Black X-Men in the MCU?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marvel-might-monumental-change-bring-165200271.html

According to this article, there is a rumor that the X-Men will be introduced into the MCU with a significant change:

Professor Xavier and Magneto will be cast by black men.

I think this would be a fantastic idea. In fact , I would take it a step further and diversify the X-Men a bit more. Some people would be against it, but If I were to cast the film, this is what I would do:

I would cast Laurence Fishburne as Professor X and Lance Reddick as Magneto. Fishburne can personify the pacifist and malleable nature of Charles, and Reddick can always hammer down the direct, no nonsense approach of Magneto. I would obviously place them as children during the 60s and 70s of the civil rights movement, to make the origin story of Magneto more modern. Sadly there really isn’t anything feasible about making Magneto a 90 year old aushwitz survivor. It would have the same impact and have a more immediate impact navigating the turbulent race relations of the sixties, and how it has parallels with mutants and the African American community.

For Cyclops and Jean Grey, I would cast Denzel Washington and Nia Long, respectively. They would need someone to portray strong leadership for the field teams, and both of these actors command authority.

For Iceman, I would cast Neil Patrick Harris, because he looks like Iceman, and because the character is now openly gay. NPH could probably draw from his personal life and give this character depth.

I would pick Neil McDonough as Angel, he’s around the same age, and I picture Warren Worthington as the man from privledge shunned from his environment who learned to deal with being a mutant.

I would pick John Cho as the beast, and have his origin similiar to Hank McCoys, but have his Beast appearance become something accepting to himself and self referencing as a Shishi guardian.

With the Charles Xavier and Magneto roughly in their late 50s and the original 5 X-Men in their 40s, the story would revolve around the team gelling with the new X-Men:

Wolverine- Played by Jason Mamoa, a mercenary Blackfoot Indian from Canada.

Storm- A South African woman played by Embeth Davidtz

Agni- The pyrokinetic Neal Shaara, played by Kunal Nyarr.

And finally, Xorn, portrayed by Harry Shum Jr.

Hopefully there would be enough diversity in this cast to give X-men new life.

That’s what I would do. How do you feel about the potential of a new X-men movie in the MCU?

Drawing parallels between today and the civil rights of the 60s is a cool idea that echos in today's environment. Xavier and Magneto could echo philosophies of MLK jr. and Malcom X. Love and Hate.

I would pick Neil McDonough as Angel, he’s around the same age, and I picture Warren Worthington as the man from privledge shunned from his environment who learned to deal with being a mutant.

Dig it. I really like Neil McDonough and he should be in more stuff.

I think the idea of “Hey, let’s make the characters Black!” Is an unimaginative, boring, condescending, and demeaning idea for any movie. I’m actually generally a remake apologist - if there is a good idea to make a remake or successor worthwhile (see the Fargo TV show, for example) I’m totally down with it. But I’m this case, these are established characters with established, ethnicity-centric (at least in the case of Magneto) characters that still serve a purpose. This idea does nothing but make them Black, and that’s going to be a disservice to any story you want to tell. Why not make new characters to suit the story you want to tell instead of drastically changing old ones?

I mean, if you want to make a case that there aren’t enough Black superheroes, I won’t argue, but I can name at least three. I can only name one Jewish character.

@ltcolumbo: Jewish Marvel superheroes you say? The Thing, Moon Knight, Iceman, Legion, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver.

Anyway MCU is pretty lazy when it comes to putting diversity on film. How long did it take after Blade Trinity, which is not part of the MCU, to put out Black Panther? It took them forever to make a movie featuring a lady superhero which I think they only considered doing after Wonder Woman made money. Don't get me started how the only way they will add LGBQT characters to the MCU is if they can easily be edited out of the movie so they don't hurt their global box office.

@not_a_bumblebee: and as far as I can remember, exactly one of those has been portrayed as being Jewish on screen.

I’m all for diversity in these sort of movies and think every kid should get some kind of model to relate to on screen, but the way they’ve handled LGBTQ characters on screen so far says to me that maybe the people running the show aren’t equipped to do that well. Hopefully they have learned that they shouldn’t just force in a character to say “hey folks, here’s the gay one!”

I get that representation has been non-existent in the past and still somewhat problematic today, but wanting to right history's wrongs by re-casting well established characters as a different race is lazy and pandering and ultimately doesn't serve anybody.

Years back I listed off actors I'd like to see cast in a X-men reboot or an MCU version if it ever happened and most of my choices for Charles Xavier were black. Andre Braugher, Sam Jackson in Mace Windu mode, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick. Obviously Fishburne and Jackson are no-go's with existing characters in the MCU, so Reddick would probably work best.

