While the Fox/Disney merger was about so much more than seeing your favorite superheroes on screen together, let’s be honest: a lot of people only care about it because they want the X-Men and Fantastic Four to join Iron Man, Black Panther and the rest of the MCU.
Well, hold your horses, folks. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is suggesting that it may be some time before we see those characters, once owned by Fox and restricted to their films, rubbing elbows with Ant-Man, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man.
Speaking to Fandango, Feige said this about expanding the MCU to include the recently-acquired characters:
“It’s still early days, but it’s been a fun exercise, and it’s one, by the way, that we’ve been doing for years. Every development meeting starts with cool ideas and fun ideas, and our wheels are always turning in terms of what if… to use a Marvel publishing term.”
“It’s still early days,” he says. In other words, don’t expect to see Reed Richards, Logan or Jean Grey on screen anytime soon.
Feige said way more than just that. He suggested that he could see these characters slide into existing Marvel properties like Spider-Man and Black Panther did in Captain America: Civil War. That worked really well for those heroes so I can totally imagine that working out for X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Maybe introduce just one of them — say, Wolverine — and then set the stage for a standalone X-Men film shortly after that. Feige is right to want a natural introduction otherwise it just feels forced (see: Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Oof.)
I’m actually a bit relieved to hear that it might be some time before we see X-Men and the Fantastic Four make their way into the MCU. It needs to be done correctly and we’ve seen enough of these superheroes — namely the damn X-Men — lately. Let them rest, let new ideas come naturally and then find a place to insert them into the larger superhero landscape. Disney/Marvel now has ALL the toys in the toy box, no need to rush this. The worst thing they can do is mess up these introductions. For once, they can learn a lesson from the DC cinematic universe.