising of the Mutants conveys the hypocrisy so neatly, and if Marvel want to do something with the X-men that makes a slightly different point to what the Fox stuff has done, this could work as a premise.

You open on the X-men's first big battle. Colourful costumes, a new, plucky team of heroes stepping up to save the world just like the Avengers did in NY. They win, the day is saved, and for a short while, all is well. But as word spreads about this new team, as people ask where they came from and find out that it's not mad science or supersuits or alien tech, but freaks of human evolution... suddenly it all turns on its head, as the world that loves The Avengers comes to hate the X-men.

The Fox movies have pretty much covered every angle of the 'mutants as civil rights' approach and message that can be done in a vacuum. Should they show up in the MCU, they need to make the best of that by immediately putting them in a context we've not been able to see before now on film. Same as with Spidey, putting him in Civil War then putting Stark in Homecoming, it avoids retreading the ground we're all familiar with to tell a story only the MCU can.

Well.....we’ve got Eternals on the release slate already.

Whilst not something I’m particularly familiar with, I read that they’re far evolved humans. Reveal of their presence, and possibly some kind of whoopsie involving them could lead to the emergence of Mutantkind? Or at least a greater presence.

We also need to consider that Wanda and her brother are, in the comics, Magneto’s children. In the movies, they’re the result of Hydra tinkering with cosmic power.

Could it be they had records from the Holocaust, relating to Magneto? He could’ve been a mere curiosity at the time. A one-off. Or perhaps a quick retcon to make it Magneto’s grandfather (or great grand father), and they traced his descendents, assuming their genetic code to perhaps be more malleable?

Lots and lots of ways to take it, none of which require MCU retcon, just clarifications and ‘meanwhile’ type flashbacks.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
...and Mutants can start showing up 'now' instead of always being around.

Start 'now' in the MCU and just go from there.

And streamline their story even MORE then Fox did.

Or just keep them in an alternate universe, which is almost what Marvel does with the comics anyway.

People can still occasionally visit too, ala 'Into the Spiderverse".

That would work for the Fantastic 4, but you’d start running into problems if mutants only become a thing in the present. For example, Magnetos whole deal is that he lived through the holocaust and that’s why he’s so convinced that humans would kill mutants. Similarly, Wolverine has lived for centuries. The whole premise of the School is that people who grew up and mastered their powers teach the younger generation. Those things couldn’t work if Thanos snap made mutants start appearing.

An alternate universe would create a lot of plotholes. How has the existence of mutants not changed the plot of films like Captain America.

Largely because while a few existed, they were unknown on a global scale. That was a case with the comics as well. The small numbers that existed pre war didn't get involved, and the mutant population boom didn't happen until post war. (Barring some weird retcons much later that...weren't very good and didn't go far)

But with an altenate universe, all bets are off. That's rather the point. You can have captain America as Wolverine's side kick on a mission in Asia in which they fail to save a child Natasha Romanov from the Hand, so the black widow gets mystic martial arts training. The point of an alternate universe is to introduce new versions of the story so there aren't plot holes.


Now, it's nonsense I suspect they'd be better off not doing it for a lot of reasons, but the resolution of Endgame can set up a lot of nonsense. They're just better off restraining themselves than going full comics nonsense on their audience.

The unsnap will fix everything even if you have to pull a smidge of last thursdayism and in the fixed MCU mutants have always existed, even if a few remember different historys, go go timey wimey (although more Dr Who than Legion plix)

 Frazzled wrote:
Iron Man vs. Magneto...crunch

Have they ever been consistent about whether Magneto can control metals or magnetism? Because if it's the latter I highly doubt "Iron" Man has a scrap of Iron in his suit, and could probably easily avoid nickel or cobalt.

Edit: This was my 8888 post. yay me!

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Iron Man vs. Magneto...crunch

Have they ever been consistent about whether Magneto can control metals or magnetism? Because if it's the latter I highly doubt "Iron" Man has a scrap of Iron in his suit, and could probably easily avoid nickel or cobalt.

I don't know. He could just throw a train at him.

But with an altenate universe, all bets are off. That's rather the point. You can have captain America as Wolverine's side kick on a mission in Asia in which they fail to save a child Natasha Romanov from the Hand, so the black widow gets mystic martial arts training. The point of an alternate universe is to introduce new versions of the story so there aren't plot holes.

I remember that issue - that was cool.

I would agree that alt universe would be best - linked but not the same world. Isn't that a big DC thing as well? (it woud also keep Deadpol out of the MCU which i would be keen on as hate that character)

Or a really good fastball special with Wolverine. Tony’s suit isn’t made of adamantium.

I agree that Mutants cannot have existed in the MCU up to this point, at least not in any capacity that does justice to so many of the X-men characters and their backstories.

