How To Introduce The X-Men Into The MCU
The problem i have with trying to configure how the X-Men could be introduced into the MCU given what we know has and will happen. We know they are not scheduled to appear for some time and that the movie is being titled The Mutants. I have my views on that but i want to focus on how i feel they can be introduced.
Now with my Fantastic Four analysis in the previous post i identified that the Deviants that the character of Moleman sort of controls would make him a great villian to go against the fantastic four in the first movie appearance. Because it fits perfectly into the narrative of the Eternals and Deviants inclusion into the world. But with the X-Men despite having several characters appearing previously like Scarlett Witch. The path of introduing The X-Men is a little harder. So i am going to point out several factors that was missing in the Fox run of movies that i think should be a factor going forward and then how i percieve they should be included in the future mcu film series.
The Fox movies in my oppinion sit somewhere between underwelmed and overkill and i think the reason for that imbalance was the scale of which Bryan Singer and Simon Kingberg couldnt quite agree on. What we wanted was something in the middle however what we got was a drama centric storyline of idology in a very limited narrow perspective.
What i mean by this is that the X-Men franchise in the comics explores the ethics and idology in multiple forms. In the X-Men films they only explored 4. These was The Views of feared humans, the views of charles xavier where humans and mutants can live together, the views of Magneto with mutants being supieror and finally the views of the younger x-men who are looking for guidance. Which are great view points to visit but the truth of the world is vastly bigger and thus i feel the Fox era of X-Men films had only this narrow view point.
Now you cant include everything into 1 film but you need to build a reality where multiple choice is present. The best way to do this is the 616 method, what i mean by the 616 method is, imagine your the 1 in the middle to the left is 6 options and to the right is 6 options what seperates these are the main cause, Mutants and Humans. Lets look at each of the 6 viewpoints each have.
Humans
- Curiosity – This is like the polar opposite of fear and intolerance, usually surrouned by science but can have both a positive and negative impact. For example Moria McTaggart helps mutants to understand mutant abilities, where as Nathaniel Essex aka Mr Sinister who isnt a mutant but caused himself to mutate. used science for his own gain for curiosity.
- Fear – we are familiar with this concept as it was used in the fox movies with the likes of senator kelly and stryker, trask and sentinals
- Peace/Love – co-existance between the two species. teaching tolerance towards indifference. These are usually human characters that support the mutants against adversity. in the x-men comics its kind of rare to see. but their are characters that exist that wants a happy co-existance.
- Political – This is where mutants are seen as a property or an asset for human use. Usually in wars. anything from Weapon-X programe to alpha flight, even the avengers to some degree is to help save the humans from threats.
- misunderstanding – this isnt the same as fear, this is more down to smaller communities being taught incorrectly – think what if a mutant was used for the purpose of entertainment because the humans dont view mutants as sentient beings because they are not human. Mojo for example despite being an alien uses mutants for entertainment. Now although mojo is from another planet, this idology does exist in the earth bound world of the x-men too. With the likes of Arcade a character that literally messed with the x-men for fun.
- Supporters – different from co-exisiting peace/love – as a supporter could be for personal gain or just a huge fan. look at Doctor Doom for example he supports the use of certain characters for his own personal gain.
So thats the human view points then you look at the mutants.
Mutants
- Co-Existance – This is the otherside of the peace/love views the humans has but had by mutants. The difference is the cause being more important to mutants because of living in a human world. This is where we get Professor Charles Xaviers standpoint.
- Superiority – This is where mutants are considered superior race and humans should bow towards them – this is Magnetos view point.
- Tyranical Rulership – I tried to figure if Apocalypse wanted to rule all the mutants. all the humansn or just everything on the planet. in any of these aspects its a desire to rule because your ability is hardly ever unmatched.
- Fear – some mutants just dont want to be mutants or will go to great lengths of change to become human – look at rogue in the x-men films. her power wasnt overly great to her and thus wanting to change s a heavy subject.
- Primal – This is an interesting one. what happens when a mutant ability makes you tap into more primal instincts – humans are all set at a certain point but because mutation is a spectrum although it can go forwards it can also go backwards. If we look at the likes of Wolverine and Sabretooth for example. They have that rage that primal instinct to fight, humans have that too but humans are logical, try telling a tiger not to eat a human wouldnt understand you it would go on primal desire to feed and hunt. so you have mutants that have this active as part of their mutation.
- For Profit – for this it kind of jump a little bit into no.2 on the list but instead of fighting for supermancy over dominant species – it is simply a financial gain advantage. They like the world and everything it has to offer and if their mutant ability provides an easy access to this life then they would use it. Thats alot like views of the hellfire club with Emma Frost or even a mercenary group of mutants that work for hire like The Maurders for example.
so now that we have explored the 12 view points hopefully you will see how under developed the Fox X-Men movie really was. Limited view points to a vastly big universe. But the thing is you could include all of this into a single movie if you know how to configure it into the proper story narrative.
