Thanks to Marvel’s unprecedented partnership with Netflix, the superhero studio has been able to mirror their cinematic success with serialized storytelling. Fans and critics held their breath when Daredevil debuted in 2014, and were pleasantly surprised when the show’s bareknuckle adaptation proved to be just what comic readers and TV viewers had been hoping for. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage raised the bar even higher, blending social commentary into the fantastical story to highlight issues like rape and police brutality, respectively. Even Daredevil dealt with issues like gentrification while providing a look at one of the few superheroes with a disability.
With the final Defender just on the horizon, Iron Fist has always seemed like the riskiest bet. Not only are his mystical origins a far-cry from the street-level action we’ve seen so far (give or take a clan of undead ninjas), but the character has long been controversial. While audiences have been repeatedly assured everything will be fine, the initial reviews for Iron Fist have confirmed many people’s worst suspicions. Still, we have hope it can improve. In the meantime, Marvel aren’t slowing down their marketing ahead of the series’ Friday debut.
IGN has a new banner from the show that mirrors similar promo images for Daredevil and Jessica Jones. The heavily-photoshopped art features Danny Rand, along with Colleen Wing and the Meachum family. It also highlights Danny’s neighborhood and teases one of the MCU’s landmarks. Check it out below:
As you can see, the Avengers Tower is quite visible, as it was in the previous banners. Sadly, we’ve never seen the tower in the actual shows. Despite Marvel’s claims that all of their series take place in the same universe, we’ve not had more than a few passing references to the events of the MCU films in the Netflix series. While inserting Avengers Tower into a shot would presumably not be too difficult, Marvel have chosen to forego that Easter egg so far.
As we await the premiere of Iron Fist, we’re learning quite a lot about it. We know, unfortunately, that both Danny’s costume and the dragon Shou-Lao won’t appear in the first season. Given the poor reviews, one has to wonder whether a second season will even happen. There’s always the chance for a Heroes for Hire series, which could further explore Danny’s backstory while allowing him to suit up. On top of that, we’ve also been given a better look at Colleen Wing, who may just prove to be the future of the franchise. There are even more comic characters being teased as set to appear on the show, so if nothing else, this show will be for the fans.
Iron Fistseason 1 premieres on March 17th. The Defenders will arrive sometime in the summer, with The Punisher coming later this year. Daredevil seasons 1 and 2, Jessica Jones season 1, and Luke Cage season 1 are now available on Netflix. Premiere dates for the newest seasons of Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage have not yet been revealed.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them proved to be a welcome and successful return to the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling’s creation. To date, the movie has pulled in over $812 million at the box office, and recently became the first movie within the Harry Potter universe to win an Oscar. It’s fair to say the future looks bright for the four remaining movies in the franchise, too, since audiences really warmed to the characters of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), her sister Queenie (Allison Sudol), and No-Maj Jacob (Dan Fogler).
Fantastic Beasts 2is set to arrive in 2018, and though Newt Scamander will feature, the movie looks set to focus much more heavily on the rise of the dark wizard, Gridelwald (Johnny Depp), and in particular his relationship with a young Dumbledore (yet to be cast). Following on from news that Fantastic Beasts 2 would start filming this summer, and according to My Entertainment World(viaHeroic Hollywood) it now looks certain that it will start shooting this August in Paris and the U.K..
New York is not listed as a filming location this time around. Though it was already known that Fantastic Beasts 2 would be set mainly in Europe, since that was where Grindelwald conducted his reign of terror, it wasn’t known if New York and in particular, MACUSA, would feature at all. That means, then, that somehow Jacob, Queenie and Tina find themselves in Europe; not much of a stretch for Tina since we know she goes onto marry Newt, but it’ll be interesting to see how or if Queenie and Jacob end up there (let’s hope so).
It also paves the way for Credence Barebone to have an interesting journey of some kind, since director David Yates has confirmed that when the obscurus was obliterated, bits of it remained, meaning Credence can return. There was also a scene cut from the ending of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which showed Credence leaving New York on a boat. Given his eerie infatuation with Percival Graves, who turned out to be Grindelwald, and the fact that Grindelwald knows Credence is an obscurus, it seems like only a matter of time before the pair meet again.
Elsewhere, Zoe Kravitz has confirmed that she will also have a bigger arc in the subsequent Fantastic Beasts movies, as Leta Lestrange. Teasing her “complex relationship” with Newt Scamander, Kravitz hinted at having a much larger role than just appearing as a moving photograph. It could well be that her relationship with Newt, and in turn, his relationship with Dumbledore, will all tie in together, as Dumbledore tries to stop Grindelwald’s rise to power.