However, nothing stops the EXISITNG X-men continuity and actors from being "merged" with the MCU continuity through some Infinity Gaunlet/Multi-verse/Dr.Strange shenanigans.
Whatever happens in Endgame could lead to this kind of universe merger in which both sets of characters are now sharing the same universe.

It's the only way to get RDJ and Huge Jackman on screen together as their iconic characters for at least 1 brief adventure.

Slightly related: If the MCU introduces F4, I wouldn't mind seeing an Iron Man/Silver Surfer team-up. I'd bet they'd make good alloys.......

-

Well, there are and there aren't.

SHIELD simply refers to those with powers as 'empowered' - and assumes any such are a result of Terrigen exposure.

But +Twelfty internets for your pun!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, there are and there aren't.

SHIELD simply refers to those with powers as 'empowered' - and assumes any such are a result of Terrigen exposure.

But that is because they couldn't legally use the term "Mutant" until now. But Agents of Shield is kinda iffy on canon. I mean it is, but it doesn't really affect the movie canon.
If the 2 continuities merged, you could always say that those "empowered/enhanced" individuals were always Mutants that due to the 2 continuities being parallel and always "destined" to merge is why those individuals developed powers.

Actually...you could use this to retcon Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as Mutants. Say that they always had the potential in the MCU because in the parallel X-men universe they are Mutants. The Mind Stone brought out their powers because all the Infinity stones exist in both universes.
Just some thoughts

-

Coulson: You have an entire school of empowered individuals hidden here?
Xavier: we prefer to call ourselves mutants

Done

Or, keep the mutants as an exclusively other-universe thing, and then they have some additional "justification" for people hating mutants - they're a literal Other. "Our" heroes are all just gifted or tech-enhanced, but the muties get cast as invaders from elsewhere who will sully the supposed purity of humanity.

If the Civil Rights metaphor has been drained dry by the previous movie outings, use a different and modern form of marginalisation as the basis - the way some people react to immigrants.

 LunarSol wrote:
Coulson: You have an entire school of empowered individuals hidden here?
Xavier: we prefer to call ourselves mutants

Done

An entire school of Mutants that have not lifted a finger to help against previous villians? Where were they during the Battle of NY, Civil War or Age of Ultron?

There are 3 ways to address this:
A) The Mutants known as the X-men exist in a parallel universe that well will know about after Endgame
B) They DID actually help in those events, but Xavier has been keeping the existence of the X-men wiped out of everyone's minds
C) They haven't existed at all until now.

I personally prefer option A as it allows existing events to have happened in both continuities.
But option B is ok, it just negates the ability to incorporate all the X-men continuity thus far. Because where were the Avengers when Apocalypse attacked?
Option C is my least favorite, but might be the most likely

 Yodhrin wrote:
Or, keep the mutants as an exclusively other-universe thing, and then they have some additional "justification" for people hating mutants - they're a literal Other. "Our" heroes are all just gifted or tech-enhanced, but the muties get cast as invaders from elsewhere who will sully the supposed purity of humanity.

If the Civil Rights metaphor has been drained dry by the previous movie outings, use a different and modern form of marginalisation as the basis - the way some people react to immigrants.

That's not bad. Keeps it relevant

-

I think the consensus is as thus;

OP is right, that as things stand right now, just dropping the X-Men like a poop in a swimming pool is going to noticeably odd.

But, as demonstrated through friendly chit-chat, there are a number of non-cannon (MCU or Comics) breaking methods by which they can be introduced, all of which are plausible in their own way


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, bagsy it's Deadpool (who has a time travel device that's been thoroughly tinkered with) that breaks into the MCU Universe first.

Just casually punches a whole through reality. It's a very 'Pool thing to do.

Deadpool shows up, gives Thanos a noogie with the Infinity Gauntlet, gives a wedgie to “Underroos”, and a rochambeau to Ye Olde Sentinel of Liberty and the movie ends with three claws popping onto the screen and Deadpool fawning all over Hugh Jackman. Call it a wrap, the Mutants are here.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Deadpool shows up, gives Thanos a noogie with the Infinity Gauntlet, gives a wedgie to “Underroos”, and a rochambeau to Ye Olde Sentinel of Liberty and the movie ends with three claws popping onto the screen and Deadpool fawning all over Hugh Jackman. Call it a wrap, the Mutants are here.

I love it. Call it Deadpool 3- Canon Ball. And he's struggling between his duel roles of ushering the mutants over into the main world before their world is consumed by a giant Fox, and his innate impulses to prank people by hosting the Avengers at a debutante ball at the school for the gifted. He spends much of the movie shopping for or wearing sundresses and parasols, becoming increasingly more irate as they're destroyed.

Or he rocks up and irritates Hulk, who predictably pastes him (possibly literally?).

Wade regenerates, and decides to get his mates involved. Surely one of them can take down Hulk?