It’s going to be a big deal when mutants finally arrive in the MCU.
Many of the most popular comic-book characters in the world are among their numbers, and I’m hyped for MCU takes on Wolverine, Magneto, Storm, and Charles Xavier. But Marvel Studios is in no rush and has many existing characters and storylines to work with before cracking open this franchise. When the superhero team does finally arrive, however, there’s a good chance the X-Men might not be the X-Men.
Marvel Studios’ new President of Physical, Post Production, VFX, and Animation, Victoria Alonso, has hinted that internal thinking is that the name ‘X-Men’ isn’t sufficiently inclusive:
In an interview with Nuke the Fridge, she said:
“I don’t know where the future is going. It’s funny that people call it the X-Men, there’s a lot of female superheroes in that X-Men group, so I think it’s outdated.“
She’s right, but Disney will be keenly aware that the X-Men brand name is known around the world and carries a lot of weight. Conversely, it might be easy to drop as Fox X-Universe movies don’t actually use the phrase “X-Men” very often. Dark Phoenix even specifically called this out, with Mystique saying to Charles:
“By the way, the women are always saving the men around here. You might want to think about changing the name to X-Women.”
So what are the alternatives? If Marvel followed the same pattern as The Avengers, we could see solo movies establishing each key mutant before bringing them all together for a team-up. Perhaps that could simply be called ‘Mutants’, covering all MCU newcomers, both good and evil.
Then again, Alonso also teased that her future animation projects might see a full-on MCU musical so it seems silly to try and second-guess what they’re going to do:
“I’m especially thrilled about ramping up our studio’s animation efforts, which is a personal passion of mine. Look forward to more singing!…”
Marvel Studios’ animation department is off to a very strong start with What If..? so let’s hope future efforts match this quality. And, in the meantime, let’s start getting hyped for X-Men, no matter what the team is eventually called.
