X-MEN ended its 20th Century Fox run with the not-so-loved DARK PHOENIX last year and now the brand is in the trusted hands of Disney/Marvel Studios. We don't know exactly when the X-Men will make their MCU debut but the series showrunner of X-Men: The Animated Series, Eric Lewald, thinks that adding mutants into the MCU is going to be a problem
During a talk with "The GWW", Lewald weighed in on the challenges that might be faced by introducing the X-Men into the world of the MCU:
"It's weird. I know that's a challenge. [The MCU has] set up this thing, unprecedented – all these different superheroes that all are successful, and they've managed to give them different tones and different focuses. I'm continually in the awe of this juggernaut that they've set up – I can't use that word because it's a character. I don't know. I don't know how Kevin Feige sleeps at night trying to keep all these balls in the air. But for the X-Men, when people ask me about integrating them in the MCU, I always had the reverse problem. There were too many X-Men and too many villains already in the X-universe and too many connected characters. I found myself cutting half of them out and having stories about three of the X-Men. Just to keep sane and to not have to try to service all of them at once in a 22-minute episode."
Lewald brings up a solid point and it has been one that has plagued pretty much all the X-MEN films. Even the films in the franchise that are stellar have a problem with being overstuffed with characters that don't get the attention they deserve. Many of the main X-MEN films have mostly centered on Wolverine while the bloated ensemble has to fight for their moment to shine. It's not enough that you get a cool scene of Storm controlling the weather or seeing Cyclops blast beams from his signature visor. You want these characters to get their due because their origins are so rich in the source material and yet the films never quite gave some of the main players much of a narrative reason for existing. For Lewald, he remembers his own time on the animated show and he had more freedom of creation than the current state of the MCU:
"It's such an immensely huge thing now. There's so many billions of dollars and so many hundreds of thousands of people that are focused on this now. It's so odd to us because this was like a little garage band to us. We just had this stuff dumped on our lap and [they] said, 'Make a show, we'll let you know if it's successful or not.' No real oversight, no micromanaging. Just the show that we and the artists wanted to slap together. It's a whole nother world now."
There has been no word on how the X-Men will be integrated into the MCU and I'm sure when they get their own solo film again, maybe more attention will be made to spreading the focus evenly through the ensemble. The MCU is already so big and adding the X-Men and eventually, the Fantastic 4 will only expand on that so it will be interesting to see how Marvel will balance all of these characters.
How do YOU think the X-Men should be integrated into the MCU? Do YOU think the MCU will become too bloated with their addition?