The Avengers with Hawkeye in the middle preparing to shoot an arrow in The Avengers
By
Zoe Miskelly
Published 30 minutes ago
Zoë Miskelly is an editor for Screen Rant's Superheroes team, and has covered Marvel, DC, and other superhero franchises in comic, movie, and show form for 8 years. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture.
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Marvel's newest Avengers series has approached the X-Men and their antagonists in a way that has proved controversial for the franchise beforehand, further underlining why the MCU needs to avoid following suit. Luckily, the release also shows how Avengers: Doomsday can dodge going down the same lines.
Deadpool & Wolverine proved there is plenty of interest in seeing Fox's X-Men characters back on the big screen - which is promising, since several familiar faces are set to return in Avengers: Doomsday. However, Doomsday and its follow-ups need to avoid falling into one pitfall that isn't uncommon for Marvel series to repeat when it comes to the X-Men and the characters tied to them.
Marvel's New Avengers Series Repeats An X-Men Complaint That Has Also Been Raised At Some Comics
Hawkeye with one arm raised in Lego Marvel Avengers Strange Tails
It's not surprising that Lego Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails focuses on the Avengers, with its story largely revolving around Hawkeye and his adventures alongside his fellow heroes. However, this focus does mean that the release repeats a narrative crime of sorts that fans have held issue with when it's happened in the comics previously.
In order to show the Avengers and Hawkeye as heavy-hitters who can handle themselves in a fight - and thus make it seem as though they have a chance of winning later in the film when the odds are stacked against them - Lego Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails starts off with the Avengers handling a condensed version of the X-Men villain group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants
With this roster of the team featuring the Juggernaut, Sabretooth, Pyro and Magneto, it's a roster of some of the X-Men's more powerful opponents. However, because the story is focused around wanting to show Hawkeye at his best, Clint Barton is able to effectively take them all down at once, making them look a lot weaker than they arguably should.
This isn't a new approach, as X-Men characters - be they the team themselves, or their opponents - have often been depicted as substantially stronger or weaker depending on whether the release they appeared in centered around them or other groups like the Avengers. This is a common comic complaint, but one that is especially potent when it comes to these figures, given how strong the powers of characters like Magneto are generally supposed to be.
Avengers: Doomsday Balancing The Powers Of Its X-Men Characters Is More Important Than Ever Before
X-Men Days of Future Past cast with Wolverine front and center
The way in which Lego Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails arguably makes some X-Men enemies look weaker in order to bolster how its lead appears is all the more worth noting with the return of many major X-Men movie figures on the horizon for the next MCU Avengers movie, especially as it's likely many more will later be revealed as part of Avengers: Doomsday's cast list.
Avengers: Doomsday has some tall tasks to accomplish in terms of re-establishing the titular team years after they were last shown on-screen, but it's vital that this doesn't come at the cost of not doing justice to the X-Men, or making them less powerful simply for the sake of protecting the appearances of the Avengers themselves.
This is doubly true given Avengers: Doomsday will effectively be expanding on decades of Fox X-Men movie history - as bringing back major actors from this era only to make their characters seem weaker would be a poor way to pay tribute to one of the movie universes that helped make the MCU possible.
Hopefully, whatever the story of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars holds, the movies will be able to do right by every comicbook faction within them - and especially the X-Men, both because of their previous legacy, and given it seems the next era for the MCU may be about to bring a fresh version of the beloved Marvel mutants into the spotlight, which totally warrants us seeing their full potential beforehand.
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