If the X-Men make their way to the MCU, will they make a debut for Avengers 4? The trailer for Avengers: Infinity War has promised to feature an epic fight between Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Thanos, although this may not be the biggest piece of news about the MCU, with the Fox/Disney sale on the cards.
The trailer caught fire on social media and broke the record for the most viewed trailer in 24 hours. The trailer had featured non-SDCC-attending audiences’ first look at the superhero epic that is set to unite The Avengers and The Guardians of The Galaxy with Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man.
While the first glimpse of sights like Spider-Man’s new armored suit, The Infinity Gauntlet and a battle between the yet-unidentified four-armed alien soldiers, a detachment of Avengers and the Wakandan army in Africa were making news, an even bigger story involving the successful Disney subsidiary seems to be brewing in the background: the talks between Disney and 21st Century Fox to purchase the former’s troubled movie and television assets might have come back to life.
Reports alluding to as much circulated on social media before the Infinity War trailer dropped, and accounts dedicated to following the local filmmaking scene in the Atlanta, Georgia had shared cryptic Tweets about the fourth Avengers feature having changed the plot during its shooting. While not sourced to any news outlet, these reports are timed given that rumors of Avengers 4 plot changes have come around the same time as rumored re-acquisition of the Fox (and Sony)-owned Marvel characters.
Assuming that the 2 pieces of news are confirmed news and related to one another, the intriguing prospect for fans is pretty obvious: is the secrecy around the “final” Avengers ensemble of the MCU because plans are being hatched to incorporate reacquired characters from the Fox-owned X-Men and Fantastic Four properties?
While the ability to add Spider-Man to Captain America: Civil War to announce his presence to the universe happened late in the movie’s production, it had been planned as a possibility. Black Panther’s introduction in the movie came about as a re-write of the storyline.
And although an appearance from the Fantastic Four might be easy to stage from a narrative perspective, it is universally understood that the money crossover will be with the X-Men, and that is more difficult to conceive of: X-Men comprises of an ever-shifting dozen and hundreds of supporting characters, allies and enemies grouped under one umbrella of “mutant”; further, it is a story concept that effects the mythos of the world and is not present in the MCU.
HOW AVENGERS 4 INTRODUCING X-MEN COULD WORK
While the post-Avengers 4 plans for MCU have been a secret, a consistent theme from Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige has been that the Universe will be a different place and that movies going forward will be made and released in a different way. Many have taken the statements as an indication that the studio plans to take a looser approach to the interconnected continuity gimmick.
It may be logical for a scenario to begin spinning out of Infinity War, the plot of which concerns Thanos gaining power over a weapon that allows him to alter the fabric of reality. And potentially giving the MCU a license to change anything they wanted to.
A reliable predictor of MCU story-moves has been to watch what The House of Ideas was doing on the comic-publishing side of things in terms of trying out a few new concepts as part of “event” crossovers. Marvel had opted to integrate and reboot the timeline of the existing Multiverse at one go for the first time via Secret War. This was a title that called back to a previous landmark crossover event from the 1980s. The Secret War had lots of straightforward gimmick for he intentions: a battle between heroes and villains plucked from all corner of the Marvel Universe, staged for the amusement of an all-powerful alien, The Beyonder.
While such a character does not exist in the Cinematic Universe, Thor Ragnarok made a point of centering the presence of Jeff Goldblum as a reimagined version of a character called The Grandmaster.
Could that, then, be the secret in the waiting? It sounds elaborate, but at the end of the day, it will be so great to see Wolverine’s claws glance off Captain America’s shield.
