So a while back I talkedabout how I would integrate the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but in more general thematic terms as opposed to plot and specific continuity.
A tweet by “Moviebob” Bob Chipman got me thinking in more detail, and I think I have some ideas:
That leads me to something that has fascinated me. For a while I have been wondering how you could update some of Marvel’s more era-specific villains. The MCU made HYDRA into the Illuminati/Bilderberg and other Snowdenista conspiracy fantasies but why can’t you do that to others. Like Dr. Doom could be a dictator of a fictional Latin American country rather than somewhere in Eastern Europe since his special aesthetic, a kind of ruritanian baronial doesn’t make sense in contemporary Europe. I mean yeah you have dictatorships in Putin’s Russia and some of the satellites like Belarus but their dictatorship is tied to the end of communism and Dr. Doom was never really part of that to start with.And putting him in Latin America can allow MCU to tap into the “dictator novel” tropes common in a number of South American literatures, while also allowing him as a Foil against Wakanda and Black Panther.
With Magneto, I was wondering if you could make him a more contemporary figure. Reimagine him as a victim of the Rwandan genocide or the war in Congo, and other places. I don’t know if that would be disrespectful necessarily since after all the concept of Magneto as a holocaust survivor was created only in the 70s (by a non-Jewish artist no less).
WIth Doctor Doom, I already have my preferred version. And if we were going contemporary, I would definitely go with post-Soviet nationalist strongman.
That would be super cool. They should absolutely hire Kieron Gillen to adapt his run.
It would have to be a very loose adaptation; his run on Young Avengers was quite amazing but it was rooted in a LOT of comics history that just plain doesn’t exist in the movieverse.
Yeah, but I think the core of it – a teen team on the run from a threat than grownups literally can’t see – works just fine.
It’s tricky, because there have been lots of different rosters that people have been attached to at various times – O5, Giant-Sized, the Australia team, Gold and Blue, etc.
IMHO, you start with the roster as it was in X-Men #129 – Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus – with Kitty Pryde as an audience surrogate. That’s a solid and flexible core that you can easily add onto – Rogue, Gambit, Longshot, etc. – without losing the character dynamics.
Eventually? More than most X-properties, Excalibur relies on some pretty heavy legacy elements – you need to really care about the relationships between Kitty and Rachel, and Kitty and Kurt, and to a lesser extent between Betsy and Brian, in order for the emotional elements of the premise to land.
Then you’d need to find a writer/director who can do action, screwball comedy, feel-good emotions, and surreal genre parody all at the same time. Taika Waititi would be a natural pick, but I dunno if he’d want to reprise and/or might be busy with other Marvel properties (ditto James Gunn); Edgar Wright would be a good pick too, but he’s probably way too pissed off at Marvel; maybe Greta Gerwig if she’s interested?
I’m not sure about how important the legacy elements actually are. The gist of the team is that they’re weirdos who help the British government investigate aliens, fairies, and sliders. You don’t really need to know anything about their ties to the X-Men to get that. It should be enough to establish them as a group of drifters who have all lost family and loved ones to the cruel strangeness of their universe, without getting overly into the Morlock Massacre, or the Siege Perilous, or Roma and Merlyn manipulating their destinies. Even for Rachel and her ties to Kate and Kitty, it’s more important to establish that reckless time travel is afoot, giving Rachel two different relationships with the same woman, than that Rachel is the child of two X-Men or even that she’s Phoenix.
At that point though, you’re not really doing Excalibur any more. Aliens, weirdos, and alternate timelines is what they do – although Agents of SHIELD and the X-Files and Fringe do that stuff too – but it’s not who they are. Legacy is important for spinoffs to find an audience, because you’re trying to pull in as much of a pre-existing audience as you can, and they need hooks and anchors.
That being said, I don’t want to over-emphasize the legacy: what matters is that Kitty Pryde is a nerdy bi Jewish comp sci prodigy who doesn’t realize that she’s in love with Rachel, that Kurt is a sexy swashbuckler with great turtlenecks rather than his characterization being just a dour bigoted Catholic (hem hem), that Rachel is an over-dramatic leather queen with the world’s only attractive mullet/rattail (although the Phoenix force is kind of key to her aesthetic and motivations, so I disagree there), that Megan was raised by tv and has body image issues, and that Brian is a pompous Tory public school boy who is constantly subverted.
Eventually? More than most X-properties, Excalibur relies on some pretty heavy legacy elements – you need to really care about the relationships between Kitty and Rachel, and Kitty and Kurt, and to a lesser extent between Betsy and Brian, in order for the emotional elements of the premise to land.
Then you’d need to find a writer/director who can do action, screwball comedy, feel-good emotions, and surreal genre parody all at the same time. Taika Waititi would be a natural pick, but I dunno if he’d want to reprise and/or might be busy with other Marvel properties (ditto James Gunn); Edgar Wright would be a good pick too, but he’s probably way too pissed off at Marvel; maybe Greta Gerwig if she’s interested?
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