When Marvel brought Nerd Christmas early in the summer of 2008 by teasing the rise of the Avengers in the tag at the end of Iron Man, even they didn’t fully envision the shared universe they were on the brink of creating. A few years later, The Avengers finally saw a number of their films and heroes join forces for an unprecedented blockbuster that finally proved Marvel and superhero movies were here to stay. Since then, the company has only reached new heights, while virtually every other studio taking steps to build their own shared universe.
Marvel have taken things a step further, spinning off the adventures of Agent Phil Coulson into ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Along with their group of Netflix shows, the TV side of Marvel is said to exist in the same universe as the movies. While it’s merely been alluded to on Netflix, S.H.I.E.L.D. has built entire episodes and seasons around the events of Marvel movies. Given this shared continuity, many have wondered how connected the upcoming Inhumansshow will be to S.H.I.E.L.D. when it premieres on IMAX screens later this year. Not only will both show eventually share a network in ABC, but S.H.I.E.L.D. actually introduced the concept of the Inhumans to the Marvel Cinematic Universe some years back.
Since then, charatcers like Daisy “Quake” Johnson from the Marvel comics (played by Chloe Bennet on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) have even been altered to match their Inhuman heritage on TV. While we haven’t heard any official confirmation of the two ABC Marvel TV shows being intimately connected or sharing characters, a new batch of set photos from @CrlRbs (see below) provides us with one direct connection between the two series.
As Carlos states, that alien writing matches the carvings we saw all throughout season 2 of S.H.I.E.L.D. The mystery of the writing eventually led to the discovery of the Terrigen crystals that transformed Daisy and Raina (and sadly killed Tripp). What’s more, but the comics have used the writing for years within the font of the Inhumans comics, further connecting things. Hopefully, this will just be the first of many threads joining S.H.I.E.L.D. and Inhumans, as the latter recently started shooting a few weeks back.
The beginning of production has also given us our first looks at the announced Inhumans cast in action. We’ve already seen Black Bolt and Lockjaw, and yesterday gave us our first look at Crystal in a very comics-accurate costume. We’ve also heard a rumor about Hawaii’s famous Diamond Head volcanic crater being used as a filming location, possibly to house the Inhuman city of Attilan. With filming continuing out in the open, we’re likely to get a lot more looks at the upcoming show in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.
Inhumans comes to IMAX theaters for two weeks starting Friday, September 1st, prior to its television debut on Tuesday, September 26th on ABC.
While there has already been several crossovers in the first three films of the DCEU and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice directly followed the events of Man of Steel, there has yet to be an official sequel within the universe. That will apparently not be true for much longer, a script is in the works for Man of Steel 2. While there is no word yet on when the sequel will be filmed or released, things are certainly underway. The movie needs a director now, and it seems like Warner Brothers may have someone in mind. Matthew Vaughn.
Matthew Vaughn is no stranger to comic book adaptions; he co-wrote and directed Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Classand Kingsman: The Secret Service and was the first director attached to X-Men: Days of Future Past. When it comes to comic adaptions, it’s clear Vaughn knows what he is doing – and it sounds like Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment agree with that sentiment.
According to Collider, Vaughn is currently in talks to helm the DC Extended Universe-based Superman sequel. Vaughn has spoken publicly about wanting to make a Superman film in the past, going back to before Man of Steel hit the scene. It seems as though he made an impression, as WB apparently wants to give him the reins to Man of Steel 2 – and is willing to give Vaughn a different film, should a deal here fail to materialize.
If Vaughn does get the job, that might signal a shift in tone from what Man of Steel and the rest of the DCEU has thus far been. He’s spoken in the past as to who he thinks Superman is:
“I think that’s the one thing not to do with Superman, trying to do the serious The Dark Knight version. Superman is about color and fun, or it should be, for me.”
Even if it functioned as a soft reboot, it would probably be a bit of work to transform the current film incarnation of the Man of Steel into someone more colorful and fun, at least in a way that seems natural for the character and story. But if Vaughn can find a way to do it, that could have long lasting implications for the entire DCEU. So if he gets the job, there may be a very different series of films on the way than the ones we have seen from DC so far.
Though there are sure to be a number of classic moments from the franchise that we’ll never see on screen, the new movie will also be fleshing out the mythos of the Rangers in a number of ways. Part of that is down to the design of the film itself. We’ve already seen how different villains like Rita Repulsa and Goldar will look in the film. That more alien and organic design will also be carrying over to everyone from Alpha 5 to the Zords themselves. We’ve had a pretty good look at the updated Zords so far, in everything from TV spots to posters. Now, we’ve got a little more insight into the concepts behind their redesign.
