I have been reading the reboot of The Runaways. Although “reboot” has come to mean what we used to call “remakes”, this is more of the traditional sense where it is more of a sequel/new jumping on point with the same characters as before.
The Runaways all had different comic origins and Molly’s was that she was a Mutant. Her parents were also Mutants. Now, and this is a slight spoiler of the new graphic novel, they are implying that Molly and her Parents were actually created.
I did know that Marvel has pushed aside the properties they don’t have the Movie rights to. The Fantastic Four was ended (a bad decision if you ask me) and I know they have been down playing the X Men somewhat but are they getting rid of Mutants altogether? This seems like a strange change otherwise.
I haven’t read much of Marvel Comics lately, but they seem to be trying to replace mutants with Inhumans and the X gene with Terrigen Mist.
Of course, the removal of mutants has been going on for quite a while. In my spotty reading, I know of the mutant population being reduced from millions to thousands by the ghost of Xavier’s twin sister that he killed in the womb, and then from thousands to 198 by the Scarlett Witch at the end of the House of M arc.
It’s pretty common for characters to be “remodeled” to better match up with their current movie and TV portrayals. I suspect that is what’s going on in this case. Hulu released a Runaways TV series earlier this year, and while most of the kids were quite similar to their comic book portrayals, Molly was significantly altered. In particular, she is not a mutant - likely due to the movie/TV rights issues over the use of the term “mutant.”
Marvel is almost undoubtedly not going to get rid of mutants entirely – they recognize that many of their most popular characters are mutants, and that there’s a ton of equity in the X-Men franchise.
But, yes, it certainly does look like they’ve been de-emphasizing some of the titles that are linked to properties for which Disney doesn’t control the film rights (like the lack of a Fantastic Four book for the past several years). That said, there’s currently three different X-Men books, as well as several other related titles.
The most difficult one to swallow is how they changed Nick Fury.
The original character, introduced in 1963, was white. In 2000, Marvel started the Ultimate line, which was set in a separate universe where new versions of the traditional characters. One of the changes was that the Ultimate version of Nick Fury was black (the character was even based on Samuel L. Jackson eight years before he actually played the role).
The Ultimate comics became very popular and then the Marvel movies became even more popular and it was decided to try to bring the main comic book series into accord with things that had been established in those other realms. So the traditional Nick Fury was supposed to become a black character.
In my opinion, the obvious solution would have been to export the Ultimate version of Fury into the mainstream universe and have him replace the traditional Fury. By comic book standards, this would have been a pretty normal event; the Ultimate Fury had already traveled between dimensions a couple of times.
But instead Marvel decided to have the traditional Fury discover he had an unknown son, Marcus Johnson, who was black. During an attack, Johnson loses an eye and begins wearing an eyepatch. Then Nick Fury is killed rescuing Johnson. Johnson decides to join SHIELD and change his name to Nick Fury Junior. Everyone else in the Marvel universe quickly begins treating the new Nick Fury just as if he was the original Nick Fury.
Marvel’s promotion of inhumans and sidelining of mutants has been over and done for more than a year. Their Inhumans-branded comics bombed, despite some traction with popular new characters like Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl that were tied in with the inhumans (probably in an attempt to boost the inhumans’ popularity). Plus, over in tvland, the Inhumans show was absolutely wretched, and a regime change forced out the guy promoting Inhumans.
Meanwhile, Marvel and Fox came to an accommodation on the X-Men/mutants rights. So Marvel started up new X-Men titles (X-Men Gold, X-Men Blue, Jean Grey, etc.) That push has been going on for a while.
There is, however, a push to retcon characters that were formerly mutants in the comics, to have other origins to match updated backgrounds in the tv- or movie-verse continuitites. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were retconned away from being mutants in the comics, to match their portrayal in the Avengers movies. Molly is no longer a mutant, to match her portrayal in the Runaways series. Squirrel Girl is inching in the direction of no longer being a mutant in the comics, too. (Quake in the comics was retconned into being an inhuman to match her portrayal on Agents of SHIELD.)
So, Marvel is not retconning out mutants; they’re retconning specific mutants.
Also, Marvel is currently promoting the return of a Fantastic Four comic.
I had meant to mention that one. The short version: Reed and Sue have been missing, and presumed dead, for a while (ISTR that it was in the aftermath of the Secret Wars event). There’s been a book (Marvel Team-Up, I think) over the past few months, which has featured Ben and Johnny searching for them through alternate dimensions, and which is apparently heading towards a conclusion.
Wanda and Pietro’s parentage has been retconned so many times, it’s practically a minor superpower at this point. The lack of outrage is largely because everyone knows it won’t stick.
And, at least as far as Quicksilver, the films have shown us both a mutant version (Days of Future Past, Apocalypse), who it’s strongly suggested is Magneto’s son, and a non-mutant version (Age of Ultron), of the same character.
Though, AFAIK, the comic-book version is still a mutant. And, just to make matters even muddier, in the books, he was married to an Inhuman (Crystal, sister of Medusa) for a time.
Because Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have long-established histories as mutants (thus, belonging to the X-Men IP, and under Fox’s rights) as well as Avengers (thus, belonging to the Avengers IP, and under Disney’s rights), both studios have rights to the characters, and, AIUI, there was some negotiation between the two studios to allow this. As Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios executive producer) put it:
Nope, that’s what’s retconned. It was in the (rather poor) Uncanny Avengers run, IIRC. High Evolutionary, Counter-Earth, yadda yadda yadda… you know the routine.
Lightray is correct, Marvel isn’t retconning out mutants at large, but they are retconning certain mutants who aren’t as related to the X-Men side of things to better align them with the version they still own the TV/movie rights to.
The terrigen mist storyline is (thankfully) over, culminating in the Inhumans vs X-Men storyline that basically ended with the X-Men kicking the Inhumans’ behinds and back into space or wherever they hang out. Kinda metaphorical for Marvel’s attempts to make Inhumans their mutant replacement on the screen only to have them crash and burn.
As part of the “Pietro and Wanda aren’t mutants” retcon, they also explicitly spelled out that Magneto isn’t their blood relative. He still has Polaris as a daughter though, who ironically was retconned in the opposite direction.
The short version: Reed and Sue have been missing, and presumed dead, for a while (ISTR that it was in the aftermath of the Secret Wars event). There’s been a book (Marvel Team-Up, I think) over the past few months, which has featured Ben and Johnny searching for them through alternate dimensions, and which is apparently heading towards a conclusion.
