A Movie With The X-Men and Fantastic Four Could Do Something Important

X-Men: Days of Future Past is still in trailer territory, but it already has a follow up movie announced, along with another one for the Wolverine character. The new Fantastic Four feature is still battling rumors about its production, but also has a sequel announced. Along with these newsmaking announcements from Fox came a “mystery film” promised to be based on a Marvel Comics franchise. An X-Force movie is supposedly in some stage of production, but one of the most exciting possibilities for this claimed but unnamed spot is an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover of some sort.

Even that is technically more rumor mill speculation, but with Fox owning the movie rights for both franchises, the success of The Avengers, and shepard Mark Millar quoted on a shared universe, it’s fair game for discussion. Now in the "Days of The Future Past" comic book source material, the Fantastic Four and other super humans eventually end up as persecuted as mutants. What I would love to see them do though, is show scenes in the early days, in a movie where mutants are feared and hated, but other superheroes are still embraced. The current comic book climate is showcasing that insane double standard after the events of "Avengers vs. X-Men" in the pages of books such as The Uncanny Avengers. It’s a peculiar little quirk of storytelling, to see heroes largely beloved but mutants so overwhelmingly feared and mistrusted, but that’s just kind of how absurd racism is, isn’t it? I liken it to this famous photo from some very uneven coverage of Hurricane Katrina.



White survivors are captioned as “finding” supplies, while their black counterparts are reported to be “looting.” The superheroes in this metaphor are the white survivors, and mutants are the black “looters.” Once again, it’s a highlight of how moronic and illogical notions like racism and homophobia are, and a combined X-Men/Fantastic Four universe could be used to comment on it. Comic books and the X-Men in particular have long been used for social commentary. It’s bled into the X-Men movie adaptations before, and I think a crossover has the potential to really make the most of those concepts.