Ideas for Fox's Marvel Movie Future

We're gonna need a little history lesson to start this post out. In the late 90's, Marvel had to declare bankruptcy and in the process had to sell the film rights of some of their characters to movie studios. As of today, the only franchises licensed out to other studios include Spider-Man at Columbia Pictures and X-Men and Fantastic Four at 20th Century Fox. Aside from characters from those series, Marvel Studios owns the film rights to the rest of their character library and has the liberty to use them in their cinematic universe. Given Marvel's success with the Avengers and the shared universe concept, Fox has shown interest in getting a piece of the action. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they want to put the X-Men and Avengers on the same screen (at least not yet). No, their plan is to expand the X-Men movie franchise into a larger universe and include a reboot of the Fantastic Four series; to elaborate, this means the first Fantastic Four films released in 2005 and 2007 will not matter, which makes sense given Chris Evans is now Captain America. Recently, Fox has announced plans for a film based on X-Force; they're like the X-Men, but more militant, black-ops, and willing to kill. Given the information known so far, I, as a fan, would just like to share my ideas for what Fox could do with their own Marvel Universe, going by categories.

 

X-FORCE

 

Some of the things confirmed about the X-Force film is that it won't have a five person line-up but will not have a set line-up from the comics, which leads to believe they will pull members from both the Cable-led and the "Uncanny" versions of the team. This is just wishful thinking, but this is who I believe should make up the film's team:

• Cable: The leader of the original X-Force in the comics, it only makes sense for the future raised son of Cyclops to be a part of the team.
• Wolverine: Aside from being the former leader of the "Uncanny" version of the team, Fox will obviously need a draw for the film, and who better than their poster child for the X-Franchise. It's unknown if Hugh Jackman will continue playing Wolverine after next year's X-Men film, but maybe he can be talked into popping the claws one last time.
• Deadpool: Being Cable's best buddy and part of Wolverine's team, the Merc with a Mouth is a perfect fit for an X-Force film. I can just picture his dialogue now. "Oh look! Bad guys to kill! Okay, I'll stab that one. Shoot that one. Stab. Shoot. Stab. Stab. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Stab AND shoot. That one I'll leave for Logie since I'm such a team player. Stab..." Also, a solo Deadpool film has been in development hell for years, and given his botched appearance as "Barakapool" in 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", he may need another film appearance to get audiences interested in him again.
• Domino: Of course the film needs a badass female on the team, and Domino fits perfectly. Besides that, she has also been involved with both Cable and Deadpool, so it gives the film the chance to show her chemistry with each character.
• Angel: Since he didn't do much in 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand", Angel could stand to have the spotlight on him, and he was part of Wolverine's "Uncanny" team in the comics.

Some other members I thought about for Angel's spot were Colossus and Warpath. While Colossus has made some memorable moments in X-Men 2 and 3 and Warpath will probably do some cool stuff in next year's X-Men, Angel needs to see some real action and not just fly around. To address fans wanting Psylocke in the film, I feel I should point out that she was killed during the Dark Phoenix's rampage at the conclusion of "X-Men: The Last Stand." While the character was hardly used and killed off very quickly, her appearance still stands, and it would help Fox to stand by that use, because the franchise is riddled with continuity hiccups and we really don't need to keep adding to the list.

 

Now there is one issue concerning introducing Cable into the X-Men film series. In the comics, Cable is the son of Cyclops and (technically) Jean Grey. As we saw in "X-Men: The Last Stand" however, both characters were killed. But I have thought of a way to make the character's appearance possible, which brings us to the next category...

 

 

MR. SINISTER AND APOCALYPSE



 

One of the elements that led to Cable's birth was the belief of geneticist Nathaniel Essex, also known as Mr. Sinister, that the offspring of Scott Summers and Jean Grey would produce the perfect mutant being. While in the comics, Cable had been born naturally, I think a way for him to come about in the film continuity with his parents being dead is for Sinister to create the child himself using their genes. In his hubris, Sinister would name him Nathan after himself. Along with that, the clone could also age more rapidly than a normal person, which would explain how he would look so old in the present day films. Eventually Nathan would Sinister and take on the last name Summers after his "true father."

By introducing Sinister, this also opens the opportunity to finally bring Apocalypse into the X-Men franchise, given their rivalry in the comics. It has already been rumored that Apocalypse will be a big part in the future of the X-films. Aside from that, in the comics, Angel has connections to Apocalypse. When Angel loses his wings, he makes a deal with Apocalypse to serve as one of his horsemen, and is given new metal wings, becoming Archangel. If both Apocalypse and Angel would be involved in the X-Force film, this would be a potential storyline to adapt that fans would love to see. There's also the potential of using the recent storyline where Archangel and another Apocalypse horseman, Ichisumi, had twins, Uriel and Eimin. 

 

With the introduction of Mr. Sinister also brings the chance to explore the concept of the "human mutate." To go into detail, a human mutate is a normal human that has been genetically altered with mutant DNA. Sinister himself is one, as is Deadpool, whose healing factor comes from Wolverine. With human mutates, this brings me to an idea that may be controversial to some fans...

 

(I include this picture of the team because I think it would be interesting if Fox would use the white suits this time around. It would also compliment the primarily black uniforms used in the X-Men films.)

 

FANTASTIC FOUR



 

Compared to the other Marvel movie franchises, I feel like the X-Men series is one that could work the best on its own and not necessarily need to cross over with other Marvel characters. With Fox's intention to bring the new Fantastic Four into their existing X-Men universe, I found it would be strange for such a team to be the only non-mutant superheroes in the same world. I wondered how it would actually work, but then the human mutate thought popped into mind.

