Right at the end of Marvel’s announcement of their Phase 4 slate at Comic-Con yesterday, Kevin Feige slipped in the tease that “the mutants” were coming to the MCU soon as well, reminding us all that Marvel Studios received the rights to the X-Men thanks to the Disney-Fox merger earlier this year.
It’s apparently too early to tell us anything specific about how the Children of the Atom will be folded into the franchise, but the Marvel Studios president did catch up with IGN following the panel and teased that fans can expect a different take on the characters from what we’ve seen before.
“Whatever we do will be quite different than what’s been done before.”
So, what are we to make of Feige’s use of the phrase “the mutants” during the panel? Well, a lot of fans have been wondering if it’s significant. For instance, are the team going to be renamed in the MCU, perhaps after calls to rebrand them as something more gender-neutral? It doesn’t sound like it, as Feige clarified that he simply said mutants as an “interchangeable” term.
“‘Mutants’ and ‘X-Men’ are interchangeable. I just said ‘mutants.’”
Alongside the X-Men, Feige also revealed at the panel that the Fantastic Four will soon be rebooted within the MCU as well. This hasn’t been 100% confirmed as yet, but it seems like we’ll be getting another solo film for Marvel’s First Family in Phase 5. When talking with Variety, Feige couldn’t say much but he did promise the following: “I’m very excited about bringing those characters up to the platform and the level that they deserve.”
The fact that the X-Men aren’t coming in Phase 4 matches up with what Feige has told us before, which is that they won’t be heading to the franchise for at least another five years. So, expect them in 2023 at the earliest, if not later on in Phase 5.