January Meme: Hopes and fears re: the X-Men getting integrated into the MCU
To be frank, I’m not keen on them being integrated all. For a variety of reasons.
Now, if the X-Men hadn’t been split from the MCU from the get go due to earlier deals, this would be different for. I like some of the cross connections in the comics, i.e. Jean Grey having been instrumental in Jessica Jones‘ recovery from Killgrave, for example, and the lengths both movies and tv shows had to go through in order to avoid the word „mutant“ along as there was no Disney/Fox deal was ridiculous.
Then again: sometimes it worked out well thematically. Since the MCU Maximoff twins could not be Magneto’s kids, the MCU had to provide another explanation for their powers, and Steve identifying with them, making that connection about volunteering for being experimented on by German scientists, was one of my favourite scenes of his in Age of Ultron. (It’s also what made me believe he’d recruit Wanda later. Now, the fact the MCU thereafter treated Wanda as a blameless waif with no blood on her hands until the not intended by her deaths from the opening of Civil War, instead of someone who had been a voluntary Hydra experiment/member and who had at the very least the responsibility for any deaths and injuries caused by her releasing the Hulk in Johannesburg, which hadn’t been Ultron’s orders but her choice - that’s another matter.) (This is why I’m into fanfiction in which Wanda talks with either Tony or Natasha about the blood in both their ledgers respectively.) (Otoh I avoid stories which go into the other extreme of making Wanda an evil madwoman, usually in order to woobify Tony. Do not want, and I’m speaking as a fan.)
Back to the Maximoffs: X-Men movies have the superior Quicksilver, imo as always. In fact, this take on Pietro/Peter might be my overall favourite in any medium, and if in an intended integration of the movieverse X-Men with the MCU, he were to be for the axe, I’d hate that. And yet I cannot see how MCU Wanda Maximoff and her dead brother can co-exist with X-Men Movieverse Peter Maximoff who may or may not have a female twin in addition to the younger sister we see him with in the same ´verse. One of them would have to go, and this makes me fear for the one who wasn’t until recently owned by the Mouse.
Another issue, which
andraste recently mentioned in a comment: the Maximoffs aren’t the only characters which in the comics go back and forth between X-Men and Avengers comics (and teams), and the way this happens always brings up a premise problem. When Hank McCoy/Beast in the comics is a part of the Avengers, he’s a popular member in a popular team. When he’s an X-Men, he’s part of a team which, to quote the famous tagline „defends a world which hates and fears them“. Now, mutants being treated as tolerated outsiders at best and far more often persecuted and discriminated against is so much part of the central X-Men premise that I don’t see how they’ll ever give it up, in any depiction. And you can fanwank that superheroes who weren’t born with special abilities but aquired them artificially are easier for the general population to accept. But since any line up of the Avengers usually includes a mutant or two, that doesn’t really work.
So, if, like the comics, the MCU and the X-Men movies take place in the same universe again, you’re not just left with the usual problems even within the MCU logic - aka a Watsonian explanation for „why doesn’t superhero X faced with problem Y ask superhero Z for assistance? - , but with additional ones like: why would the public see a difference between Spider-man (identity unknown, and thus also whether or not he’s a mutant), Thor (alien with superpowers, extremely popular on earth, all the more so for not having been involved in Civil War), and whichever X-Men will be around in future movies? Yes, prejudice is irrational, and the popularity of the Avengers in general took a dive post-Ultron and even more of one through and after Civil War, but Homecoming is set post Civil War and there the Avengers and superheroes in general are still treated as pop culture heroes by most of the characters. How that should square with a society where two thirds are wary or all „ew, mutants!“ is beyond me, even if the movies unlike the comics avoid letting characters like Beast swap teams now and then.
In conclusion: my hope is the X-Men movieverse continues to be treated as separate from the MCU, though the MCU is welcome to call mutants mutants now instead of „people with enhanced abilities“. My fear is that this won’t happen, and the result will be a mess.
…then again: what do I know? I also thought we really didn’t need another version of Spider-man (Peter Parker edition), and certainly not in the MCU, and changed my mind about this as soon as Tom Holland! Peter had his first scene in Civil War, loving him like no screen Spidey before him. So maybe TPTB will pleasantly surprise me again.
