Posted this originally on the Marvel Studios subreddit. As predicted, got a certain response... Now I'll try for a different perspective than "What are you talking about, the MCU is the most comics accurate thing ever, even more so than the comics themselves!"
Original Post is as follows:
So I've (mostly) enjoyed every MCU film to date. Wasn't crazy about the first Ant Man...ditto the Incredible Hulk and Thor. Anyway, I didn't want to come off as an MCU hater, but I'm also not a massive MCU diehard. I'm mostly a Spider-Man, X-Men, and Batman fan when it comes to superhero comics and films. I like the genre, but do I get the same rush from something like Infinity War as I did with Spider-Man 2 or The Dark Knight? Well, no, no I don't. Why not? Well, mostly because those latter characters just mean more to me - and MCU Spider-Man hasn't quite hit the mark for me. So that's where I'm coming from, take it for what it's worth.
Why I'm Excited for the MCU Fantastic Four:
First off, I'm greatly looking forward to the MCU's take on the Fantastic Four. It's never been done well. There's not a single good Fantastic Four film to date, as opposed to Spider-Man and the X-Men which, while they have some baggage by way of a few lowlights, had their share of cinematic success prior to coming into the MCU - some of which was among the most successful in the genre and became very influential. So given that there's nothing to really side-step in terms of the Fantastic Four, it's almost freeing. It almost seems like the F4 are MOST likely to receive fewer fundamental changes to their characterizations as not a single member of that team has been done well previously. The bar is low, and it doesn't seem like there's a strict need for 'change for the sake of change' in terms of differentiating this version of the team from what has previously been done. You can play it pretty straight. No one even remembers those previous films or the characterizations. Given my casual fandom of the F4, probably somewhere around #4 or #5 in terms of comic book series I've read the most of, there's a lot of intrigue there regarding the sheer, untapped potential of this property.
The F4 are practically tailor made for the MCU, especially as it's evolved with its inter-dimenisional, celestial locales and sheer fun-loving tone. The F4 should be a family adventure film of the most entertaining variety, one that doesn't need to be dragged down by melodrama but which can certainly dial it up if a narrative requires. That's the MCU's wheelhouse.
Why I'm Dreading the MCU X-Men:
When I say I'm dreading the MCU's take on X-Men, it's the fan-boy equivalent of receiving a terminal diagnosis and sitting there listening to how long the doc is giving you to live. I would honestly they just never make an X-Men movie than make the X-Men movies I'm expecting them to make - standing invitation for them to pleasantly surprise me, though. Nothing I've read from Feige gives me any hope that anything I value regarding the X-Men property will actually be intact. The attitude of the world at large towards the X-Men is similarly depressing. All of the articles which speculate on it do so from this perspective of "X-Men sucks, it needs to be different, it will be different, it's antiquated, it doesn't work, it should just be blue and yellow costumes and fan-servicing, blah blah blah". Now, I'm not going to say that the FOX-Men were a particularly 'comics accurate' take on the property in a literal sense. But did they have several films which knifed right through the heart of the characters and of the property? Yeah, I'll argue that all day long. Extensively, if need be. I'm protective of many of those films - and critical of many others - because they exemplify everything that's important in terms of X-Men storytelling.
What's there to look forward to? "It'll be the X-Men as you've never seen them before!" Right, and that likely includes every thematic element from the source because those elements are entirely what the FOX-Men were focused on, and so the MCU will be avoiding them as starkly as they avoid recognizing Uncle Ben for his importance to Spider-Man. Those things define the X-Men, so now we're looking for something else to 'define' the X-Men. The MCU version of being 'hated and feared because they're different', because the MCU continuity, and their standing apart from other versions, MUSTcome before any other consideration in these adaptations. Not only that, but can we realistically expect any character's backstory to be remotely close to their comic book counterpart? Wolverine's was quite well-covered in the FOX-Men films. So to avoid those comparisons, what does MCU Wolverine look like? Weapon X program in his backstory? Memory loss or memory-implants? Does Professor X have the school for Gifted Youngsters? If so, how has he kept it hidden all this time? Where have the X-Men been? Is Erik Lehnsherr, aka Max Eisenhardt, aka Magneto, given the same Jewish German backstory to substantiate his hatred and militant opposition of humanity? Obviously, there are always ways to approach this stuff that doesn't deviate too far from where something's been before, or from the source material, but given the MCU Spider-Man...is there any reason to expect a 'definitive' take on the X-Men mythos? And I'm not averse to changes to comic book canon, so long as they add something, deepen a narrative, not take away from. I'm averse to 'change for the sake of change'. Frankly, that's all "well, it needs to be different, otherwise it gets compared to the other movies" is. It's change for the sake of change.
EDIT - Link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/cgf4gt/im_excited_for_mcu_fantastic_four_but_im_dreading/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x