For Magneto, in this casting scenario, they'll likely give the character a Rwandan background, which could allow a younger actor to be cast and the possibility of Xavier being a mentor before they choose different paths.

As far as the X-men go, I hope they cast relatively young so they can milk the property for a decade or two without the need of recasts. I wouldn't mind John C. Reilly as a Hulk-like cg Beast though.

But for real, X-men needs to enter the MCU as a GoT-level event series on Disney+ starting out, as there's just way too many characters, storylines, themes, and relationships to cover in a movie every three years.

No thanks! If you need diversity then make new characters, don't change existing characters.

I agree. Although that would require the writing staff to think of contemporary problems black people face. Not sure Hollywood has the brains to do that.

Yeah sure, why not.

I'm pretty much done with the MCU formula now anyway. Better, less predictable, stories and dialogue might make me reconsider. Fulfilling a diversity quota does nothing for me if there aren't any fresh ideas on the writing/production end.

64-year-old Denzel Washington as Cyclops? Why not Morgan Freeman?

Well, oh and spoilers, Captain America did hand off the title to Falcon at the end of Endgame, which is a natural "promotion" of a black character which could lead to new approaches and storylines, and i think that's a more interesting set up than just going back in time and replacing the skin colour of beloved characters.
I don't know i'm white, what do black people want do they just want "more black people!" or would you rather it was more carefully conceived?
I'm not a Marvel comics fan so i don't know how much you can change that stuff, i just want She Hulk to be in a movie.

Magneto has to be updated eventually, either something as groundbreaking and interesting as this, or merely saying his powers now include a slow aging factor of some sort. They're never gonna improve on the origin we got in the Fox-verse, and with it still being fresh in everyone's mind, why not switch things up?

@htr10:

After seeing both Equalizer movies that’s why I made this choice. I always pictured the original 5 X-Men being a generation older than the newer class 🤷‍♂️

I dig it for Prof X, but It doesn't fit magneto as they will have to completely rewrite his backstory which is already good enough IMO (surviving the holocaust). But I guess setting it in the modern era with a younger magneto they could get away with rewriting it.

I kinda wish they would just make new POC characters instead though. There is plenty of room for non cliche' characters of different origins, and I think adding original characters to the MCU would be cool.

@wmoyer83:

That actually sounds like it could be pretty good.

@ltcolumbo:

I can completely understand what you are saying, but to further expose the reasoning for my feelings on this matter , Stan Lee admitted himself that Charles Xavier and Magneto were allegories to MLK and Magneto. So I think there is significance in this instance of playing with the characters backgrounds, whether it be racially or politically, to further service a more modern take on the concept of X-Men in the first place.

@oursin_360: Substitute the Holocaust with the Rwandan genocide and his character carries the same weight.

that came to mind for me as well. Whatever they do I think it will be interesting.

Things that make you go, sigh. Can we please stop with this pandering nonsense. I feel like whenever Hollywood runs out of ideas they take old ideas and just make them black, so they're somehow "fresh" again. Can we just keep established character's how they are? I'm saying this as a black person. I was probably going to go see the movie anyway. This does not make me want to see it anymore then I already did. My first reaction to the news was something along the lines of, "...I guess."

I don't think a single white person should be on the X-Men just for the sake for pissing people off. A lot of these characters have changed so much over the years that people saying "there is an established history" have no idea what they are talking about.

I'm not a big comic books guy I'll admit but even as an outsider looking in I know that the idea of preserving "established characters" is 100% horseshit and they're willing to do whatever they want whenever they want so I honestly don't understand what the hell some of you are talking about in that regard.

All I know is Blade better be white or I riot.

@wmoyer83: I think it's cool but the dynamic will be different because the characters have history to go with their ethnicity.

Magneto having been a Jewish child in Auschwitz has weight to it and purpose.

Xavier (particularly from Giant Size X-Men #1 on with the multi ethnic team) being a white man helping people of all backgrounds/races had weight to it particularly for the time it was created. Like, this was before the "white savior complex" was a thing you could label on everything to fit a narrative.

It's fine to change it because I don't think current readers really give a shit about any of that anyway, realistically. Sure, it was supposed to have influences from MLK & Malcom X, but seriously, no one cares, it's only brought up to make a point anyway as the books are so far from having anything resembling teachable moments like back in the 60's-70's.

