Tag: fox

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For your approval, I submit what can be called a distillation of Marvel’s response to fans calling out the company trying to undermine the X-Men franchise.

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we’re really just emphasizing the Avengers in Avengers vs X-Men because it makes for good story.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we’re really just having Havok claim the word mutant is like the n-word and mutant culture should be discarded because it makes for good story.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we’re not removing X-Men from merchandise at all even though we’ve literally removed them from shirts and such and refuse to make any new major video games or cartoons focused on the X-Men.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, Inhumanity isn’t an attempt to replace mutants with Inhumans, it’s just bringing them to Earth for good story.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we didn’t force a retcon on Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver being Magneto’s kids to sever their ties to the X-Men franchise, it’s just for good story.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, the Terrigen Mist killing mutants and sterilizing them isn’t being used to literally kill the franchise and keep mutants from staying involved in the Marvel universe. It’s just for good story. Cutting the number of X-Men books down from around 14 to around 6 is just for sales reasons.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, purging almost everything X-Men from the official Marvel shop is just because they aren’t selling and we need to focus on what sells.”

I also submit for approval, a distillation of what we can expect out of Marvel in the future. I say these knowing full well that people working at Marvel can read this post and will absolutely change their plans if they’re afraid it’s too on the nose and too many people expect it.

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, Death of X killing the entire concept of X-Men is purely for good story. Giving the Inhumans all the qualities of the X-Men franchise is pure coincidence.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we’re not excluding

X-Men from major Marvel events, they just aren’t relevant to the stories we’re trying to tell and we don’t want to force them.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, killing off all the remaining notable X-Men and introducing remarkably similar Inhumans characters is just for good story.“

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we’re not rewriting old storylines solely to purge any need to reference the X-Men, we’re just modernizing old storylines that have become outdated.”

“Don’t believe the conspiracy theories, we’re not trying to purge all evidence the X-Men were ever a thing, we’re just not forcing people to see stuff unrelated to what our focus is on.”

“Wait, what? X-Men? Why do you want us to do anything with Fox’s films when we have Inhumans?”

Have I covered the full timeline? I don’t know. Maybe someone from the future can come by to fill in details I missed in Marvel’s path toward tearing down the X-Men franchise just because Fox owns the film rights and only the film rights.

Metal Gear Solid V’s opening day was twice as good as Avengers: Age of Ultron’s

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Hello! This is where I say some “I told you so” kind of things about Marvel.

I’ve said for a while now, Marvel is behind the times. Not by a huge lag time, they still hit on stuff that’s relevant, but they do so later than the rest of the world has gotten to that point. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is impressive,and innovative, but it also comes late. If we’re talking comics companies, DC was on the ball for the Dark Knight films well before Marvel had much to offer films-wise, and DC’s Arkham series of games were also a big milestone for comic book based video games while Marvel currently doesn’t have much to show for it.

And if we’re talking massive universe in multiple installments and forms of media? The .hack franchise beat Marvel to the punch a good decade early. That was a major multimedia undertaking that encompassed anime and video games mainly, but also manga.

What I’m getting at here is this: video games outrank films for revenue AND for hype among Marvel’s target demographics, and unlike films, Marvel actually has full control over what they do or don’t do with video games. No matter what Fox does or doesn’t do, there is nothing to stop Marvel from making a game about the X-Men or Fantastic Four that earns far more money and likely costs less to make than anything Fox could put out.

This is what I’ve meant every time I said Marvel undermining the X-Men and Fantastic Four on their end as an attempt to spite Fox is only really hurting Marvel. Fox isn’t the one missing out on the buzz and revenue a video game could provide, Marvel is.

Of course, we learned just yesterday that two X-Men TV shows are in the works. Hopefully this means Marvel’s finally moving away from an end point of Pyrrhic victory and toward actual victory.

Metal Gear Solid V’s opening day was twice as good as Avengers: Age of Ultron’s

X-Men Is Coming to Television With 2 New Shows

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I’m honestly surprised by this news. Very, very surprised.

