Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even a thing, what happened in Marvel movies would often have an impact on the comic books. Spider-Man, for example, also ended up with organic webbing after Tobey Maguire's wall-crawler ditched the web-shooters, and even today we shared a first look at the redesigned Agatha Harkness inspired by WandaVision!
While Marvel Studios, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros. all continue pulling ideas and characters from the source material, it's clearly a two-way street. What happens in the movies affects the comic books and vice versa, but with Kevin Feige now overseeing everything Marvel-related at Disney, what sort of impact has that had on what we see on the page each month?
During a recent interview with AITP, X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White explained how it all works and confirmed they're very much left up to their own devices. Why? Because Marvel Studios wants Marvel Comics to continue telling stories they can one day bring to the big and small screens.
"I mean, we’re all part of the same company, but they don’t consult me on what they should do. And I don’t consult them on what I should do," White says. "Every once in a while we have get-togethers with studios and we share information about what we’re doing. But it’s not that intimate. Like, I knew that the X-Men ’97 series was being worked on quite some time ago. But I don’t know what the episodes are about."
"Mostly, we spend time talking about MCU projects. And then like I said, we also will do presentations for studios as well, going, 'Here’s what we’re planning for the next year. Here’s what we’re going to do.'
"But I certainly don’t think they change their plans based on what we say. They always tell us, 'We’re not looking for you to change what you’re doing to fit with what we’re doing," he continued. "'We want you to stay 5-10 years ahead of us because we want you to be doing fun and interesting stuff that we can do down the line.' Which we’re more than happy to do."
"We absolutely want to tell new stories about our characters and yes, if we do a good enough job, like yeah, those can become the backbone of some future thing, fingers crossed. Will you see Krakoa in the future of X-Men movies? I would love that. I have no idea if we’re doing a good enough job and people feel like that is what X-Men is and can be. That would be amazing."
It's fascinating to get these insights from someone on the ground in Marvel Comics, and good to know that team is able to continue telling the stories they want. We still don't know how much input Feige has, but based on White's comments, those working on the movies are definitely hands-off.
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