During an interview with Collider, Israelite discussed how the new look for the Zords came about, and how the film will expand their backstory.
“The idea is the Zords are machines that take on the form of the most powerful organisms of the planet they’re on. When these Zords came to Earth, dinosaurs reigned supreme and so they took on the image and the spirit of these dinosaurs – that’s the mythology that we’ve put into the movie. But in the concept that we’ve created they’re meant to be inspired by those animals – not an actual, literal, version of it, and so we decided we wanted to take certain liberties, too.”
Israelite went on to talk about trying to craft a unique aesthetic for the movie, in order to separate it from things like Transformers and Star Wars. In doing so, he and the crew tried to craft an organic look for everything, as opposed to simply designing mechanized monsters. In focusing on the more alien elements of the Zords, some liberties had to be taken with the final look of the dinosaur-inspired robots to make them function in a more pragmatic way.
“The other component of it is almost more of a practical component. We look at these renderings and we create a 3D space and we look at how they should move, and you learn a lot from that. And the mastodon is so big that we realized that with added legs it would just move better in a CG environment, and we’d be able to make it a more nimble machine. So it felt kind of like practical; if you were an alien creating this machine, you would want those added limbs.”
Of course, Israelite isn’t using ‘practical’ in the usual sense when it comes to movies. Unlike Fury Road or The Fast and the Furious franchise, Power Rangers won’t be telling their story using very many practical effects. But though the Zords will be all CGI, Israelite’s comments tease the idea that from an alien design point, the giant robots will move in a way that makes sense. Part of that was redesigning the Zords to look like mechanized creatures that could actually run, jump, and fight.
And while we’ve known for some time that the film’s aesthetic would have a more otherworldly bent, all this talk of alien design and an updated mythology make it seem as though the movie might dive into the history of the Power Rangers in new and exciting ways. Over the years, the various TV shows have expanded the lore of the Rangers, but the new film may mark the most concise and cohesive origin yet for the Rangers and their mighty Zords. Whether that holds true or not, we’ll know in a couple of weeks once Power Rangers lands in theaters.
When the first X-Men movie dropped into theaters back in 2000, with a modest budget and few stars, few could have predicted the unbelievable cultural impact that the film would have. Back then a sequel wasn’t a sure thing, but Bryan Singer’s little mutant sci-fi film paved the way for superhero cinema as we know it today. Since then, Fox has released nine more movies in the X-Men universe, culminating in Logan — a tense, heartbreaking finale to the X-Men as we know them, finally bringing the series full circle. Throughout these films, the series has weaved together a complex continuity, with characters that grow old, change, die, and inspire others.
There have certainly been continuity errors throughout the X-Men series. Unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the X-Men films weren’t planned out in advance, so mistakes were made along the way. But in the long road from X-Men to Logan, a fascinating, mutant-influenced alternate history has been developed, full of intriguing divergences from our own version of history — along with similarities that call attention to our greatest societal mistakes. The X-Men’s mutant conflicts have always been used as a political allegory for real life issues, and the movies have taken this to the next level, through the use of prequels, back stories, and peeks into the future, with major events tied to specific dates.
But this raises an interesting question: if one lived in the X-Men movie universe, and was sitting in Logan’s history class as a student of Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, what sort of lessons would they be learning?
Alternative History Lessons
Since the X-Men movies were not made in chronological order, it requires some work to put the X-Men history book together. And their history, of course, isn’t over: while we now have a definite endpoint in the future of 2029, there’s plenty of still unknown time between then and the 1990s, when the next X-Men sequel will come out. But since Logan tells the story of a day when the X-Men are no more, and thus gives us a conclusion, we can now look over the entire alternate history of this movie universe from the beginning until now.
All of the best alternate history theories pivot around a single change, and how that one change impacts everything. You know, the butterfly effect. What would happen if the Nazis won WWII? How would today’s music scene be different if Kurt Cobain hadn’t committed suicide? The key is to start with one change, drop that single stone into the river, and watch the ripples spread.
In the X-Men universe, that single change to the timeline is easy to pinpoint: the existence of mutants.
Lesson #1: Ancient Egypt & Apocalypse
So, how would history students study Apocalypse?- what would the textbooks say? In the pre-Days of Future Past timeline, he never rose up again, so he would likely be viewed as a mythological god, discussed in the same chapter as Ra, Anubis, and Set.