This brings me to the X-Men into the MCU universe.
before i get their and tell you how i would write them into this. i want to shift focus on Tony Stark.
Out of all the Avengers he is the keystone to how it works, without Ironman we wouldnt of had any of this, But now he is gone you would think his involvement is over, no… if you look at what they have released post endgame it has been void filling. all pointing to Stark. 1. Spiderman Far From Home – the whole story was about replacing tony stark, from the perspective of Spiderman and Mysterio. 2. WandaVision – Wanda fell in love with a machine that tony stark helped build gave it his Jarvis. 3. Falcon winter soldier – This one is harder to spot because its very much a Captain America void but this is where War Machine keeping the dream alive comes in to Starks involvement. although only a cameo it shows how Ironman trusted his friend to oversee things in his passing. and finally Loki – how can loki have an Ironman connection – Well Loki is truely its unique glorius purpose. apart from the old stark building being bought by qong (mr gryphon) aka Kang The conquerer – Kang in and of himself is in my oppinion more connected with stark than you realise. But this is because i feel that Stark and Reed will have a connection in the film.
This brings me to The Illuminati. In one of the pervious films stark showed the icon on his phone had a illuminati logo – which could and should be revisited. The Illuminati is key to how i feel the x-men should be brought into the marvel cinematic universe and ill explain why. The members of the illumanti in the comics core members which involved Ironman also had if memory serves me – Black Panther, Namor, Mr Fantastic, Dr.Strange, Blackbolt and Professor X. Now i was trying to figure if you was to introduce the Illuminati under the premise that Stark knew about them before endgame. Who would they be and why?
I figured the purpose of the Illuminati in the MCU would be because Tony Stark doesnt trust the government or shield and with good reason considering the events of what has happened in all the films. So if he doesnt trust the people he works with or for who would he trust. This then creates the notion of the Illuminati. i came up with a solution to identify the members, which would be that they would need to be people Tony Stark trusts but not necessarily in plain sight. Smart individuals that have been in the MCU but not seen on screen or even named. Infact i would even go to say that the Illumianti was probably present after the thanos snap.
Im discounting Blackbolt, Namor, Blackpanther and Dr.Strange from the pre-existing list mostly because these big name characters either didnt exist before or only existed briefly within the small context of time between infinity war and endgame. Like Dr.Strange hasnt met Tony until the begining of Infinity War so that discounts Dr.Strange.
This leaves us with Mr.Fantastic and Professor X.
Reason for not incuding characters like Namor is thats a whole big story waiting to be told and having him an illumanit member pre-infinity war then you would question where was he during the battle. so yeah its gotta be characters that work in the background.
But this about X-Men so i will shelve Mr.Fantastic for now and focus on Professor X
Tony Stark – Avenger, part of the avengers team – closely monitored and governed by the government and shield to which he doesnt trust. Under that premise wouldnt Tony want his own team, one he can trust, one he can count on as a backup. Their for The Illuminati and Professor X’s job would of been that. and further more that team is the X-Men. With Tony gone the power probably would revert back to Professor X.
Get this, The avengers currently are kind of shattered, we have a new captain ameria but we dont seem to have a team. but they are making a Thunderbolts inspired team with US Agent and now what lookes like Black Widows sister, possibly white vision who knows yet.
As they follow alot of the big story archs in marvel comics one of the biggest is the avengers vs the x-men of recent years. And although i dont think we will get this i do think we will get the x-mens introduction into stopping the Thunderbolts.
Cool right.
X-Men are the creation of The Illuminati mostly Tony Stark and Professor X as a fail safe. But in the wake of starks death the x-men become something much bigger.
So now that i have given you this, what if i blew your mind and said what if the x-men were already in the MCU. This is a theory, based on looking at cameos of actors/actresses. for this i talk about the Community tv series core cast cameos in the MCU
so given that, this is my thoughts on the casting of the X-Men
Cast
Danny Pudi – Nightcrawler – in the MCU Danny Pudi appeared in the avengers triskillon and is the guy that opens the door to Captain America to let him in. But lets go back a second, Sheild was overrun by Hydra a German group. Nightcrawler is a german in marvel comics, Nightcrawler other than his teleportation ability had technology given to him so that he could look human. Looking at Danny Pudi he doesnt have a Nightcrawler feel to him. Plus having him being used by Hydra given he was german (The character) that would bring him to this world hidden right in front of us. So he would be my pick to introduce him, as Danny Pudi’s character doesnt seem to be hurt of beat up by the end of the movie maybe they discovered he helped infiltrate the shield building so Stark and professor X recruits him into the X-Men.