We heard about a year ago that there were talks for X-Men TV shows. One of the frontrunner concepts heard about at the time was something based on X-Factor. However, with everything Marvel’s done to the X-Men over the past year and the big role for Quicksilver for the coming film, it was expected any TV plans got shelved.

Now, against all odds, it’s actually happening.

To be completely honest, I don’t think I’ll be watching either show unless Polaris is on one or both of them. The X-Men franchise certainly has a lot of potential and promise that doesn’t require Lorna, but she’s the real draw for me. Of course, that can change, based entirely on Marvel’s future behavior.

Still, rare moment where I can say something good about Marvel’s execs. They actually set aside ego and greed long enough to let something like this happen. Hopefully we see more such actions in the future. Restoring Wanda and Pietro as Magneto’s kids and allowing Lorna to interact with them as their sister would be especially nice.

X-Men Is Coming to Television With 2 New Shows

Could the daughter be Polaris ?

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modecrash:

I hope so, but it seems unlikely. Hopefully.

I’m not sure if this is in reference to the little girl from Days of Future Past, the woman behind Magneto in the recent trailer, or something else I missed.

If it’s DoFP, Bryan Singer recently went out of his way to make it not Lorna by saying she was just a girl put in there for Quicksilver to interact with.

Aside from that, Bryan Singer de-confirmed Scarlet Witch by saying he has no plans for her at all and wants to put all his focus on Quicksilver alone. While doing that, he was willing to name Wanda as a relationship relevant to Quicksilver (and obviously he should), but not Lorna.

At present, I get a feeling Fox won’t get anywhere near making the most of the Magnus family until Bryan Singer isn’t around. That’s the sense I get from current plans and comments by him that I’ve recently seen.

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notthedeadguy:

If Magneto’s new “family” does not involve Lorna Dane I will literally eradicate Fox where it stands. 

I’m currently really disappointed that Bryan Singer doesn’t want to use Lorna and Wanda. Marvel absolutely refuses to use the whole family, so Fox is the only place we have any chance of seeing it. I want to see the sisters doing awesome sister stuff together and the very different yet compelling relationships Pietro can have with both his sisters, but Singer seems to only want Quicksilver and Magneto, the male half of the family.

The family is rife with potential, but it’s potential he seems to not want to use at all. Just like Marvel, he’s throwing away a gold mine of opportunity for no good reason.

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sabrethemage:

salarta:

sabrethemage:

If I wanted to see Scarlet Witch in Age of Apocalypse before, Age of Ultron made me REALLY want to see her. Although given the death of a certain silver haired cinnamon roll, I’m starting to guess that Marvel and Fox have a parent trap type deal like “K, you have Quicksilver, but Scar is ours.” Is it even possible that she could appear in the X-Men Cinematic Universe? I would KILL for a spin-off film focusing on Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Polaris. 

I NEED MY TWINS TOGETHER AGAIN!!

I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox and Disney/Marvel made such a deal, but if they did, Fox made a huge mistake. They’re the company that has control over the whole Magnus family, which means they could do a whole Magnus family direction including sister time with Lorna and Wanda. Right now, I also feel like I can safely say that any such deal made by Disney/Marvel is with malicious intent – meaning Disney/Marvel are doing it purely to try to hurt Fox rather than to move toward working things out with Fox.

I agree entirely. Especially on the point of it being malicious. Honestly, I do think Disney wants Fox to be damaged as much as possible. Which really sucks. Let Fox keep X-men and leave them be. 

My opinion of each company and the X-Men film rights is malleable. It can change depending on how well or poorly each company treats the X-Men franchise with the rights they have.

I’ve seen people claim Fox is the problem, but if they are, it’s behind closed doors. If there’s no way I can see and confirm it, why should I trust it? It’s all gossip and hearsay. I have to go by the evidence in front of me, and right now, the evidence says 1) Disney and Marvel are the bad actors in this situation, and 2) Fox appreciates and deserves the X-Men franchise far more than Disney and Marvel ever will.

