Marvel Universe (Thar be spoilers ahead.)

[jgsugden]

My real point n bringing this back up was how do Carter and Daredevil fit into people's perceptions...

[MahrinSkel]

I'd put Daredevil in the top tier, it's just the single best TV-format superhero series ever, as far as I am concerned. MAoS and Agent Carter I'd put in with the main mass of Marvel movies, worthy additions to the franchise that carry their own weight.

--Dave

[HaemishM]

I'd agree with MahrinSkel on Daredevil's place. Shield and Agent Carter are about at Thor 1/Iron Man 2/Cap 1 levels. Good but they haven't really built to their peaks yet.

[MediumHigh]

Shield was dropped in the first 3 episodes so its at my Thor 2 rankings by default. Carter seems to be from the thread of thought as Shield but vastly less interesting... but since I haven't watched it I'd put it a tier above Shield simply because while I know I'd probably quit it in 3 episodes I may one day give it a chance if it gets into a third or fourth season. Daredevil is easily in the same good shit as Cap 2 and GOTG.

[Evildrider]

Shield had a really slow start and didn't pick up til the middle of the first season and the lead up to Winter Soldier.  Season 2 has been very watchable.  It has it's own vibe to it that makes it different then Flash and Arrow.

Peggy Carter is very watchable.  The 8 episode season helped that from becoming bogged down.

[Velorath]

Avengers...is impossible to categorize, it would merely be 'good', but since none of the others really hold together without it, it kind of needs to be in the top tier.

Avengers certainly isn't great in any sort of narrative sense, but when you consider how easily it could have collapsed under its own weight it's probably very close to best possible Avengers movie we could have gotten. It's fun seeing the characters interact with each other both in dialogue and in the action scenes, but you are never going to get a great story out of these things.

[jgsugden]

Speculation: Is this the first signs of an X-verse moving back into an MCU?

http://www.blastr.com/2015-4-28/rumor-day-bryan-singers-x-men-film-universe-will-end-x-men-apocalypse-and-wolverine-3

Given the age of the actors, a reboot makes a certain amount of sense - and rebooting into the MCU now that Spidey is in the fold and the FF looks like it is headed towards dud status would make some sense.  I know nobody here trusts anything arising from Latino Review, but I would not be surprised - given that the contracts for Jackman, Stewart, Lawrence, McKellen, McAvoy, Fassbender, etc... are ending and not likely to be renewed without paying through the nose to bring them back (and Jackman and Lawrence, the two biggest names, saying they are done regardless of the money) - if there is a reboot that comes out around the time of Avengers 3/4 and if they work into the MCU.  After all, the Infinity Stones give them a certain latitude to make universe altering changes...

[sickrubik]

I'm not sure anything about this leads us to believe that will happen. The X-Men movies have been making plenty of money for Fox. It means that there will be a "reboot" as it were, with the younger actors, but I'm not sure how we can imagine anything going to the House of (M)ouse.

[jgsugden]

The other thing that points me to an MCU related reboot: They failed their last attempt at a soft reboot.  First Class was a fine film, but it was generally seen as a commercial disappointment relative to studio expectations.  They need a huge hook to drive value - and moving into the MCU is a huge hook.  It isn't the only potential hook, but it is a juicy one...

[sickrubik]

Days of Future Past, however, was not a disappointment.

I'm not going to argue that moving it to the MCU wouldn't be a great idea. I'm just not seeing anything in the current news that leads to that conclusion.

At this point, it's kind of like having an expensive franchise QB and planning on the move after he retire...

I'm also not sure how much of a hook it is. How many people outside the "geek community" has any frigging idea that the two properties have any connection what so ever? Hell, there were plenty of the mass public that had no idea who Iron Man was prior to the first IM film.

The hook would squarely be for the people who are already sold in on the properties.

[jgsugden]

DoFP was a bigger success - and many attribute that to the presence of the original cast.  If they're losing them for a reboot, you need some other hook to draw people in to watch the new series.  You could get new A-list stars, but the more sustainable route is rising B-listers that might go on to A-list status (Jennifer Lawrence was a B-lister for First Class, but is A-list right now) that you can lock up ... which means you need a hook outside of the casting.  Bringing them into the MCU could give access to the Shi'ar storylines, doing Phoenix right with the MCU cosmic properties involved, etc...  It isn't the only way to go, but it is a solid path.  There is more money in crossovers and cross promotion. 

[sickrubik]

But it's not a hook.

[Evildrider]

I think if it wasn't for Sony's emails being hacked and all the uproar and publicity about the Spidey crossover, it never would have happened.  Marvel was already set to go without Spidey. 

The rebooting of X-Men is the only way they can really go back to a modern day setting.  Everything is kinda all mucked up actor wise with their X-Men movies now.

[Fordel]

There is one important reason why the X-Men will never go back to Marvel, and that's because the executives at Fox and Disney fucking hate each other and will fuck each other over out of SPITE. 

