How Marvel finally put X-Men in the MCU with “Avengers: Doomsday”

A new era for the mutant genre begins on the screen. During a five -hour and a half livestream which took place on Wednesday on social networks, Marvel Studios announced the first casting wave for Avengers: Doomsday. The 27 names ran the range of the star of the OG franchise Chris Hemsworth to elevation of heavy goods vehicles like Florence Pugh and Anthony Mackie to some of beginners like Pedro Pascal and her comrades Fantastic Four. But the news came with an X factor.

The name Patrick Stewart emerged, marking the second time that the actor would resume his role as Professor Xavier in the MCU since Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness. Then, the camera deepened and revealed that Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn and James Marsden – who all played with Stewart in the X -Men film series – also come back to the Marvel fold. And they are joined by Channing Tatum, who played another figure X last summer Deadpool and Wolverine.

This is one of those moments that comic fans are patiently waiting to see: the official arrival of the team of X-Men mutants in the fabric of this pantheon of sprawling characters. This is a trip that started in December 2017, when the Walt Disney Co. announced for the first time its intention to acquire 21st Century Fox Properties, including the rights to the screen of the X-Men, Fantastic Four and all the other Marvel characters belonging to Fox at the time. But even if the agreement finally concluded in March 2019, we only arrived at this point six years later. Here is an overview of how it all met.

First step

Even when Disney announced for the first time the acquisition, certain obstacles prevented them from dropping externally a character like Wolverine alongside Thor, Captain Marvel and the rest of the Avengers crew. Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, previously said Weekly entertainment In an interview in 2024, there were certain logistical realities with the agreement they had to face.

“I do not want to enter the legal laws to acquire companies or something else. I do not understand them, but there are many,” said Feige. “It took a long time between each time that (the acquisition) was announced to do everything, so (the characters) were not really in our sandbox for a very long time after the first announcement.”

So the plans started slowly. With 2021 WandavisionThe first MCU television series for Disney + has spread to Wanda Maximoff by Elizabeth Olsen to enter her comic roots as a witch who weighs reality, although the show has not entered the character’s ties with the X-Men as the daughter of Magneto. However, they found ways to play in the sandbox. Evan Peters, who previously played speedster Quicksilver in Fox X-Men: days of past future (2014) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), made an invited appearance as Ralph Bohner, a resident of the city of West View who was spelled by Agatha Harkness of Kathryn Hahn to act as brother of Wanda Pietro. They did not call it Quicksilver and made no reference to the mutants, so it allowed the deductible to bring a silhouette of the Fox franchise passed into a capacity “if you know, you know”.

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The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Followed the same year with a similar approach. Sam Wilson by Mackie and Bucky Barnes by Sebastian Stan have traveled on a mission to Madripoor, a location in Southeast Asia from many X-Men stories from Marvel comics, especially in those involving Wolverine. It would not be before a year later that more manifest references began to appear in various MCU titles.

Row

The most obvious was Stewart’s presence in the Doctor Strange following. It was not the same Charles of Fox films, but that of a different reality in which he served as an eminent member of the Illuminati, a group of supervisory dogs. This film also involved John Krasinski as Reed Richards / MR. Fantastic, a member of the Fantastic Four Super-Team and another character formerly belonging to Fox.

Stewart reported in an interview that others could be in progress, saying: “There may be potential for a reappearance of Professor Xavier.” He then knew what we know now Avengers: Doomsday? It’s hard to say.

Still in 2022, the MCU obtained its first mention of the word “mutant”, used to describe Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) in the Disney + series Mrs. Marvel, And later this year with Namor the Submariner (Tenoch Huerta Mejia) Black Panther: Wakanda forever. And the references continued to come. She-hulk: lawyer in law (2022) included a Wolverine Easter egg on a news site with an article entitled “Man Fights with Metal Claws in Bar brawl”, then broke the fourth wall of the final and asked Feige itself for X-Men.

