Image Credit: 20th Century Fox
Until Spider-Man: No Way Home, a “problem” that had already occurred in Captain America: Civil War and that could have repercussions on the presentation of the X-Men in the MCU had never really been brought to the attention of the public.
Recall that in Civil War, when Spider-Man enters the MCU, War Machine poses to Iron Man the problem of the young age of the newcomer, a question that Tony Stark dribbles with a joke. However, this backfires on him in Infinity War, when he sees a little boy die in his arms, far from home, incinerated by Thanos.
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Aunt May receives the same treatment as Tony Stark, when, in the police station where she is taken with her nephew at the beginning of the film, she must answer the accusation of having encouraged the underage boy to get into trouble. and to behave like a hero. “Who would do it?”, The agent asks a naturally bewildered May.
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The woman doesn’t answer, but we could, bringing to mind that character who in the X-Men comics welcomes frightened teenagers, helps them to control their powers, and trains them for war in the Perico Room: Charles Xavier. Now, this question that in the comics doesn’t seem to be a problem really arises if we think about how the mutants will be represented in the MCU.
Fox movies have never really come to terms with this question. The original X-Men movies skipped that part entirely; Although Professor X ran a school, the vast majority of the X-Men who go into battle were adults. Fox later went back in the X-Men timeline with X-Men: The Beginning, introducing a younger iteration of the team, but never thought much about the implications.
But the MCU, with its highest degree of self-awareness, will not be able to resist facing this question. After all, Charles Xavier himself is no longer the complete benefactor and far-sighted good leader, but now takes on shadows that were always present in the comics, but which in the Fox films have been lightened and now come back to the surface: in him there is.
A dark side in his willingness to send teenagers to war. At the very least, he reveals that there is a pragmatism in him that makes it clear how much to him mutants will never have peace or will never be accepted, no matter how hard he tries to achieve that parity.
In a realistic approach to the MCU, the X-Men movies will also have to respond to how right and ethically correct it is to put minors in danger, even if they are endowed with incredible powers.