Marvel Hints The X-Men WON’T Be Called Mutants In The MCU

This article contains spoilers for Ms. Marvel episode 6.

Ms. Marvel episode 6 raises the possibility mutants will be known by another name in the MCU. Marvel Studios regained the film rights to the X-Men back in 2019 when Disney acquired the bulk of Fox’s film and TV empire, and ever since it’s only been a matter of time until mutants appeared in the MCU. That has finally happened, with Ms. Marvel episode 6 revealing Kamala Khan is the MCU’s first official mutant.

There’s long been speculation about how mutants will be introduced into the MCU. The events of Ms. Marvel appear to suggest they’ve been there all along – but are presumably few and far between. Kamala Khan’s story corresponds with the idea of latent mutants in the comics, people who possess a dormant X-gene that is activated by some sort of cosmic energy; Magneto’s daughter Polaris is one of the most famous latent mutants. Given this is the case, it is entirely possible other enhanced individuals in the MCU – empowered after exposure to Infinity Stones – also possess activated X-genes. Indeed, this was teased by The Wakanda Files, an in-universe notebook supposedly collected by Shuri that reflects on the world’s superheroes and superhumans. The Wakanda Files suggests Hydra based themselves around Sokovia because they had identified a high proportion of people in that area with specific genetic markers they believed could be activated by exposure to the Mind Stone.

The Marvels features three characters who gained their powers after being exposed to mysterious energies: Kamala Khan, Captain Marvel, and Monica Rambeau. Kamala has already been confirmed to be a mutant, and it’s entirely possible Captain Marvel is as well, explaining why the Tesseract energy she absorbed has never run out. Monica Rambeau’s empowerment in WandaVision was quite mysterious because she was the only person who went through the Hex to be granted powers, so a genetic component would make sense. If all three are mutants, then it’s possible the MCU is going with a different name; that it’s calling them “Marvels.“

Why The MCU Calling Mutants “Marvels” Would Be A Good Change

There have long been rumors Marvel is working on a film called The Mutants, a bland title that’s rather on-the-nose – but one that could easily be a garbled version of The Marvels, a film that’s confirmed to have been in the works since Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced it in 2019 – at the same event where he said Marvel had just about figured out how to introduce mutants. Pre-production on Ms. Marvel began shortly afterwards, and it’s easy to imagine a scenario where all this is linked.

No doubt some X-Men fans would be unhappy to see mutants renamed as Marvels. The reality is, however, that Marvel Studios has always preferred avoiding repeating ideas and tropes that have already been exploited before by other studios and in other films. This is one major reason why Captain America: Civil War skipped Spider-Man’s origin story, with Marvel believing the tale had already been told too many times before on the big screen. The change in name would certainly signify that the MCU’s mutants are different, and it would tie them conceptually to Ms. Marvel and her fellows.

If this theory is correct, then The Marvels is key to the MCU’s future in that it will solidify the lore surrounding mutation in this particular shared universe. By this interpretation, the title is a hint that something will happen in The Marvels that changes the world, triggering X-genes across the planet. Ms. Marvel would become the first official mutant-equivalent to be confirmed in the MCU, but she would swiftly become the first of many.

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