The other days
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1322361.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Now, if the X-Men hadn’t been split from the MCU from the get go due to earlier deals, this would be different for. I like some of the cross connections in the comics, i.e. Jean Grey having been instrumental in Jessica Jones‘ recovery from Killgrave, for example, and the lengths both movies and tv shows had to go through in order to avoid the word „mutant“ along as there was no Disney/Fox deal was ridiculous.
Then again: sometimes it worked out well thematically. Since the MCU Maximoff twins could not be Magneto’s kids, the MCU had to provide another explanation for their powers, and Steve identifying with them, making that connection about volunteering for being experimented on by German scientists, was one of my favourite scenes of his in Age of Ultron. (It’s also what made me believe he’d recruit Wanda later. Now, the fact the MCU thereafter treated Wanda as a blameless waif with no blood on her hands until the not intended by her deaths from the opening of Civil War, instead of someone who had been a voluntary Hydra experiment/member and who had at the very least the responsibility for any deaths and injuries caused by her releasing the Hulk in Johannesburg, which hadn’t been Ultron’s orders but her choice - that’s another matter.) (This is why I’m into fanfiction in which Wanda talks with either Tony or Natasha about the blood in both their ledgers respectively.) (Otoh I avoid stories which go into the other extreme of making Wanda an evil madwoman, usually in order to woobify Tony. Do not want, and I’m speaking as a fan.)
Back to the Maximoffs: X-Men movies have the superior Quicksilver, imo as always. In fact, this take on Pietro/Peter might be my overall favourite in any medium, and if in an intended integration of the movieverse X-Men with the MCU, he were to be for the axe, I’d hate that. And yet I cannot see how MCU Wanda Maximoff and her dead brother can co-exist with X-Men Movieverse Peter Maximoff who may or may not have a female twin in addition to the younger sister we see him with in the same ´verse. One of them would have to go, and this makes me fear for the one who wasn’t until recently owned by the Mouse.
Another issue, which
andraste recently mentioned in a comment: the Maximoffs aren’t the only characters which in the comics go back and forth between X-Men and Avengers comics (and teams), and the way this happens always brings up a premise problem. When Hank McCoy/Beast in the comics is a part of the Avengers, he’s a popular member in a popular team. When he’s an X-Men, he’s part of a team which, to quote the famous tagline „defends a world which hates and fears them“. Now, mutants being treated as tolerated outsiders at best and far more often persecuted and discriminated against is so much part of the central X-Men premise that I don’t see how they’ll ever give it up, in any depiction. And you can fanwank that superheroes who weren’t born with special abilities but aquired them artificially are easier for the general population to accept. But since any line up of the Avengers usually includes a mutant or two, that doesn’t really work.
So, if, like the comics, the MCU and the X-Men movies take place in the same universe again, you’re not just left with the usual problems even within the MCU logic - aka a Watsonian explanation for „why doesn’t superhero X faced with problem Y ask superhero Z for assistance? - , but with additional ones like: why would the public see a difference between Spider-man (identity unknown, and thus also whether or not he’s a mutant), Thor (alien with superpowers, extremely popular on earth, all the more so for not having been involved in Civil War), and whichever X-Men will be around in future movies? Yes, prejudice is irrational, and the popularity of the Avengers in general took a dive post-Ultron and even more of one through and after Civil War, but Homecoming is set post Civil War and there the Avengers and superheroes in general are still treated as pop culture heroes by most of the characters. How that should square with a society where two thirds are wary or all „ew, mutants!“ is beyond me, even if the movies unlike the comics avoid letting characters like Beast swap teams now and then.
In conclusion: my hope is the X-Men movieverse continues to be treated as separate from the MCU, though the MCU is welcome to call mutants mutants now instead of „people with enhanced abilities“. My fear is that this won’t happen, and the result will be a mess.
…then again: what do I know? I also thought we really didn’t need another version of Spider-man (Peter Parker edition), and certainly not in the MCU, and changed my mind about this as soon as Tom Holland! Peter had his first scene in Civil War, loving him like no screen Spidey before him. So maybe TPTB will pleasantly surprise me again.
The other days
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1322361.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.