Disney and Marvel constantly undermine and damage the Fantastic Four and X-Men franchises on their end. They tear down key figures in the X-Men franchise, like Magneto and Cyclops, to build up the Avengers. They undo decades of canon, as in the case of forcing a retcon to try to make Wanda and Pietro no longer Magneto’s kids, just to sever ties the X-Men franchise has with everything else in the Marvel universe. They let the Avengers franchise control and dictate the narrative of the X-Men franchise with stunts like Avengers vs X-Men, Axis and Havok’s anti-mutant speech alongside going out of the way to depict characters like Rogue horribly outside the X-books.

Disney and Marvel are even trying to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans. They’re trying to turn everything that defines the X-Men franchise into stuff the Inhumans control, while stripping those elements out of the X-Men franchise.

Disney and Marvel don’t appreciate or respect the Fantastic Four or X-Men franchises. Not one bit. If they did, they wouldn’t be going out of their way to ruin those franchises. Disney and Marvel would be treating the X-Men franchise as best as they could, to show by example that they’re better for the film rights than Fox.

My respect for Disney and Marvel is equal to the respect they show for things I care about. High respect leads to high respect, and disrespect earns disrespect. When Disney and Marvel are ready to treat the X-Men franchise better in the comics, I’ll be ready to trust they can be better for the film rights than Fox. Undoing their recent forced retcon on Wanda and Pietro’s parentage would be a good start.

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kurt-banged-her:

salarta:

invisiblelad:

nextreact:

“I’m glad you’re here with me, Sam… here at the end of all things”

Magneto #18 Last Days

Well at least one kid gets closure

At least he still has one not retconned child. 

As far as I’m concerned, Marvel stopped writing comics with Wanda and Pietro in them before Axis. Wanda and Pietro are still Magneto’s kids, and I’m looking forward to when Marvel decides to start writing them again so I can see more awesome Lorna and Wanda sister time.

I’m steeling myself for the likelihood that we won’t see the real Wanda and Pietro again for another 10 years or so. Maybe longer.

like Marvel can literally not erase this family because of the fanbase and the fact Fox seems to be eager to capitalize on it.

and just look at how many jokes fans made about Magneto being in AoU? does Marvel think they can erase that idea ahahaha jokes on u Marvel punk ass fuckboys

Fox hasn’t done much with the family just yet. They acknowledged Pietro exists (… as Peter), put in a very subtle hint that he’s related to Magneto, and elements cut from the final film imply Wanda is in the same house as him (and that the little girl might be Lorna), but that’s as far as we’ve got so far.

From Fox’s perspective, it would be ideal for Apocalypse to lead into a storyline featuring Genosha and Magneto’s entire family. Now is an especially good time for Fox to strike in that vein, because Marvel has pissed off a lot of fans that Fox can now easily win over.

But so far, Fox hasn’t tried to take advantage of Marvel’s mistake by hyping up any of Magneto’s family as part of the movie. That they haven’t done so suggests one of many possible things as I see it. One, perhaps the family isn’t in Apocalypse or doesn’t have a very big role. Two, those elements may not be finished yet or Fox may want to promote them later at a time they deem more market-friendly (same reason they haven’t announced who the Horsemen are, I’m sure). Three, contrary to what Disney or Marvel would like people to believe, Fox really is more than willing to sit down and strike a deal, but Disney/Marvel are the difficult ones.

The reasoning behind number 3 there is that perhaps Fox is refraining from using or promoting the Magnus family much because they know it’d upset Disney/Marvel and make striking a deal more difficult.

I’ve also considered the prospect that maybe there’s some legal hurdles with Fox using Wanda and Pietro that makes using them as Magneto’s family difficult or impossible without Marvel approval, but if that’s the case, it wouldn’t explain why we have yet to see Lorna. Fox definitely doesn’t need Marvel’s approval to use her as Magneto’s daughter.