Really, there’s no way that En Sabah Nur wouldn’t be a major mythological figure that history students would write papers on. After all, the guy singlehandedly constructed the pyramids with his powerful telekinetic abilities. His fearsome appearance would likely be depicted in countless relics, murals, statues, scrolls, and so on. In X-Men: Apocalypse, Moira MacTaggert even proposed the notion that the biblical “Four Horseman of the Apocalypse” were named after his horseman, not the other way around.
But in the X-Men universe, contemporary historians probably don’t think that En Sabah Nur was a mutant. In fact, they probably don’t believe he actually existed in real life. There would be some historians who would propose the “Maybe Apocalypse was a mutant?” theory, but these ones are outliers, most likely mocked by the scholarly community. Even in the post-Days of Future Past timeline, the general public wouldn’t have any reason to associate the big blue mutant overlord with the historical En Sabah Nur.
Lesson #2: Magneto Studies
After Apocalypse, the timeline wasn’t much influenced by mutant activity (at least, not that we know of) until the mid-20th century, when mutants began to emerge more frequently. When WWII came along, it played a key role in shaping the single most controversial mutant of the 20th century -a figure who would certainly be discussed in history classes for decades to come, and who would the singular focus of millions of magazine articles, research papers, and books.
Lehnsherr’s story began when his family was murdered in the Holocaust, decades before mutant powers become public knowledge. This event scarred Lehnsherr for life, and eventually led to him becoming Magneto, who in the X-Men universe would certainly be seen by authorities and the news media in the same context as Osama Bin Laden. Unlike the universally reviled Bin Laden, however, there would probably also be studies and news analysis pieces debating whether there were merits to Lehnsherr’s argument, and whether perhapshis cause was justified, if not his methods. Some would argue that he was a terrorist, others would say he was a freedom fighter.
If there were a college course devoted to the subject of “Magneto Studies,” it would certainly begin with the Holocaust, at which point the next important point in history would be the Cuban Missile Crisis. In X-Men: First Class, the incident itself was actually manipulated into happening by Sebastian Shaw, the leader of the Hellfire Club. But the point where history started really diverging from our timeline was in that single moment where Magneto took control of all of the missiles, turned them around, and got ready to make his first massive strike on human society. Even though this bloodbath was halted, this was the first time in history where mutantkind was truly unveiled to the world’s governments, and Magneto didn’t set the best first impression.
Only one year later, Magneto was implicated in the murder of John F. Kennedy Jr., his metal-controlling powers offering the best explanation ever for the oft-disputed “magic bullet” theory. Based on Charles and Hank’s discussion of Erik’s imprisonment in Days of Future Past, it can be reasonably assumed that Erik Lehnsherr’s supposed guilt in the assassination was common knowledge, even if his mutant powers were not (yet).
Lesson #3: Anti-Mutant Prejudice Begins
Once we get to 1973, when Days of Future Past takes place, the history book gets complicated. Due to time travel interference, the entire course of history was changed. Because the new X-Men movies are taking place on the altered timeline, much of history from 1973 onward is unknown to us. For that reason, when studying a hypothetical X-Men history book, it’s necessary to continue on with the original timeline. Also, for the sake of argument, it’s conceivable that Xavier may want to teach his students about the original timeline, so that they could know what to watch out for.
In any case, 1973 is a pivotal year. In the original timeline, Mystique assassinated Trask and was captured, eventually leading to the development of Sentinels modeled after her powers. Soon after, the world truly learned about mutants, and opinions began to form. The human/mutant conflict erupted.
According to 25 Moments, a cool viral marketing website that Fox released in conjunction with Days of Future Past, by the mid-1970s Professor Charles Xavier was presenting himself before the U.S. House of Representatives, where he pleaded for basic mutant rights. In 1977, Pietro “Peter” Maximoff decided to compete in the Olympics. When Quicksilver broke eight world records, it ignited a massive controversy that resulted in a complete ban from mutants participating in sports.
In the 1980s, the televangelist Bob Bell began an organization called “The Human Majority,” which believed mutants were a curse. The Chernobyl catastrophe caused the spread of new mutant births all over Eastern Europe, included Piotr Rasputin/Colossus. Germany formally adopted anti-mutant policies, and a resulting mutant riot led to more bloodshed; in this universe, the Berlin Wall was never knocked down.
