Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies and Streaming Series Discussion

I'll add I don't know where Hellstrom and Inhumans go in terms of MCU - I think if Inhumans had been well received they might have done more with it. But the underlying plan to have Inhumans become the defacto mutants in the MCU was discarded once Disney got Fox.
 
Ru1977 said:
Then Disney bought it and said "Everything is canon now!"
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After they said everything wasn't cannon from the books and comics... 😅

Its kind of fascinating - one of the first things post the OT was Dark Empire (which was un-cannoned by Disney) - which used the Emperor returning as a clone, a plot point that somehow returned. They also got rid of the first book series with Thrawn, and now Thrawn is back. And of course Ben Solo was in the books as well and went bad. So they threw a bunch out and have since bought it back on eBay I guess and decided that those were some good ideas...
 
fac said:
I'll add I don't know where Hellstrom and Inhumans go in terms of MCU - I think if Inhumans had been well received they might have done more with it. But the underlying plan to have Inhumans become the defacto mutants in the MCU was discarded once Disney got Fox.
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I think that was Permutter's thing too, and didn't get try doing getting that done in the comics too? Pushing Inhumans in lieu of mutants because they didn't have the film rights?
fac said:
After they said everything wasn't cannon from the books and comics... 😅
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HAW! Yes.
fac said:
Its kind of fascinating - one of the first things post the OT was Dark Empire (which was un-cannoned by Disney) - which used the Emperor returning as a clone, a plot point that somehow returned. They also got rid of the first book series with Thrawn, and now Thrawn is back. And of course Ben Solo was in the books as well and went bad. So they threw a bunch out and have since bought it back on eBay I guess and decided that those were some good ideas...
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Right! Heh. But yeah, the EU was always like a salad bar for them to pick at. Even the ST has a little bit of EU concepts, but yeah now they've gone hard into it.
fac said:
Legion is the one that is really underrated to me and I hope it gets folded in somehow...
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I agree Legion is underrated and was really really enjoyable, but I'm okay with it being separate still. I never tried Gifted though.
 
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I wasn't reading comics at the time, so no comment on the execution, but I did hear about the move to sideline mutants and promote Inhumans, and I actually liked the idea.

I've never been much of an X-Men fan. I initially found the origin of "they were just born that way" to be lazy, and eventually watching them just drift away from what I even thought a mutant was with secondary mutations and omega level mutants and then Namor was a mutant. Maybe it made sense when reading it, but whenever I'd see something like "this is Bishop, he carries a gun," or "turning to diamond is the natural extension of my telepathy" I was even less tempted to read it.

Anyways, I'd always found the Inhumans interesting (as a concept at least, apparently their only story was "Maximus is doing something"). Creating a big event like the terrigen cloud floating around the world spontaneously activating people with unsuspected Inhuman genes was at least an inciting incident that "I was born this way" didn't have.
 
AceofKnaves said:
Hahahaha they sure did and it was *LAME*. So many vindictive canon rewrites at that time, and all those full-character ads with missing FF, X-Men, etc.
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Seriously. My son got a full Marvel poster when he was young, which he still has on the wall and it is horrendously mutantless

Fletch said:
unsuspected Inhuman genes was at least an inciting incident that "I was born this way" didn't have
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But... Weren't they born with those inhuman genes?
 
Ru1977 said:
But... Weren't they born with those inhuman genes?
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Yes, and then a *thing* happened to them to trigger it. I find that more satisfying. I don't know what else to say about it.


AceofKnaves said:
Initially, mutation was specifically and explicitly tied to atomic testing, hence “Children of the Atom”. Definitely not just born that way, at least in classic continuity.
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In Stan's own words, 'born that way' was his shortcut to not having to think about an origin. They'd eventually grow into a metaphor for minorities (minorities that could erase your mind and stomp your house), but at the start, it was just some rando white kids who each had a super-power. I'm not even sure if the timeline for atomic testing even works for Magneto, let alone Namor or Apocalypse.



I'm not here to convince anyone that the X-Men are lame (and I keep deleting the huge paragraphs that start forming when I try to defend it), just that they don't hold up to my scrutiny. They're just super-powered heroes doing superhero stuff, they've just wrapped their power fantasy in social commentary.

I also never read a single comic that had Inhumans sprouting up around the world, so I blissfully only have my imagination of what that would be like and I think it sounds pretty cool.
 
Fletch said:
they've just wrapped their power fantasy in social commentary.
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That’s hardly unique to the X-Men, though. That was how Superman came out of the gate in 1938. I would contend that trying to sanitize comic book stories from social commentary is, itself, social commentary. I guess maybe the X-Men have become the poster children for that, but the whole point of mythic storytelling is to use a fantastical/epic frame to “filter” real world issues and ideas. I’m not sure how a comic book-style power fantasy could *not* be wrapped in social commentary.
🤷‍♂️
 
@AceofKnaves, I hadn't intended it to be a negative, just trying to point out that it's superficial.

Early days Superman was dealing with actual recognizable slumlords, X-Men are dealing with a metaphor for racism that mostly only exists in their comics.

For this discussion, I'm taking up a more anti-X-Men stance than I normally would, but I've enjoyed quite a few of their comics over the years ("some of my best friends are mutants").

My sole position is that they started from a soft footing, inflated themselves with a veneer of social commentary, and then just kept escalating themselves until they were immortal and colonizing Mars.

None of that is about the quality of the stories, just where I'm coming from when I think the idea of any human, anywhere, at any age, could spontaneously erupt in disfiguring superhuman abilities was more interesting to me.
 
My familiarity with the X-Men is almost exclusively the Claremont years, though I read a tiny bit of them in San Francisco I think it was, during Dark Reign. I have no idea about immortality thing or the Mars thing. I know they got really bizarre eventually. Yes I know Claremont was writing a soap opera too but I guess reading the actual issues rather than a wiki helps. But really loved the Claremont stuff and wish he'd gotten to finally do that final battle against the Shadow King.
 
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I honestly don't remember when I read any X-Men in real time. I think I felt they were too inaccessible to someone just starting out. I was with New Mutants from day 1, and remember being really excited when Spider-Man kicked all their asses in Secret Wars. Most of my X-Men knowledge really is after the fact.
 
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