It could be interesting to "update" those characters. It's not like there's a lack of real world experiences of struggle that you couldn't pull from to have some parallel between the original Jewish/Auschwitz story and the newer takes.

Hell update Victor Von Doom and cast him as a black man too. Just make him look like he's supposed to, which is bad ass

Sure, but why stop there?

Give us some Asian X-Men, some Eastern European X-Men, some Latino X-Men, some Polynesian X-Men and some black X-Men (that are not African Americans). Throw the entire cast into a roulette and see what comes out... Its not like they (Marvel & Disney) have no precedent rebooting a series with more diverse settings, and since X-Men has a cast of hundreds, most people will think they are new characters.

This is the actual story that's referred to in the yahoo link above.

https://fullcirclecinema.com/2019/09/12/marvel-studios-professor-x-magneto-poc/

They say POC, not black, so what you're saying it probably closer to the mark.

Mao's great leap forward would also be something that doesn't get touched on in comics much. Also from a time period that is closer to now. Magneto already has a pretty compelling backstory so it's tough to change it, but there are no shortages of tragedies out there that could lead someone to hate humanity.

Do we really need to make white character's black in the MCU? I know that sounds like an offensive question, but I was curious about this whole discussion and found an article that breaks down by percentages of the demographic distribution of characters. According to those numbers, white characters stand for 61%. Which isn't surprising. However, on second place comes black characters in at 20%. Followed by 8% multiracial, 4% Spanish/Latino/Hispanic, 5% East Asian, 1% South Asian and 1% Arab/Middle Eastern. Also listed; Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 0%, Native American 0%. Should be noted though, that these numbers take actors into account, which means they include things such as Groot being played by Vin Diesel.

If we break those numbers down even more, so we only count major characters we get the following. White characters are still at the top but now at 69%. Followed by black characters at 19%, Multiracial at 11% and East Asian at 1%. This chategory also adds Arab/Middle Eastern, Spanish/Hispanic/Latino and South Asian to the 0% box.

As a side note, I would love to see a similar head count for male/female characters, but I digress.

Looking at these numbers, there are a number of factors I find pretty telling. One being that Asian characters are, and have always been, very ignored. They are rarely championed as a group that needs representation, that energy is mostly given to black representation, despite the fact that black characters are the second most represented group. But if we look at movies in general, Asians are pretty invisible as deep characters of their own, often relegated to a side character with little to no depth. Similarly to characters of middle eastern origin, often mostly used as side characters. It's pretty telling there that the most notable in this chategory comes from the Iron Man film in which everything about those characters takes place in a warn torn middle eastern setting. What's even more interesting to me as MCU being a product of Hollywood is the low representation of Latino/Hispanic characters. According to statistics, that group stands for 18.1% of the US population and is given 0 major characters and only 5% presence in the overall MCU.

If I'm looking at these numbers, there are a number of things they could to to diversify the cast, lower the percentage of white characters while increasing the numbers in every other category. But that can only be done if we stop just looking at representing one single group that isn't white. Let's up the diversity across the board.

That all being said, I am sure there are a number of more variables that goes into the discussion of diversity that isn't just accounted in a numbers game. I get that, but I have neither the knowledge or facts to dive into that part of it so I'll let someone more knowledgable have that discussion.

@pezen: Again, the actual article says POC, not black. I don't know why the thread author titled this thread this way.

The people saying that it shouldn't be done because the characters are white in the comics (not a ton of people here saying that, but that tends to be the main thing people who oppose the idea completely say) seem to forget that this is the original Nick Fury:

@pezen: While it's branched off into its own timeline, Agents of SHIELD has had strong Asian and Latino/Hispanic representation with May, Daisy, Yoyo, and during the great season four....the Robbie Reyes version of Ghost Rider. Also, with the rumor floating around that Kevin Feige is taking more effort in integrating the tv side with the movies, some of those characters, along with the Netflix crew may wind up in the mix for real one day, if just to be window dressing in those large scale battles.

@pooch516: it's well known at this point that the MCU based fury off his Ultimate appearance. C'mon bruh

@ouchmyfingers: I think the overall point is still valid. Marvel has already done stuff in Ultimate where they basically recast a character as a different race with a different backstory. So this idea of changing these characters to an actor of a different race isn’t unheard of.

@bisonhero: fair enough, but to quote YoungRippa59 "they should Stop giving people of color sloppy seconds". It just seems like pandering at this point.

the thing about the x men is, most of those demographics already exist lol. Storm and Jubilee right off the bat. I think x-men always did a good job with representation (at least for the times) which is probably why It was always my favorite.