Unlike the Marvel Cinematic universe, or several of the DC Comics properties, Fox hasn’t really pushed their X-Men characters into the television realm. Well, that’s about to change big time, as not only is FX getting a series built around Charles Xavier’s son called Legion, but now the Fox network has announced, via the Hollywood Reporter, that they are producing an all-new pilot set in the X-Men world.
Fox just revealed that it has handed out a pilot commitment to an untitled Marvel action-adventure series. According to the original report, the untitled Marvel project will focus on “two ordinary parents who discover their children possess mutant powers. Forced to go on the run from a hostile government, the family joins up with an underground network of mutants and must fight to survive”. The series will be a co-production between 20th Century Fox Television and Marvel Television.
The new series is being handled by Burn Notice‘s Matt Nix, who will write the pilot script and executive produce alongside X-Men franchise veterans Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg as well as Marvel’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. Another Marvel/Fox TV project was planned last year centered around the Hellfire Club, but it never got off the ground.
So…what possible X-Men universe comic could this be based on?? There isn’t really an ongoing or well known Marvel comic about human parents trying to save their mutant children that instantly springs to mind, but the idea of an “underground network of mutants” seems to suggest the Morlocks, who are literally a group of mutants who look so un-human like, they are forced to live in the sewers beneath the city. Of course, they probably don’t mean underground in the literal way — they probably just mean off the radar from the eyes of the public, which could suggest X-Force. But that particular property is getting a movie, probably with Deadpool and Cable in it. So let’s scratch that option.
There are lots of mutant teams in the comics however, many of which take a cool sounding name and then reuse them for very different concepts. X-Factor for example has been a team featuring the original X-Men saving young mutants, then changed into a government mutant task force, and was finally a detective agency. The only thing these comics had in common was a name, because it was a title they could mold into anything. Same with currently unused names from the comics like the X-Terminators, and several others. The name Exiles was about runaway mutants from other realities living in the mainstream Marvel Universe, but would make a ton of sense on a show about runaway mutants hiding from the government.
With literally hundreds of mutants to draw from in the comics, this is a blank slate for Fox to take advantage of. Many characters who would never see the light of day in the movie franchise, or just be relegated to cameos, could flourish on TV. If you are a fan of lesser known mutant characters, this show will likely be the best place for them to ever turn up in live-action.
What would you like to see in an X-Men universe TV series? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below.
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Image: Twentieth Century Fox