So I’m curious if they wanted to keep the continuity in the comics then the issue lies with Century Twentieth Fox and Marvel. Marvel did a dick move with the comics but has Fox done anything in their own right to mess things up? Shouldn’t there be emphasis on the studios working together? Rather than Marvel destroying its comic continuity and getting over their rival with Fox Studios.

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fuckyeahwandamaximoff:

The problem here is that Marvel doesn’t have a good relationship with Fox (some say it comes all the way from the negotiations over those movie rights in the 90′s, that Marvel ended up getting too little for them or something). The consequence of that is that Marvel doesn’t make as much money from cartoons, toys, and other merchandise of X-Men and Fantastic Four as they do from stuff they own the full rights to, like Avengers and GotG, or Spider-Man, which they now share with Sony (we don’t know the full details of any of this, but it’s what we get from what people who work at Marvel, like Brevoort, have said on the subject). They’re a big company that are in this for the money, so why would they put their dollars in something that would barely bring them any return? It makes sense from a business point of view. 

As much as we hate the changes Marvel is going through and want to lash out at all this nonsense, they’re not doing this to screw with Fox, or because they think it’s a better story, like they claim. They’re doing this because it’s better for their business to have a cohesive universe where the characters who are part of the Avengers or the Guardians on the comics are mostly the same as the general audience can see on the movies, where the origins of said characters might not be the same in both universes, but they’re not so disparate either. So, yes, while part of the reason they changed the Maximoffs’ origins so they’re no longer mutants or Magneto’s kids is, in a way, to avoid connections to Fox and sending curious fans and their money their way, the main reason is that they believe turning the comics into a universe that is closer to what the MCU fans recognize than it has been so far will bring over more readers their way.

In conclusion: capitalism sucks.

My own addendum: in addition to capitalism, Disney and Marvel increasingly suck too.

I understand their “logic,” it’s just that it’s stupid ass “logic” that’s only hurting themselves and giving no greater or even equal payoff in return. If it’s hurting Fox at all, the damage is incredibly minor, while Disney and Marvel are ruining their own franchises and pushing away customers they don’t need to lose. Even the “logic” of doing it to attract movie fans is shoddy, because nearly all the movie fans will do whatever they were going to do regardless.

Disney and Marvel are essentially doing the equivalent of turning away thousands of fans they could very easily keep by not ruining anything in order to add a little extra charm to wooing a few hundred potential new fans.

Why I Support Fox Keeping the X-Men Film Rights

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I’ve been saying this a lot in isolated cases on Twitter and Tumblr, I think it’s time I write a dedicated Tumblr post.

I currently support Fox keeping the X-Men film rights, and keeping themselves far away from Marvel and its Cinematic Universe. I’ll be covering three topics.

1) Disney/Marvel doesn’t appreciate or respect the X-Men franchise
2) Disney/Marvel would NEVER use Polaris with her family in the MCU, and doesn’t respect her anyway
3) The MCU is going to crash and burn anyway around 2020

1) Disney/Marvel doesn’t appreciate or respect the X-Men franchise

Everyone that reads comics already knows all about the forced retcon of Scarlet Witch (Wanda) and Quicksilver (Pietro) out of being Magneto’s kids. There’s more going on than that.

Every crossover event is specifically designed to give the Avengers franchise a boost and tear out or ruin something about the X-Men franchise. Avengers vs X-Men was set up to kill off Professor Xavier, turn key X-Men figures like Cyclops into terrorist villain types, and give the Avengers franchise more authority in pulling stunts like Havok’s “don’t call us mutants“ speech in the Avengers books. Axis permitted the Avengers franchise to turn Genosha into an Avengers location, use Professor Xavier’s mind to fuel hate, and to make Magneto look bad.

Marvel won’t make X-Men cartoons or video games anymore. The last one was an under-the-radar anime, and the last one before that was Wolverine and the X-Men, which they canceled very shortly after Disney took over despite having all of season 2 and even part of season 3 planned.

