How Avengers 4 Can Add X-Men To The MCU Retroactively

The chance to see the X-Men join Marvel's movie universe just got a whole lot better, now that Disney and Fox shareholders have approved their merger. And with Marvel Studios barreling towards the payoff to their first major villain in The Avengers 4, there's no better time to inject Fox's mutants into the MCU. According to Disney, there's no question that the X-Men will be joining the MCU (and making plenty of Marvel fans' dreams come true).

There's just one problem: if Marvel is going to reveal that the X-Men have been alive and well in the same universe this whole time, it won't be easy to explain why they haven't been seen. Unless they intend to scrap every bit of Fox's mutant lore, and start over from scratch by recasting the X-Men for an MCU reboot. But there may be a way for the studio to merge the worlds together... without having to sacrifice the chance of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine returning, for instance.

And it may be Avengers 4 that sets the stage for a shared X-Men movie universe.

This Page: How Soon Can X-Men Join The MCU?Page 2: How Avengers 4 Can Explain X-Men's Arrival

First things first, and this reality check may not be what fans want to hear. But even if Fox shareholders have approved the merger, it won't mean that post-credits scenes can suddenly be shot and edited into Avengers 4, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, or any other finished (or even in-development) feature film. The two universes can be merged sooner rather than later, but fans will need to exercise some patience so Marvel Studios can execute the merging of plots just as well as properties.

RELATED: X-Men: Dark Phoenix & New Mutants Are NOT Canceled

The reality of a $70 billion corporate merger is that there is a LOT of business and restructuring to be done before Kevin Feige or any other Marvel producer would even dream of setting plans into stone, let alone production. As we explained before, seeing X-Men join the MCU before 2020 isn't likely. Fans can still wonder if Marvel will adapt comic stories like Avengers vs. X-Men, or any other epic mutant sagas in the meantime. But before the two Marvel universes can join forces in one team-up, they have to occupy the same version of America, Earth, the Universe, etc....

Which is where the probable events of Avengers 4 come in.

For the reasons we mentioned above, fans are best off NOT hoping for a substantial bombshell introduction of the X-Men - at least not on the scale of Nick Fury's cameo in Iron Man's post-credits scene. If that changes, we're almost guaranteed to hear about it beforehand. But for the time being, the odds are better that the plot of Avengers 4 will help to explain the arrival of the X-Men. Or, perhaps more accurately, the events of Avengers 4 will eventually be pointed to as the CAUSE of the X-Men suddenly appearing in the world.

Or, if Marvel wishes, as the reason why the X-Men have existed in Marvel's world all along... just not the universe that movie fans have been watching until now.

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