Fox’s X-Men universe is currently in an even messier state than usual, with the planned New Mutants and Dark Phoenix movies both facing major production difficulties at the moment. Nonetheless, it’s hard to deny that the franchise has done a pretty admirable job of fleshing out its own well-established, if rather muddled, mutant world that continues to drop successful and enthusiastically received works on a semi-regular basis, be it last year’s Logan or this year’s Deadpool 2.
With that in mind, many are wondering how Marvel plans to integrate these characters into their own cinematic universe in the wake of the Fox-Disney merger. While the studio could start from scratch with a straightforward reboot of the X-Men saga, you could also argue that finding a way of transferring both the characters and their built-in backstories from one universe to the other would allow for a smoother transition, while removing the need to spend several films building up these long-familiar mutants all over again. Moreover, a new fan theory proposes a route by which the upcoming Avengers 4 could do just that.
In explaining this theory, we start with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. As it stands, these two siblings are in the funny position of being usable by both studios, with the speedy brother of the pair featuring in X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, as well as Avengers: Age of Ultron. However, so long as they’re in the MCU, Marvel are currently forbidden from acknowledging the duo’s X-Men connections, including their father Magneto and their identity as ‘mutants.’ Instead, the twins’ abilities in the MCU are said to be activated by the power of the Mind Stone. In other words, though Disney can’t yet legally say it, the Mind Stone’s indeed capable of bringing mutants into the Marvel universe.
Still with us? Great! Now, with this new theory, the suggestion’s made that maybe the Mind Stone didn’t create the twins’ abilities from scratch, but instead triggered something that was always in them – powers previously embedded in their mutant DNA. Well, if that’s the case, then imagine what would happen if every life in the universe were affected by all six Infinity Stones. Imagine all the mutant powers that could be awakened then.
Of course, you may’ve noticed that nobody developed any new abilities during the genocidal “snappening” at the climax of Avengers: Infinity War, unless turning into a pile of dust counts as a superpower. But the theory also argues that a second finger-snap from the Infinity Gauntlet could be on the cards for bringing all these disintegrated characters back from the dead, and it’s here that we’d start seeing some mutants spring up.
But here’s the real twist: with the power of the Time and Reality Stones, not only will the abilities of the universe’s inhabitants be altered, but also their memories and their history. After this game-changing event, from the perspective of most life forms in the MCU, mutants have long existed and have their own pre-established mythology akin to the events we saw in Fox’s X-Men movies.
So, there you have it: a means of merging the worlds of the X-Men and the Avengers in a way that avoids the tiring repetition of origin stories that’s marred previous superhero reboots like 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man.
It’s a pretty clever plan, but if you’ll allow us to play buzzkill for a moment, one major issue that could prevent this idea from working out is just how soon the theory suggests that mutants will be officially entering the MCU. After all, production wrapped on Avengers 4 at the start of this year, and Disney’s acquisition of Fox isn’t expected to be officially completed until next year. Would Marvel Studios really resort to inserting such an important plot twist into their upcoming project so late in the game?
However Kevin Feige and the team choose accommodate the new array of X-Men at their disposal, it’s clear that the MCU’s on the verge of big things, and you can expect Avengers 4 to serve as a crucial building block in the franchise’s future when the film hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019.
