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How Will Marvel Incorporate the X-Men and the Fantastic Four?

March 30, 2019 | Posted by Steve Gustafson
Avengers X-Men Image Credit: Marvel Studios & 20th Century Fox

It’s a whole new world. Disney’s $71.3 billion acquisition of 20th Century Fox has created a new landscape now that Marvel now owns the rights to the characters from the X-Men, as well as the Fantastic Four.

The question on most people’s mind is how will Marvel inject the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the most successful and celebrated shared cinematic universes of all time?

Right now Deadpool looks to be the only property to maintain its Fox-created identity, understanding the sage wisdom of: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

The last two movies on the schedule for Fox are X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which hits theaters in June and New Mutants, which has a tentative date for August but rumors are swirling that if Disney doesn’t like what they see, they’ll pull it entirely.

Now let’s jump over to what’s on Marvel’s schedule. We have an Eternals project that Angelina Jolie is rumored to be in. We have a Black Widow solo movie along with a Black Panther sequel, a Doctor Strange sequel, and a Shang-Chi movie. And we can confidently predict Captain Marvel will be getting a sequel.

We also have a TV project that will feature Vision and Scarlet Witch and another one that will feature Falcon and Bucky,

Oh, and we can’t forget Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

All this is what we know and I’m sure we’ll have even more to discuss AFTER Avengers: Endgame.

Let’s take it back to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. How should they be added to the mix?

General audiences have an idea of who the X-Men are on the big screen. Will it be too soon to recast everyone and start fresh? How will they explain mutants and why are they just now appearing in the Marvel universe?

What about the Fantastic Four? Do people still have a bad taste in their mouth from the last movie?

This is the part where we get to do a little fan wish fulfillment. Marvel and Fox have both based movies on a specific time period. When looking to integrate all these properties, that’s the way to go. Magneto’s comic book origin is deeply tied to WWII. Will that hold up or will they try to keep the spirit of things but move it up a little so we have a younger Magneto to showcase?

Another angle is to use the mutants fear of being persecuted as a reason they’ve stayed hidden from society and it takes something massive, say Galactus, to force them out. The Fantastic Four is a little more easier but having them appear here and there before getting their own movie seems to be a good way to retrain the audience that the FF can be cool.

Along those lines, how awesome would it be to get a Johnny Storm appearance in a future Spider-Man movie? Set the stage for Parker and Storm becoming best friends while being superheroes.

Hopefully it will get us a worthy Doctor Doom as well. I would love for him to get a proper cameo in the Doctor Strange sequel.

Marvel has plenty of goodwill to spend so I’m not too concerned how they’ll do it. They certainly have lots of projects to juggle but until they start to really stumble, we can be sure the best days look to be ahead of us.