Marvel is even trying to hide the X-Men franchise where they think they can get away with it. San Diego Comic Con, they provided no dedicated panel for the X-Men; it was only shown when paired with Avengers. This is compared to how they had a panel dedicated to Spider-Verse when at the time, the X-Men had four more books coming out than all of Spider-Verse. Further, when Days of Future Past came out, Marvel 1) didn’t try to get people to read X-Men comics to turn them into Marvel fans, and 2) kept Quicksilver off the covers for All-New X-Factor while it was in theaters.

2) Disney/Marvel would NEVER use Polaris with her family in the MCU, and doesn’t respect her anyway

During Children’s Crusade, the Avengers books had a House of M portrait redrawn to remove Lorna.

During Avengers vs X-Men, Lorna only appeared as a nameless cameo, one that her entire family ignored – even to the point where Magneto ignored her being mind-controlled into submission by Emma Frost, even though he’d just gone into space to rescue her.

During Axis, Lorna was segregated only to All-New X-Factor and kept from being anywhere near the main events… while the variant for Axis #1 was specifically designed to make Enchantress look more like Polaris, by recoloring her blonde hair as green and Wanda’s brown hair as red.

During No More Humans, Wanda and Pietro got to be with their father Magneto, but once again, Lorna was nowhere to be seen.

When Peter David provided us with Lorna and Wanda spending time as sisters for the first time in 10 years, Marvel not only didn’t promote it, but withheld the cover until less than a week before release – when it would be too late for most casual fans to find out and preorder a copy.

All of the above is in addition to general lack of respect for Lorna. She was excluded completely from the X-Men amalgam covers meant to celebrate the franchise’s history, yet Havok got to be on it, even though Lorna was created BEFORE Havok (back in 1968) and was the first female X-Men member to join after Jean Grey. X-Factor #243 by Peter David gave us Lorna’s origin story, something she’d lacked for over 40 years, and it got no promotion. Imagine if Storm went for 4 decades without an origin story, then she finally got one and Marvel did nothing to promote it.

If Marvel were to somehow strike a deal with Fox or get the X-Men film rights back, I can guarantee you based on their activity when they don’t have those film rights that they would completely exclude Polaris.

Marvel acknowledges and respects characters like Havok, Rogue, Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops. They do not acknowledge and respect Polaris. If they did, she would get to do more and be more involved than she currently is, and they sure as hell wouldn’t have excluded her from her family or refused to promote stuff where she does spend time with them.

They would never use Polaris. They would only use those other characters they consider “more important” and “more deserving” of use and respect than her. They’ve allowed a lot of great depictions for her lately, but great depictions are not the same thing as taking part in major events, promotion, or getting to be included with her family.

By contrast, Fox owning the film rights means they have to make do with what they have. They have to look within the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises and ONLY those franchises for options. That improves Lorna’s odds of getting used with her family.

Nevermind the fact that Disney is obsessed with the idea that Marvel is “for boys only” with their films, as people have noted the serious lack of both female superheroine representation and merchandise when it comes to the MCU. That means we’re unlikely to ever see Lorna and Wanda together as sisters in the current MCU no matter what happens.

3) The MCU is going to crash and burn around 2020

We’re already seeing it in motion, and I predicted this well before the signs appeared.

Marvel has a huge cinematic universe. DC has a huge cinematic universe coming up. Disney’s going to do it with Star Wars. Sony had that plan for the Spider-Man films. Universal is considering one for its monsters. The hot new trend for films is massive cinematic universes where films interact and build off each other.

All these cinematic universes already mean an absurd amount of demand for consumer dollars, and with prices and the economy as they are as well as how much supporting media is out there, there’s just no way people will be able to hold on like they have. The Marvel Cinematic Universe got lucky because they were the first to try something on the scale they did; they’re not so special anymore once everyone else is doing it.

And we’re now getting to the real meat of why the MCU is going to crash and burn: way, way, WAAAAY too much saturation. We’re going to have three films per year. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the air, as well as Agent Carter. There’s Daredevil, with four others planned. The Avengers film about the Infinity Gems is going to be a two-parter.

