While Marvel’s plans for Phase Two begin to pick up a head of steam, Fox has taken steps to ensure its own characters aren’t left behind with the recent appointment of Mark Millar as the studio’s creative consultant for all things Marvel.
The studio is apparently keen to establish a new continuity in which movies featuring Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four all feed into the same interconnected universe, and Millar has been brought on board to help achieve that goal.
“Fox have said that they want to build a cohesive universe and I’d personally like this to work in complement to the Marvel one,” said Millar in an interview with SFX . “It would be cool if these universes didn’t contradict each other so if you went to see Spidey, the Avengers, the X-Men, etc, as a viewer you would have no idea that all three are coming from different studios. I’d love to make it look like they’re all just happening in one place.
“I don’t think it’s something anyone would want to rush into,” he continues. “Following that Marvel model, we want to establish things first. If you had a Fantastic Four relaunch, and Wolverine and the X-Men were in it, I think it would distract you from the Fantastic Four.
“You can make people aware that they’re existing in the same universe without making it a big crossover movie, but it would be an injustice to the Fantastic Four not to make their first movie all about them.”
Sounds as though we won’t be getting an Avengers-style team-up for a while then, but it’s good to know that Sony are at least thinking along these lines, and if Millar can do half the job Joss Whedon has, the Marvel Universe looks set to go from strength to strength.