With all the current self-referential gags She-HulkIt was difficult to determine what was exactly considered canon. But by 2023, the valves have really opened and answered some of these questions. After Stewart, Kelsey Grammer made his first appearance of return as Beast in a post-key scene attached to Wonders. This song told us a few things: the X-Men exist (or at least a version of them do it, if not that made famous by Fox films), but they do not exist in the reality that we have known on the screen. They exist in alternative dimensions. Grammer’s beast appears in a particular reality where Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), Bff by Carol Danvers in the main universe, is a mutant called Binary who is a member of the X-Men.

Then, of course, there were 2024 Deadpool and Wolverine.

Go full in X-Force

Many actors from the previous X-Flopks of the Fox era have resumed their roles in this film, with Wade Wilson by Ryan Reynolds and Logan by Hugh Jackman leading the charge. Aaron Stanford as a Pyro (from X2,, X-Men: the last stand), Tyler mane as sabretooth (X-Men), Dafne Keen as X-23 (Logan), and a handful of non-Men actor veterans by playing characters linked to X-Men. Were variations in toad (X-Men), Azazel teleportation (X-Men: First class), the almost insufficient mastodon (X-Men: the last stand,, Deadpool 2), Lady Deathstrike (X2), Callisto (X-Men: the last stand), Psylocke (X-Men: Apocalypse), and Quill (X-Men: the last stand).

The biggest new addition – not to mention the other came up fellows – was Tatum. At the time of X-Men Reign of Fox, the actor had to appear in an autonomous film under the name of Gambit, alias Remy Lebeau, the mutant Cajun who has the possibility of transforming potential energy into kinetic energy, thus transforming almost everything he touches into explosives. Tatum even appeared in San Diego Comic-Con one year to pose next to his compatriots of X-Men franchise during a panel Hall H. However, with the takeover of Disney de Fox, it was a project lost in history … Until the third dead Pool movie. Reynolds teased in EW that Marvel has become “obsessed with him in this role”.

Before its release last July, Feige told EW that the film was “really when it all starts” to bring the mutants of Marvel and the X-Men to the MCU. The multiverse has become the key to unlocking how these characters would naturally fall back into the world in constant expansion of the Avengers. A bit like Grammer, Stewart and everyone Deadpool and WolverineThey would come from parallel dimensions.

Animation What if …? The series relied on this concept by bringing the storm, another eminent member of the X-Men with the power over the weather. Alison Sealy-Smith, the actress Storm Voice of X-Men: The animated series And last year X-Men ’97 (not officially part of the MCU), returned to express it.

Appearing on a video conference during a convention in Singapore in November, Feige clearly indicated the plan: “I think you will see it continuing in our next films and certain X-Men players that you could recognize. And then just after, the whole story of Secret wars really brings us to a new era of mutants and X-Men. And, once again, one of these dreams realizes that we finally have the X-Men in Marvel Studios. “”

Cumming had fun with his Nightcrawler announcement in Wednesdays Avengers: Doomsday reveal. Treatments The host jumped as part of a video he shared in Instagram, emotional the physicity of his X-Character. “Never say that it never”, he legend the images.

“She’s back. True. Blue,” Romijn wrote in her own Instagram publication, marking the return of mystique after almost 20 years since her last appearance. (Without counting the 2011 camée in X-Men: First class.)

Marvel also pointed out that they have not finished with the flow reveals for Judgment DaySo there may even be more X-Men figures joining the melee before Secret wars. The official Marvel social account on Instagram responded to a comment by Robert Downey Jr. to say: “There is always room for more.”

Avengers: Doomsdaynow in production, he will be released for the first time in theaters on May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: secret wars On May 7, 2027. And, although the film was not officially announced by the studio or planned for the release, Marvel works on the development of a new X-Men film as part of the MCU range. Feige said to the Ometele that he would probably fall after Secret wars.

“Everything led to Doom” seems to be the new slogan to Avengers: DoomsdayBut we now know the real destination of the MCU.