This is overkill. I don’t care how optimistic you are and how much you love the MCU, the average person is not nearly as devoted. There’s a reason the Superman, Batman, X-Men, Spider-Man, etc films started off strong and eventually wound up putting out box office and critical bombs.

I’m a big video game fan. I’m VERY aware of what happens when you oversaturate a market. Activision completely killed the music game genre for half a decade by pumping out too many Guitar Hero games. Rock Band and Guitar Hero games are coming out this year, and we still don’t know how successful they’ll be.

By contrast, Fox isn’t doing anything nearly as over-ambitious. They have a Fantastic Four film. They have X-Men: Apocalypse and a Gambit film in the works. While Marvel’s busy overloading the market, Fox is pacing itself, and they’ve presented the X-Men franchise JUST different enough that it’s not entirely a “superhero” genre film series anymore. Days of Future Past is proof of that.

And aside from all the above, there is increasingly more and more judgment and flak aimed at the MCU. Some of this is purely because it’s so successful right now, success often causes people to be more critical than they normally are. But the thing is, a critical eye leads people to see flaws. Flaws lead to loss of interest, which leads to a smaller audience and a loss of sales. Not listening to criticism is even more damning, and Disney has shown no signs of a willingness to listen to anyone about anything until it’s too late.

In conclusion

I’m not saying Fox is the best most awesome company ever. I’m not saying Marvel couldn’t do the family better if it really tried.

I’m saying I trust Fox far, far more than Disney/Marvel.

Disney/Marvel has demonstrated repeatedly that it does not respect the X-Men, the Magnus family, or Polaris herself. In the comics, Disney/Marvel are willing to undermine and sacrifice the entire X-Men franchise and things like 30 years of family relationships just because it wants a little more money.

Disney/Marvel have visibly demonstrated by their actions that they can take or leave the franchise, and they don’t deserve it anyway. If they cared about it in any way, they wouldn’t be destroying it in the comics. They would be making a solid case for why they’re better for the franchise, so that fans would be inclined to boycott the X-Men films until Fox makes a deal with Marvel.

Which is where I sit on the issue. Disney and Marvel haven’t done anything to woo me to them. They’ve only pushed me away. I’ll be happy to support Marvel getting the film rights back or Fox striking a favorable deal for them as soon as Disney/Marvel give me a reason to trust they’re better for the franchise, the Magnus family and Polaris than Fox.

Until then, I’m going to support Fox. They may do stupid and awful things like turn Pietro into Peter, but at the end of the day, they’re the only chance we’ll see the Magnus family. Disney and Marvel have already shown us there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell they’ll ever give us that under their current leadership.

How I Would Make An X-Men Movie

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wait-till-they-hear-about-this:

Cyclops: Just swim over there and take him from behind.
Wolverine: I weigh 800lbs, there is no “swim”.
Next Scene~
Professor X: We head out at dawn.
Jubilee: I’m a vampire.
Professor X: Fine, dusk!
Jubilee: There’s still a little daylight then and I’m still a vampire.
Next Scene~
Iceman: Hang on, Logan!
Wolverine: I WEIGH 800LBS, THIS IS THE END FOR ME!
Next Scene~
Nightcrawler: Merry Christmas, Kitty!
Shadowcat: You stupid fucking waffle cone, I’m Jewish.
Next Scene~
Magneto: We must kill all humans! But first, it’s Lorna’s nap time.
Quicksilver: WTF DAD
Magneto: Shut up, I’m not even your real dad. At least this one’s actually mine!
Next Scene~
Professor X: Raven and I are having a child.
*distant sounds of disgust follow*
Iceman: This is almost as gross as that time you dated Jean.
Cyclops and Wolverine: Wait, what?

I disagree and say Magneto’s definitely still Magneto’s son no matter what bullshit Marvel tries to pull over their film rights slapfest, but this is still amusing. 🙂