A Study of Tone: X-Men vs. the MCU

“Sir! I’m gonna have to ask you to exit the doughnut!”- S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (MCU)

“Does it ever wake you in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they will pass that foolish law or one just like it, and come for you? And your children?” – Brotherhood of Mutants leader Erik Lehnsherr (X-Men)

Together we’ve looked at the humor of the MCU, and read some of Marvel’s darker comics; now we will study the tonal dissonance between Marvel Studio’s MCU, and Fox Studio’s X-Men franchise, and learn why the two franchises have such different personalities.

For the purposes of this article, the MCU will be defined as the movies Iron Man (2008), Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011),Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). The movie shorts included in certain DVD releases will not be included, nor will any television-based materials. The X-Men franchise will here refer to only the movies featuring an entire team of X-Men; neither of Wolverine’s solo movies will be considered here. This means that the X-Men movies analyzed will be X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men: First Class (2011), and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).

First, a brief background on each franchise’s history in the comics.

The Avengers, first written in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, focuses on a group of superheroes whose powers they were not born with. All of the super-powered Avengers (save Thor) either built their powers (Iron Man, Ant-Man) or received them due to scientific experimentation (Captain America, Hulk.) The team also included heroes whose powers were mundane skill, practiced with such expertise that they became powers in their own right (Hawkeye, Black Widow.) In-Universe, the team is usually met with approval, and receives little criticism or fear from the general public. Their main villain is Loki, Thor’s little brother, who, until recently, was presented as completely and unflinchingly evil.

The X-Men, written also in 1963 by Stan Lee, focuses on a group of superheroes who were born with their powers. Mutants. In-Universe the team, though they are heroes, are persecuted for being mutants, and are met with public distrust at best, and outright violence at worst. Guess which tends to happen more often? In several story arcs, the government/general public/etc. has attempted to either track all of the mutants, enslave all of the mutants, or kill all of the mutants. The main adversary of the X-Men is Magneto, a mutant and former friend of Charles Xavier, who wishes to save mutantkind from the vanilla humans. Magneto’s portrayal varies slightly from author to author, but is usually presented as a sympathetic character, doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

The movies of both of these comic series keep these main elements; the MCU is light-hearted, never taking itself to seriously, while the X-Men present a much darker reality. The first MCU movie opened with the main character joking with several side characters, waiting several minutes before any serious action begins. The first X-Men movie begins with a young Magneto attempting to escape a concentration camp, and doesn’t get any lighter from there, diving right into mutant/human politics in the second scene.

Things haven’t changed since then, either. The most recent MCU movie featured a talking raccoon and a fighting, sentient tree. The most recent X-Men movie opens with a scene that contains the death of multiple characters, and shots of a multitude of unnamed and unknown corpses falling into an unmarked grave/landfill.

So now the question is why. Why do these two franchises, both owned by Marvel Comics and created by the same man, have such different tones? To answer that question, we must dig deeper into Marvel’s canon than the movies alone allow.

 The Comics

In the comics, as mentioned above, the Avengers are a group of well-liked, well-respected humans. The Avengers guard a world that loves and admires them. While there is certainly drama and darkness within the Avengers lives, they are, for the most part, fairly decent lives. I wish I could say the same about the X-Men.

The X-Men are feared members of a discriminated-against minority group that many in-universe high-level politicians, among other people, would like to see wiped out completely. The X-Men, to quote TvTropes,  “protect a world that fears and hates them.” At various times throughout the run of the X-Men comics, people have alternately tried to; force all mutants to register with the government, murder all of the mutants in cold blood, murder all of the mutants in revenge, send robots to murder and control the mutants, enslave the mutants, and “cure” the mutants. The kind of torture that the mutants go through on a daily basis hardly lends itself to upbeat, light-hearted fare.

Some of you may be remembering the Civil War story arc, and wondering why I am ignoring that particular dark spot in the Avengers lives, while at the same time discussing at length the crimes against the mutants. I would like to remind everyone that the Civil War arc happened only once, whereas the mutants face some sort of persecution nearly every issue. The major story arcs in which someone tried to commit atrocious acts against the mutants (as a whole; to list every crime against every mutant would take several thousand words, and none of you want to read a thousand titles) are as follows:

Age of X,

Bloodties,

Child’s Play,

Days of Future Past,

Days of Future Present,

Decimation,

E is for Extinction,

Endangered Species,

Fall of the Mutants,

Gifted,

Here Comes Tomorrow,

House of M,

Imperial,

Legacy Virus,

Messiah Complex,

Misfits,

Muir Island Saga,

Mutant Massacre,

New Worlds,

Operation: Zero Tolerance,

Phalanx Covenant,

Schism,

X-Cutioner’s Song, and

X-Tinction Agenda.

It should be noted that this is by no means a complete list of attacks on the mutants, only a list of the most major attacks against the mutants. Also, this list includes only attacks occurring in the main X-Men title; attacks occurring in side titles, such as X-Force or X-Factor, have not been included.

So it should seem self-evident, that when adapting the two comic series to film, the X-Men movies would take a darker tone. If you have any other opinions or observations on the MCU or the X-Men movies or comics tones, we would love to hear about it in the comments below.

Good night,

-AnJ

(Next week- an in-depth review of DOFP, and a few surprises.