[jgsugden]

1.) Executives change all the time.  People keep saying Whedon would never work with Fox again because of how they screwed Firefly, but - oh, wait - Dollhouse. 

2.) If you do not think that the cross over potential is not a hook, you're not paying attention.  Seriously - how much news coverage did the discussions of getting these properties back get even before the Sony leak?  It'd get huge news coverage. 

[Merusk]

Acutal news or geek-centric blogs that pass for news among internet dwellers?

Because you'll be disappointed with reality.

[sickrubik]

I think you're fully inside the bubble. Which is perfectly fine, that's where we live. Hence posting on a forum on the internet that pertains to Geek related activities. It's almost impossible for us to say "hey, how common was the spidey stuff before the leak broke?" When we had that discussion, we talked about rumors circulating on sites like Latino Review. It would be safe to say, that his readership is comprised of people like us. The mainstream theater goers probably STILL don't know Spidey is with the MCU... hell, most mainstream people probably don't even know what "MCU" means.

The cross over potential is totally a hook... for us. But we're already on board.

Also, the executives oif the studios we're talking about don't change that much. Fox is pretty happy overall with how things are going. Avatar, etc.

[Velorath]

Bringing them into the MCU could give access to the Shi'ar storylines, doing Phoenix right with the MCU cosmic properties involved,

Nothing gets to the core of what the X-men are about thematically more than a story involving cosmic entities and fighting aliens in other galaxies. Plus I'm sure the masses would love to see what to them would be rehashing plot elements from X-men: The Last Stand with another go-round of "here's why Jean Grey needs to die".

Honestly though, the X-men have just never been a good fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe and the MCU has a full slate of films already and adding the X-men in would only bloat things and push other stuff back like the addition of Spider-man did. Also I got enough Wolverine guest appearances in 90's comics. I don't need to see him getting thrown into a bunch of MCU movies as well.

[jgsugden]

Didn't we already debunk this "Only news in the geek circles" notion regarding the movie rights?   Newsflash: The rights surrounding characters that are in the biggest grossing films of recent history are major entertainment news.  Not peripheral stories for the fringe. 

If you think the Phoenix saga, with the cosmic roots involved, would not be a strong contender for a major storyline in a rebooted X-verse (MCU or not)... well, it isn't worth trying to convince you.  DoFP and Phoenix saga are the two most iconic X-stories out there... and only one of them has been told decently.

[Evildrider]

Doing an X-Men Phoenix saga would take an MCU type reboot for Fox.  There is no way that could be a 1 and done movie.  There are too many characters involved and a lot of story.  I think DofP was rushed through and missed a lot of stuff I would have liked to have seen, especially Nimrod.

[Trippy]

It was also a horrid rewrite of the original story.

[HaemishM]

Adding Shi'ar to the X-Men movies would be HORRIBLY confusing to the average viewer. Shit, DoFP was good but it was already stretching what you could theoretically throw into a movie. Aliens would be so tangential to the story and would require so much other explanation, it'd take 2-3 movies just to get it done right. It's the kind of thing you could do with a TV show when you have more room to breathe, but trying to shoehorn that shit into 2.5 hour movies released even a year apart? I'm thinking that would be a colossal fuckup.

[Khaldun]

Nimrod came way later than the original DofP. Can't imagine any circumstances where shoehorning even MORE would have improved the film. I think it was fine.

[Velorath]

DOFP and AOA are both well known stories that heavily involve the core concepts of the X-men. One is a world where anti-mutant fear has lead to Sentinels wiping out most of the mutants. The other is a world where mutants have taken over and wiped out most of the humans.

The Phoenix Saga involves a character who was a one point thought dead but ended up being alive and inhabited by a cosmic entity eventually getting corrupted. She proceeds to devour a sun, destroying an inhabited planet in the process, fights some aliens, fights her teammates, teams up with them against aliens, and commits suicide. It has next to nothing to do with mutants, and has no emotional resonance if it's the first or even second X-men story you throw out there.

[sickrubik]

Didn't we already debunk this "Only news in the geek circles" notion regarding the movie rights? 

No. We did not.

If you think the Phoenix saga, with the cosmic roots involved, would not be a strong contender for a major storyline in a rebooted X-verse (MCU or not)... well, it isn't worth trying to convince you.  DoFP and Phoenix saga are the two most iconic X-stories out there... and only one of them has been told decently.

Iconic to whom. Again, not arguing that it would be the right path to take, but this idea that any of this is a "hook" to more successful films is not grounded in anything. The hook is only a hook for geeks. Go ahead and walk around and ask people about Shi'ar or Dark Phoenix saga and see who knows what that is.

A very recent example about this: The fiancee and I were hanging out people even closer to geek circles than the general public talking about how they were interested in Green Arrow and Flash because they all tie into the Marvel movies.

Nobody knows the connections outside fandom. Shit, I'm pretty well versed in the stuff and still have to look up a ton of stuff.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The bottom line is Xmen still make fox a shitload of money and alongside deadpool seem to be on an upward trajectory. where as spiderman was a sinking ship.  Will it ever happen? Maybe but not within the next decade.

