When will the X-Men and The Fantastic Four be introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? That’s a question us fans have been asking for years. Before a year ago, those two teams couldn’t even be mentioned in the MCU because they were owned by Fox. Well, that’s not the case anymore. Disney now owns Fox, which means Disney now owns pretty much all of the Marvel characters. Awesome. That’s old news by now, but there’s something about the deal we need to discuss. Okay, I’ll just say that I’m with everyone when I say that I’m glad the X-Men and The Fantastic Four will meet the Avengers. It’s long overdue and Fox simply didn’t handle those characters well. I have no doubt that Disney and Kevin Feige will do those characters some justice. However, there is a disadvantage of EVERY Marvel character being in the MCU.
That sounds odd, doesn’t it? Well, I’m actually not just talking about the previously owned Fox characters. Another group of characters to look at are the characters who had their own shows on Netflix. Yes, they were still technically owned by Disney, but the difference between those characters and the MCU ones is that Kevin Feige had no input on the Netflix shows. That makes all the difference in the world. The man who did had control over those shows was Jeph Loeb. Same goes with Agents of Shield and the Hulu shows, such as Cloak and Dagger. All of those shows took place in the MCU, made multiple references to the MCU, but everything that happened in those shows had nothing to do with Kevin Feige.
What’s the future of those shows? Against our wishes, there really is no future for them. Bad for us, but Kevin Feige really doesn’t mind. He said so himself that he really didn’t watch them, so don’t expect actors like Charlie Cox or Jon Bernthal to reprise the same characters. That’s highly unfortunate, because they nailed their characters beyond belief. If they do return, they won’t be playing the same characters. Kevin Feige will most likely ignore the events of those shows going forward because he wants every character to be developed under his direction. Fair enough. It’s his show and he’s done a magnificent job so far.
So now that those shows are history and the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are back with Marvel, what’s the biggest disadvantage of them being in the MCU? If you don’t think there is one, just think about what made those shows and the Fox movies different from the MCU movies. The MCU are still under Disney’s roof, so everything they do must be appropriate and ultimately family-friendly. Yes, there can be deaths and some naughty language, but no blood splattering. Oh, and no F-bombs. Like Cap said, “Language!”.
That seemed to sit well with most fans because they made up for the lack of blood by giving us some amazing action scenes. You might not need blood to make action cool, but the thing is, that doesn’t work for every character. How long did we have to wait to see Wolverine spilling blood when he sliced and diced through bad guys? The answer is his very last movie, the masterpiece called Logan. Since it was rated-R, it seemed like a totally different movie from its predecessors. Logan was not only spilling blood by the buckets, but he was throwing F-bombs around like a trooper.
That’s honestly how he should’ve been in his previous movies, but Fox eventually got the message. It’s just lame that it took them so long and we only got to see Wolverine go into full beast mode for one movie. He didn’t have to be like that in the X-Men movies. I get that those were more for everyone, but it’s just weird when he’s cutting through men and no blood is splattering. That’s what we should’ve seen in that very disappointing Origins movie and also The Wolverine. At least we got to see it once, but you probably won’t see that ever again.
Going back to the Netflix shows, there’s another character that matched Wolverine in brutality. Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, spilled more blood than Logan did by far. And he should. He’s The Punisher, after all. Since the Netflix shows weren’t completely bound by Disney’s rules, they could get away with many things that the movies won’t even attempt.
If you’ve seen those shows, you’ll know that The Punisher wasn’t the only one that pushed boundaries. In the ver first scene of Daredevil, he attacks human traffickers. That’s a touchy subject, one that the movies will probably never touch. The show that premiered after Daredevil was Jessica Jones. That show touched on many adult-themed subjects, such as alcoholism, rape, drugs, and just casual sex. Those are things you will never, ever see in the movies. Heck, Tony Stark is famous for being an alcoholic in the comics. We’ve seen the MCU Tony be drunk before, but not on an alcoholic level. That’s vital to his characterization in the comics, but the movies replaced the alcoholism with the PTSD and guilt he carries. Not quite the same, but Tony remained to be a flawed, but great character.
Now that he’s gone, we’ll never see the alcoholic Tony Stark. That’s fine, but that’s where the Netflix shows came in. Whatever the movies couldn’t do, the shows could do. There was blood, cursing, sex, all the things that you’ll never see in any Disney movie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing that’s disappointing is that those elements is what made those shows different. In fact, it made them feel a lot more realistic. Daredevil and Luke Cage didn’t fight giant robots or hostile aliens, but regular criminals. Luke Cage even touched on underprivileged African-Americans living in crime-infested neighborhoods and how his presence changed things for the better.
That kind of realistic element isn’t seen much in the movies. The Avengers aren’t street-level heroes like Daredevil and Luke Cage, so they don’t get to deal with the issues of regular crime. That’s what was so interesting about the Netflix shows and what made them so different from the movies. It was believable that they existed in the MCU, because while the Avengers were fighting in space or in other countries, the Defenders were battling organized crime in the streets of New York City. Sure, Spider-Man can do that eventually, but he’s still a rookie. Oh, and he’s a fugitive now.
So how will Disney fix the issue of characters like Wolverine and The Punisher spilling blood in the movies? When they do debut in the movies, they might not be fighting humans. If Wolverine is cutting through robots, there’s not blood to be spilled. Same with The Punisher, but I bet he won’t be using realistic guns. They could easily arm him with advanced, alien-like weaponry so that he’s not putting bullets in everyone’s heads. He does it all the time in the comics, so it can work in the movies. Have Wolverine battle Sentinels and you don’t have to worry about seeing him sever a guy’s arm and see blood splatter everywhere.
There you have it. As excited as I am to see more characters officially join the MCU, I’ll be sad these characters won’t be shown in the same manner as they were before. Is it the biggest deal in the world? Not really. As long as all of these characters are developed well, I’ll be happy. There doesn’t have to be blood and cursing, but they do need to have some awesome fight scenes. Kevin Feige, we trust you. Please do these characters some justice.
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