Callisto

I am all about the X-Men speculation at this moment.  Why?  Simple investing strategy: buy when comics are undervalued.  Fox slowly and savagely destroyed their X-Men franchise.  Luckily for us, Disney and Marvel swooped in and bought back the rights for the characters.  Speculation senses tingling!  If we are going to get the X-Men in the MCU, that means X-Men books are a value berserker barrage ready to happen.  Right, bub?

If you are banking on the X-Men to make an appearance in the MCU, you have to begin to wonder who may join them?  Are we going to get the space-hopping X-Men from the Claremont and Byrne years or a more down-to-earth incarnation of the team?  I hope Marvel picks one and stays with it rather than trying to pull off more than the franchise can handle.  Fox tried too much between X-Men movies and lost the audience along the way.  Keep it simple, mutants.

Betting on characters that may make an appearance along with the mutant super-team can be a tricky proposition.  So where do you start looking?  I would start right under our feet with the subterranean mutant misfits known as the Morlocks and their leader Callisto.  These sewer dwellers were introduced in X-Men #169 in 1983.  The sometimes friend, sometimes foe group were featured in the 1990's X-Men cartoon.  Callisto was even a character in an X-Men film over at Fox, but unfortunately, it was the shitty one (I know...but which was the shitty one?).  Fox did not bother to develop any character other than Wolverine; except the many developmental shots at Magneto and Mystique which missed the mark and should not have been the focus of the revamped portion of the franchise.

This book has a few great features that make it appealing to any collector.  The cover of Angel tied up in the sewers is amazing and a bit different than most covers in the run.  We know that there is a direct version of this book, along with a newsstand version, and even a copy that has a $0.15 higher cover price...yup, the good ol' $0.75 Canadian Price Variant (CPV).  Try to scoop up a variant to maximize the potential gains that this book can realize.  These early direct vs. newsstand supply chain X-Men titles are scarce to find in newsstand versions, especially in the higher grades.

The X-Men would open up a myriad of possibilities for the MCU, but the question remains how do you introduce them?  If mutants already exist, they are not currently revealed to the masses in the universe.  They could exist in the shadows, which makes a concept like the Morlocks even more credible as an explanation/solution to where the mutants are.  If there are no mutants and you want to create some, you will need a universe-altering event, or as I refer to my concept, a "reverse House of M".  Scarlet Witch uses her hex powers to create a race of mutants while trying to fix something.  Or you will have to venture into a multiverse that already has mutants and either integrate them with the current reality or have it take over as the new reality.  It will be interesting to see how the powers that be resolve these issues if there is going to be an upcoming mutant introduction.

Are you excited about the X-Men in the MCU?  Who would be your choice for supporting character(s)?  Drop your comments and join the speculation!

 

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