[NowhereMan]

Also from the Disney/MCU perspective I think trying to pull the X-universe in right now would be a colossal headache. They've got a, seemingly, tight schedule and vision for how their movies and universe are set to unfold. Adding in Spidey is totally doable and, if the deal can work, makes financial sense simply because he's a big name. The X-Men and that whole universe is a big name but thematically and plot wise how the hell do they fit in to the story and world the MCU is creating?

Suddenly having mutants kind of undoes all the universe creation for the Inhumans that Agents of SHIELD has worked on. Not a dealbreaker by any means but it's going to require some serious adjusting. It also throws in a whole new source of powered people and elements that probably need to be factored in right after MCU has started pulling the Cosmic things and just as they're about to introduce Magic and the mystical.

I mean I guess it would let them throw Wolverine into the Avengers for the sake of having the name there but it potentially creates a lot more problems with trying to use it. From the perspective of occasional cameos or having the rights without needing to make use of it I could see them going into the MCU but there's no way FOX is in a position where they're going to part with those rights for nothing and will insist on them actually getting used in a way that will be profitable for FOX. Disney won't sacrifice creative control because 1) Look at DC's situation with multiple creative direction and 2) It's fucking Disney. I like the idea of it and they do present a possible additional hook for some of the movies but I don't see any neat ways to actually capitalise on them beyond as I said 1) Wolverine in the Avengers, maybe some other occasional cameos and treat the X universe as the shadow world/underground of the MCU or 2) Massive summer Event type clusterfuck that every nerd in existence will go 'Fuck yeah!' at the mention of, will generate lots of hype with nerds queueing round the block in costume for midnight showings and proceed to make a mint at opening weekend followed by getting panned for being a confusing mess and desperately damaging the whole franchise.

I don't see what they'd offer FOX to make 1 a good choice for them and I hope they're creatively farsighted enough to avoid 2.

[Velorath]

What they could possibly offer Fox is "hey, we'll let you do that live-action X-men TV series you guys were talking about, and you let us use Hugh Jackman Wolverine in an Avengers movie or two with some throwaway explanation of dimensional travel or something."

[Lantyssa]

Even in the comics there's not a lot of overlap between the two groups besides the Maximovs and Wolverine.  Even if Disney got them, I wouldn't tie the franchises together except for news blurbs or small references to events and small cameos.

[Merusk]

That's what I thought. I was talking to the wife the other day about this after she and the boy watched SHIELD and she mentioned SpiderMan coming into the universe. We couldn't think of any way the mutants really integrated into the MCU or any stories that had actually done it to great extent.

Granted, we're not comics geeks in any way but being part of the 'target audience' it didn't make sense to us.  I can't fathom it working well for the rest of the world.

Hell, from my understanding of Civil War they even couldn't work it out there. Instead choosing to keep the largest portion of the X-Men neutral rather than trying to account for the insanity of Mutants vs Men in Tights.

[Lantyssa]

The mutants had their civil war a long time ago with the Mutant Registration Act.

[jgsugden]

Once again, Infinity Gems give you a lot of universe shaping options. If the Marvel attorneys pulled a miracle out of their hat and recovered all rights to all Marvel characters today, I would not expect to see mutants really utilized until 2020 something.

Beast is another long term player as an Avenger and X-man, for the record. Regardless, the value doesn't really come from putting Wolverine in Avengers movies... it comes from being able to tell stories that interact in the way Shield, Cap II and Av II have. It comes from the periodic huge event... like a potential Secret Wars event as the next big 9 year build after Infinity Gems (obviously pure speculation there)...

[NowhereMan]

Wasn't Secret Wars (originally) purely 'A dimension traveller has grabbed these random Marvel heroes and made them fight on a planet for his amusement'? Again beyond the name and Big Summer Event I'm really not sure what relevance it has to anything.

And yeah, even in the comics the X-stuff and the Marvel Universe keep a bit of a respectful distance beyond characters appearing both. Even the House of M thing happened with all the No More Mutants thing to just keep things sane. Just after that was when I last bowed out of trying to follow continuity so I don't know how things have changed but it seemed that they decided that they needed a cap on the whole next stage of evolution thing.

Really aside from those Names (and by that I really mean just Wolverine) what does the X-universe provide that Disney can't already do? As you said Beast is a pretty big crossover character, what does he have that they can't manage in terms of story telling with a renamed Inhuman? I don't object to the idea and I think if Disney could get it without giving anything up they definitely would get those rights and stick Logan in the Avengers, I'm just trying to see what they could get that would justify paying the bux FOX would want.

[jgsugden]

Secret Wars was an example, not a request - it was the first real Marvel crossover event and was quite simplistic.  However, they could eventually draw upon it.  The fact that it was so simplistic actually might help them as the big problem with things like Civil War are there were dozens of storylines and not enough time to touch on most of it (not that all of the storylines in Civil War are worth touching upon).

[pxib]

Pretty intense Infinity War spoilers: