This Popular Fan Theory Could Explain How the X-Men Will Join the MCU
We know, the whole X-Men-in-the-MCU thing has been talked about since whispers of the Disney-Fox merger began many moons ago. Now with the merger signed, sealed and delivered, many have been waiting expectantly for some grand announcement about the future of the mutants.
Unfortunately, no such announcement has been made. What this void of information has done, however, is open up room for all manner of theories to blossom.
One such theory, posted to Reddit, is unique for a few reasons. First, it isn't predicated on a crossover event, or a multiverse, to bring existing mutants into the MCU. Second, it's a two-way street theory, hinting that not only did X-Men always exist in the MCU, but Infinity Stones always existed in the X-Men universe, too.
In Age of Ultron, it is asserted that there were many other people besides Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver experimented on with the Mind Stone. The Maximoff siblings were the only survivors at the time.
The prevalent explanation for their survival was that their hatred of Stark was a powerful enough motivator to stay alive. That could be the case, but the theory posits that the reason they survived while others didn't is that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have the X-gene, which was awakened by the Mind Stone.
If you didn't have that gene, you dead. Taking as canon that both Wanda and Pietro were born with a latent X-gene and survived, that supposes other humans were also born with the same gene, simply waiting to be flicked on.
But how did the X-gene come about in the first place? For that, you have to thank the Celestials. In the comics, they were responsible for creating Xartans, the Deviants, the Eternals and the mutant X-gene.
It must not have escaped your attention that a little movie starring Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington, Gemma Chan and Richard Madden is coming out soon – yep, The Eternals. Will we see the Celestials in it? Probably.
Will we see them create the X-gene? Doubtful. This doesn't mean that in the movie canon the Celestials didn't invent the X-gene. It just means we haven't seen it yet, but the comic-canon precedent exists.
Back to the theory, with which there is one big problem we're sure you can see – the Infinity Stones have been destroyed (or, rather, reduced to their smallest atomic levels and scattered on the wind). So how could anyone use the Stones to activate the X-gene if they're gone?
Something greater than an individual Infinity Stone: the snap, which harnesses the power of all five Stones together. In Endgame, Rocket makes what seems like a throwaway comment about the energy wave created by the Snap.
But there wasn't just one snap: there were three. This means a huge wave of Infinity Stone energy encompassed the Earth three times, which likely would awaken the X-gene sleeping so far in MCU-based mutants.
There is another problem that takes some creative thinking to solve: If the X-Men exist on Marvel's Earth, how come there have already been mutants wholly separate to anything Infinity Stone-related?
The main way you can explain away this problem is the possibility that in a few rare people, the gene doesn't need an awakening, it just turns on by itself. The other option is that some people did come into contact with the Infinity Stones (perhaps without their knowledge) which turned on the gene.
A prime example of this possibility is Magneto. After all, the Nazis had the Mind Stone at one point, and given he was repeatedly captured by Nazis during World War Two, it's not impossible that he was exposed to an Infinity Stone during that time.
We know it's unlikely that any of this would be addressed in The Eternals or any other Marvel movie. The MCU has moved so far beyond the Infinity Stone story, we doubt Kevin Feige is going to give credence to any of this theory.
Marvel may go the Star Wars route – creating novelizations to explain plot holes, or further develop canon backstory so their future storytelling becomes easier. But in all probability, these theories will go no further than this.
Right here. You've reached the end.
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