Yvette Nicole Brown – Storms mother – in the MCU she appeared in the 70’s as a Sheild worker. now Storms appearance in the comics was around the 70’s, but i feel that Yvette would be a little too old to play Storm in the timeline now especially if she was in the 70’s she would be an old woman in the present marvel timeline. So making her Storms mother would work really well and could give a new energy to the storm character as she has always been protrayed as the orphen in egypt. I say lets skip past that and have her part of a family unit especially one that is closely connected to shield. Remember Yvette’s character has seen tony stark in the past and probably recognises him in the future as the guy that went back in time but not knowing that is what it was. so She knows and would of probably had close ties to Tony or even howard stark. Infact i think it would be cool that Storm and her ability is the reason Stark was able to build the arc reactor. Now that would be an idea.
Ken Jeong – Morph – I think this actor is amazing, comedic presence means you can have alot of fun with this character. I feel he could play Morph – an obscure x-men character but think about this, Morph played a big art in the x-men animated series, he was the first mutant lost by the team. in the comics he found out he was dying but use his shape shifting abilities to take a bullet for prefessor X. however when you look at the character of Morph in the comic book series The Exiles – he has a more comedic feel – and also the Exiles travel alternate realities through the nexus so again has alot of connectio to the marvel universe currently.
Jim Rash – Professor X – you cant replace Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy was your best you could of done so why not take a different approach to Charles Xavier – Jim appears in Captain America Civil War as the M.I.T Liason asking stark for donations. Given M.I.T is a teaching environment working with stark for donations. He is Charles Xavier. This small cameo maybe one of the biggest ways you could introduce the creation of the illuminati and The X-MEN. But let me point something else out, very soon after that scene Jim Rash appears in Tony meets that woman that shows a picture of her son who died because of the avengers. This spurs on the whole Cival War movie. but as i said Tony doesnt trust government or shield so its at this point he has to put his ironman as the face of the government which he is against. so it would make sense that at that moment he would need another team. Even walking back to the M.I.T Liason whom could be Professor X and takes more of an interest. Thus the Illuminati formaton and the x-men.
Now there are more Community connections hell Brie Larson was Danny Pudi’s girlfriend in community and she went on to be Captain Marvel. but its not realtive to the formation of the x-men so im just going to skip right towards who i think should make up the rest of the cast.
Recap
i already have Professor X, Nightcrawler, the mother of storm and Morph. for the rest of the x-men you would only just have to go back to community to see it.
Jeff Winger aka Joel McHale the lead role of community could be your wolverine.
Gillian Jacobs could be your Jean Grey
Alison Brie could be your Rogue.
i have two more characters i think should be in the mix, Gambit and Cyclops for that i would cast James Franco and his brother Dave Franco
Not that Gambit and Cyclops is realted, been a long time since ive ready the comics and i swear i read somewhere that Gambit was a secret summers brother but ultimately Dave Franco is the realife partner of Alison Brief so having him as Gambit and her as rogue would have great chemistry.
Finally now you know all the elements in play i will give you my X-Men plot including the villians and story.
Plot.
Tony Stark forms the Illuminati to form a support team of heros to act as a back up – with the help of Professor X – the X-Men are formed, consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler and Morph. As the Thunderbolts take over control in an oppessive manor and the avengers are lacking numbers the X-Men step in to take down the corrupt thunderbolts. Their first mission to a compound for the Thunderbolts ultimate weapon “The Sentinals” however Professor X is seemingly killed in the processes and the X-Men are on the run. unable to communicate with each other.
Jean Grey, Cyclops, storm and Wolverine who manage to stick together are rescued by Magneto an old friend of Professor X, Magneto explains that he has been forming his own resistance group “The Brotherhood” to fight against the sentinal programe. However all of his followers that have gone on missions to the facility as been captured. Jean learns that Nightcrawler, Gambit, Rogue are captured their and agree to team up with magneto to rescue the mutants. Whilst their they fight against the smaller Nimrod sentinals controlled by Bastion, Trask right hand man. However Bastion betrays trask in building mastermold. – The X-Men with Magneto rescue the captured mutants and reuinites for a common cause.
Mastermold proves to powerful and thus the team are rescued by Xavier who appears to be alive and using some kind of onslaught inspired psychic armour. He was able to survive because Morph pretended to be Xavier which xavier manipulated him in doing so. seeing this revelation Magneto realises how powerful a threat his fried professor x can become and thus differs in views. the mutants are split devided by Professor X and Magnetos views
The film is relatively a short outing. but the reason for this is because we dont know how the MCU will include the universe so all ive done is provided a short narrative story that could introduce alot of x-men characters and begin a new much bigger MCU universe.
the sequels will be much bigger in terms of story and avoids putting too much on an x-men origin with a new origin but one that is a key to everything and not just the x-men.
planetnerdy 