Lesson #4: The New Millennium Begins
Any study in 21st century mutant history would be closely tied in with Magneto Studies. While Charles Xavier was an equally important historical figure, his role was quieter, whereas Magneto was busy mounting violent offensives against the human race. Since the US Government had an anti-mutant agenda, it would have used Magneto’s image as a propaganda tool to fuel anti-mutant sentiment. Holding up Magneto as a symbol of mutantkind would allow politicians to pass controversial policies like the Mutant Registration Act, whereas devoting any attention to Xavier and Jean Grey’s pleas for peace could potentially lead to pro-mutant sympathy.
Thus, Magneto was the single most controversial mutant in history, and the most prominent. And his actions in the 21st century were a big reason why.
First of all, there was the Statue of Liberty incident. This didn’t claim too many lives thanks to the X-Men, but it still would have been a huge deal in the news. Keep in mind, at this point Magneto was a wanted felon – the mutant who murdered JFK. His mutant terrorist group barging into the Statue of Liberty and flashing some weird lights at the top would be scary stuff to people sitting at home. In X2: X-Men United, viewers see the near-extinction of mutants, immediately followed by Magneto causing the near-extinction of humans, but Lehnsherr’s involvement in this would not have been clear to the general public.
The miraculous thing is that after all of this went down, the United States actually started to turn around in its stance on mutants. A pro-mutant president was elected to office, and Hank McCoy was even appointed to the position of Secretary of Mutant Affairs. Things were looking up for the first time in history.
Flashforward to San Francisco, 2006, where it all came crashing back down.
When Worthington Labs announced a mutant “cure,” Magneto sprang back into action. After gathering a massive army of mutants behind him, including the Phoenix, Magneto staged his first true act of war against the human race: he tore the entire Golden Gate Bridge off of its roots, and then unleashed hundreds of bloodthirsty mutants upon the Worthington Labs facility on Alcatraz.
Consider the scale of this for a moment. Forget that the X-Men intervened to save the day, or that Wolverine stopped Jean Grey from blowing up the entire city, because the news media and general public wouldn’t know any of that stuff. What they would know is that the most wanted man on the planet had just destroyed a national landmark in the name of war — most likely killing thousands.
In the X-Men universe, this “Golden Gate Bridge Attack” would have been their 9/11. In this one action, Magneto implicated all of mutantkind as being enemies of the American people. The bomb had finally dropped.
In the X-Men universe there was never any “War on Terror,” because the “War on Mutants” took its place. Mutants were questioned, deported, subjected to police brutality, killed in hate crimes, and thrown into Guantanamo Bay. Every mutant was accused of being a secret agent for Magneto, and forced to register. And sure enough, what did all of this end up leading to?
Sentinels.
Lesson #5: The Future That Almost Was, And Then Wasn’t
Days of Future Past paints a pretty clear picture of what happened at this point. The Anti-Mutant movement reached fever pitch, mutants were thrown in concentration camps, the US government commissioned Sentinels from Trask Industries… and oops, there goes the world. After almost all of the mutants have been eliminated, the Sentinels then turned their guns on the humans.
Until the X-Men sent Wolverine back in time. The efforts of Xavier’s team saved the entirety of humanity from themselves. This would be the final history lesson for students at Xavier’s school, at which point they’d be dragged to Professor Beast’s science class so they could learn weird, confusing lessons about time travel.
However, for human students, their lessons would continue all the way to 2029, which we now know as the endpoint. By then, a new question has arisen:
Lesson #6: Where Did All the Mutants Go?
While the future world depicted in Logan isn’t so great, it’s certainly better than the post-apocalyptic scenario featured in Days of Future Past. Logan shows a country where corporate greed, genetically engineered crops, and anti-immigrant nationalism have choked the life out of the economy, easily making it the most political X-Men movie to date. While people in this society are getting by, they’re struggling, and it shows. Mutants, once poised to take over the human race, have mostly died out, and no new mutants are being born, thanks to Zander Rice’s high fructose corn syrup.
But what’s most significant here, as far as the history of the X-Men, is that at this point the context in which mutants are viewed has entirely changed. Now that they’re no longer a “threat” for human survival, people have become nostalgic about mutants, and celebrate their past achievements, or are excited when they run into one of them. The X-Men have become iconic heroes of the past, pop culture icons whose past heroism is never questioned. Comic books are made of them. Parents probably brag to their kids about the time “the X-Men saved me.”
Strange as this might seem, it’s actually quite realistic. Real life heroes and social movements are often controversial in their time — but in later decades, these figures become celebrated as icons. It makes sense that in this universe the X-Men would be treated the same way. Even though the mutant gene was suppressed, and even though the X-Men never lived to see themselves accepted, their legacy will live on… and in the history books, they will be forever memorialized as the heroes that they really were.