Here's an idea: without knowing of his true intentions, scientists Reed Richards, Susan Storm, and Victor Von Doom would be analyzing/experimenting on mutant DNA with Essex. Eventually, an accident of some kind, possibly due to Doom's failure of an experiment or during Cable's escape from Sinister, Reed and Sue, along with Reed's best friend/bodyguard Ben Grimm and Sue's brother Johnny, would be embedded with their own mutations. While not mutants by birth, they would develop powers as if they were. Along with that, Doom would be disfigured in the accident, escape the wreckage without everyone else knowing and would be believed to be dead, setting him up to be a villain in a future film.

I realize this is a drastic change from the original Fantastic Four origin, but so was the "Ultimate" version. But this is quite a possibility in bringing these characters into a series dominated by characters being born with powers. It's certainly original and brings about potential plots. While they're not true mutants, would the public still treat them as such?

 

As the Fantastic Four prepare to make their redebut in film, it is quite obvious Fox will plan a team-up movie with the X-Men at some point in the future. But before doing that, we need to reestablish the X-Men back in the present.

 

 

X-MEN 4 AND BEYOND...

 

While I thoroughly enjoyed the First Class prequel, if Fox wants a crossover between their two Marvel teams to happen, they will have to bring about a true X-Men 4. With next year's "Days of Future Past" film will include the casts of the original trilogy and First Class, it seems Fox is heading in that direction by getting audiences settled into the present day cast so they could then work on a film to feature just them, i.e. X-Men 4. To make this clear, I'm classifying "Days of Future Past" as a First Class sequel, because if the film turns out anything like the comic storyline of its namesake, the future timeline that will be shown will be prevented but will still exist as an alternate world. So anything that may happen in the present/future scenes will not matter in the franchise's "main timeline." After this film, it would be nice to see what "really" happened after "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "The Wolverine", and then eventually get to the X-Men/Fantastic Four team-up movie. One of the ideas I have is Wolverine, Storm, Kitty, Bobby, and Beast running the school and we'd get the chance to see some newer mutants that have debuted since the third film. It would be like the concept of the "Wolverine and the X-Men" comic book series.

 

While Fox has had its issues with their Marvel films over the last decade, I feel that they've got their shit together in terms of the future. So as I cautiously look forward to what is to come in the Fox Marvel universe, I can only hope they can avoid any mistakes as bad as Barakapool or Galactus cloud.

Video Game Review- Deadpool: "We're about to change your fucking life."

If anything good came of 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" film, it made me more aware of the character, Deadpool. While his mouthless depiction in the film was terrible, coined by fans as "Barakapool", it did make me want to look more into the real version of the character, and his hilarious antics through comics, internet videos, and video games made me a fan of the character. When it was announced last summer that Deadpool would be getting his own solo game, I was ecstatic. Now that I have finally played it, I can definitely say that it was a game worthy of the character.

First things first though for the uninitiated, who is Deadpool you ask?

While Deadpool has made video game appearances before, he has usually had to share the stage with other Marvel (and Capcom) characters and had to tamed down for T rated gamers. Now with his own M rated game, he can be the Merc with a Mouth he's meant to be: a foul-mouthed, gore loving pervert. Using swords, sai, a variety of guns, not to mention a pair of mallets that create a big mess of henchmen blood, players can enjoy a great mix of action-adventure and shooter games.

As part of Deadpool's hilarious charm, he breaks the fourth wall. For those that don't know what that means, he actually talks to the reader of his comics or the player of his games, i.e., he knows he's a fictional character, though that will be usually written off as part of his psychosis by the other characters he's interacting with. This makes for great comedic moments in the game, such as this clip of him repeatedly slapping an unconscious Wolverine to wake him up:



 Not only that, but there are two songs developed as well. One for Deadpool himself, and this catchy one for his best buddy, Cable:



This is only a fraction of the hilarious moments players can have in the game.

Some reviews complain that the gameplay is repetitive, but when it comes to a guy who solves his problems with weapons, I feel it's forgivable. Besides, the comedy in the game should be enough for players to look past any shortcomings.
While I myself enjoyed the game as much as I hoped I would, I could not help but feel that the finale could have felt a little more "video gamey". Throughout the whole game, Deadpool constantly makes references to being in his own game, talking about levels and upgrades and the like. The final boss of this game was the mutate villain, Mr. Sinister. Gamers know that final bosses once beaten in their first form transform into a stronger form that will definitely be the final battle. Deadpool, however, did not include a "Super Sinister" as the final boss. Even then, Sinister is crushed by a giant Sentinel boot, so it's the ending cinematic that finished the job and not the player. You'd think with a game with a character that knows he's in a game, he'd make sure there'd be a big final battle.
Another thing I didn't really care for was the health meter. Due to his healing factor, one even more powerful than Wolverine's, he can't really die. I know games like this need to have a health meter to make a player feel like they'll fail if it reaches zero, but it doesn't really fit with Deadpool's character. I didn't die that much anyway, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I'm just pointing out the flaw of a health meter for a character that can't die.

Despite some issues, Deadpool is overall entertaining. It's a perfect mix of action-adventure and shooter games that includes enough comedy and gore to appease those who enjoy any or all of the above, especially during the stealth attacks. It's great for Deadpool fans and will definitely create new fans of those who weren't before. If you don't believe me, watch a walkthrough on YouTube first and then play it for your own joyful experience. With that I have two words to say: SEQUEL PLEASE!

Score: 9/10

Now if only they'd get the movie off the ground.