It was super exciting when Marvel announced they would be including X-Men characters Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The twins were shared characters, based on their extensive connections to the Avengers comics. This is leading me to think that there could be a couple of other characters from the X-Men comics that Marvel could end-up sharing in the future, or at the very least make deals with Fox for crossovers.
One of them being Hank McCoy aka Beast, a full-fledged member of the Avengers (first team comic he was blue and furry), The Defenders, Secret Avengers, The Illuminati, and recently in the comics The Inhumans. Beast just happened to have his own solo series, this establishes that the character isn’t souley known as an X-Men member. It’s possible down the line Hank could be a character they might want to include in Infinity War, perhaps taking the place of Richard Reed in the MCU.
There’s another well-known X-Men character that might be another possible candidate to be shared, or eventually make the jump like Spider-Man did, that being Wolverine.
So, what makes me think Wolverine should and could be added to the Marvel cinematic universe?
A well established lineage with both The Avengers and SHIELD, and having his origins in Hulk comics and not X-Men goes a long way.
His solo series includes over three hundred issues, which is impressive not to mention the many crossovers he did over the years with Captain America, Daredevil, Spider-Man, and other comic books. They include Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer,Punisher/Wolverine: The African Saga, Wolverine and Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection graphic novels.
Mark Millar took that connection further with the story-arc Enemy of The State.
A mission to rescue a young child goes horribly wrong as Wolverine is brainwashed by both HYDRA and the Hand. He is then forced to battle and even kill those who he views as friends.
It would make for an interesting dark film, or Netflix series if Marvel got their hands on it. Wolverine 3 is said to be an adaptation of Millar’s , and will likely have to be changed so much that it’ll be unrecognizable with many characters unable to be used. Adapting something like would be a great way to give Logan a solid feature film in the MCU, as you can use The Hand, Hydra, SHIELD, Elektra, Daredevil, Captain America, and others, with Marvel making it.
It would make for an interesting dark film, or Netflix series if Marvel got their hands on it. Wolverine 3 is said to be an adaptation of Millar’s Old Man Logan, and will likely have to be changed so much that it’ll be unrecognizable with many characters unable to be used.
Marvel adapting something like Enemy of The State would be a great way to give Logan a solid feature film in the MCU, as you can use The Hand, Hydra, SHIELD, Elektra, Captain America, and incorporating others.
Marvel has since pushed for many different connections to SHIELD in the expanded universe with the cartoons, in the 90’s X-Men cartoon he teamed-up with a WWII era Captain America and featured Nick Fury/The Howling Commandos. A failed attempt to give Captain America his own spin-off series at Fox. In Avengers Assemble, they made Wolverine a member of the Howling Commanders/Howlers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdBwcE4Gas0
In the Japanese Wolverine anime series they establish him as working for SHIELD, doing a black-ops mission that had him going up against Omega Red. It wouldn’t be hard to reveal past adventures with Fury, and seeing him pulled out to help with the events surrounding Infinity War, it doesn’t hurt he was featured in those comics as well. He’s been apart of countless Avengers lineups, and even took their side during Avengers vs. X-Men, and played a role in the Civil War comics, it’s a shame he wont be apart of Captain America: Civil War.
It’s not only seeing Logan team-up with the Avengers, I’ve been dying to see him help out Spider-Man after first seeing him crossover in Secret Wars and the 90’s cartoon. He also just happens to show-up in more contemporary Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon from Disney, which sees him working with Spidey and SHIELD.
Spidey now being able to be used by Marvel, it’s hard not for fans to want this to happen sooner, rather than later. Avengers: Infinity War is the kind of film that opens itself to allow bigger cameos like Wolverine showing-up alongside the lineup and Spider-Man.
What to the X-Men and Marvel Studios producers think of a crossover?
People behind the scenes have been promoting the idea for years. X-Men producers like Lauren Shuler Donner have been making it known to the studio, and press they want it to happen. Here’s what she told Crave back in 2012, about the possibility of an X-Men/Avengers crossover.
” I would love it. I would love it. I personally have close ties to Marvel because of Kevin Feige, because Kevin worked for me. But to take our characters and mingle them in the way that they were written, yeah, absolutely.”
Back in May, Kevin also talked to Crave about being open to the idea of the X-Men coming back to Marvel.
“Well, the answer would always be “yes,” I think, to getting them back. But I think they have a solid plan over there at Fox for a while.”
Since that time, he’s been given more power over the film division and could have a bit more freedom to make more deals with studios, like Fox about sharing characters and crossovers.
Even Hugh Jackman has been begging for years for this to happen, and it’s now to the point where he’s about to leave the character, without his dream crossover. It’s too bad, but I think Fox unintentionally dug themselves into this hole years ago.
Could Fox eventually ease-off, and finally broker a deal to have the X-Men crossover into the MCU?
That’s extremely possible, as it looked like for a while that Sony would have been the biggest hold-out, only to make a deal for Marvel to come in and co-produce a new Spider-Man franchise, allowing for crossovers between to the two studios.
Spider-Man is the blueprint of what could be, as Sony was in a much more stubborn point until a PR nightmare led to the head-office making sure the Marvel deal happened. They really needed to start fresh, which led to Tom Holland playing the third incarnation, this could happen again with Wolverine.
Fox could still hold all the rights, but allowing co-productions with Marvel Studios taking a bit of an active creative role in development, which may or may not include crossovers into MCU movies, then Marvel’s characters being used in X-Men films. I doubt we’ll ever X-Men entirely back at Marvel, but a deal similar to what happened at Sony could happen.
Now, how to explain a crossover when mutants have never been named or exposed in over a dozen Marvel Studios films?
One of the biggest hindrances to a crossover has been the original trilogy, and I’m sorry to say this, but that cast as well. They established a cinematic universe upon itself, not leaving much wiggle-room for crossovers. There had been some hope that post-First Class there could have been some movement to finally move past studio politics and make some good old fashion money.
We love Hugh Jackman to pieces, but once the films started overlapping the same timeline as The Avengers, it’s hard to say “oh yeah, mutants have always existed in this universe”. It’s not the same with something like Blade, because that franchise focuses on the Marvel underworld.
Recasting Wolverine might be the best move on the part of Fox, and gives a slight in for Marvel to wrangle them to consider possible crossovers built into a new contract.
They’ll need to find an actor that will get approval from fans, and do the character justice. I won’t say Jackman’s performance has been the most faithful, and they’ll need someone more able to handle the dark-side to Logan. Hugh recently advocated Tom Hardy (Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Mad Max: Fury Road) for the role, and it’s a good choice, as Hardy had been in the mix for a role in X-Men: Apocalypse previously.
Tom has been searching hard for the right comic book role, being in the mix for Doctor Strange, attaching himself to Suicide Squad only to exit it, and is rumored for a secret DC Comics film at Warner Bros. It’s not a terrible suggestion, but there are plenty of people tired hearing his name for every large open role.
I personally think after Mad Max it’s role he could really get into, but I get where detractors are coming from as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJ8_Jf891k
Once Fox actually reveals their future plans for the X-Men franchise everyone will relax. We know that they’ll have to move fast on giving us more Wolverine, once Jackman has exited as it’s a money making character. There’s renewed hope that a new actor could mean a crossover is more likely now, even more so with Kevin Feige now having more negotiating power when dealing with outside studios, thanks to Disney stepping in.
It all comes down to Fox, X-Men producers, a new actor, Kevin Feige, Marvel and Disney working something out, and it’s not going to be easy by a longshot.
Do you want Wolverine to be apart of the MCU, and Marvel eventually helping Fox with their X-Men films?