To the uninformed fan, walking out of the Avengers hailed an interesting question: if Avengers is the team up of Marvel's greatest heroes, where was Spider-Man? Or Wolverine? Or the Fantastic Four? The informed fan would answer that the film rights to those characters are owned, not by Disney/Marvel, but by Sony and Fox. But what if Disney/Marvel did own the film rights to those characters? After giving this a fair bit of thought, this elaborate fanfic was born, wherein I reimagine these franchises to coexist alongside the Avengers.
With Spider-Man, I'll build off the Amazing Spider-Man reboot and make it work within the Avengers world. The Lizard incident is pre-Avengers, and while Spidey is on SHIELD's radar he's obviously too young to join the Initiative, so for right now Fury's just keeping tabs on him, hence Peter's world is still isolated from the other heroes. Peter was in Queens when the Chitauri invasion struck, and Aunt May wouldn't let him leave the house so he was confined to watching the attack on TV.
Amazing Spider-Man's sequel, Spectacular Spider-Man, introduces MJ, the Bugle, the Osborns, the Rhino and Electro. Electro and Rhino deliver Spidey to Osborn, who mixes Spidey's blood with Connor's serum to turn himself into the Green Goblin. Astonishing Spider-Man has Peter gain the symbiote and learn about his father through the shadow man, Osborn's henchman Chameleon. Chameleon sabotaged the Parker's plane when they wanted to go to SHIELD to report how Osborn funded the Parkers' cross species and symbiote projects to cure his cancer. When Osborn kills Gwen, a symbiote enhanced Peter kills him, before discarding the suit. Web of Spider-Man has the fragmented symbiote bond with Harry and Uncle Ben's killer, Cletus Kassady, to form Venom and Carnage. Harry sacrifices himself while both symbiotes are destroyed, and Peter, now in college, begins a relationship with MJ.
An after credits sequence has Mariah Hill of SHIELD visiting Peter and telling him they've been watching him and considering him as an Avengers candidate. Sometime down the line, after Spidey has had a few team ups under his belt, I'd like to see two more solo films (Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man) that show Peter's encounters with the Black Cat, his adult career at Horizon Labs, his marriage to MJ, and his battles with the Sinister Six (Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, Kraven, Vulture, Sandman, Scorpion). The Six will be featured as henchmen of Octavius, who runs Horizon Labs but moonlights as mob boss the Master Planner. His henchmen are the Enforcers in the first film, led by Herman Schulz, who through Horizon tech becomes the Shocker. When Shocker is imprisoned, an enraged Octavius, bonded with his tentacles, kills him before battling Spider-Man and getting imprisoned himself. He breaks out in the last film and turns his Enforcers into the Sinister Six. Peter is in a love triangle with MJ and Black Cat, but he eventually chooses MJ and marries her.
X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the other Marvel properties will get full on reboots so they can gel with the Avengers films. X-Men will be a trilogy. The first film, Uncanny X-Men, will start with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants (Mystique, Pyro, Toad, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Blob) committing terrorist acts against humans, revealing the hidden mutant culture to the world and causing the government to commission the Sentinel program to round up all mutants who don't come out for questioning. Two teenagers, Bobby Drake and Kitty Pryde, discover their abilities and run away together, only to be found by a Sentinel. They are rescued by the X-Men (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast, and Storm) and taken to Xavier back at the mansion, where they are given the codenames Iceman and Shadowcat and trained in the Danger Room.
Magneto offers the X-Men a chance to join him, but they refuse. Knowing the Sentinels were tracking him, Magneto led them to the mansion. In the aftermath of an attack, Iceman believes humans will never accept them and leaves to join Magneto. Another fleet of Sentinels arrives at Magneto's base, and using his powers he reprograms them to attack humans and head for Washington DC, aiming to kill the President and usurp the government. Iceman warns the X-Men, leading to a final battle where the Sentinels are destroyed, the Brotherhood rounded up and Magneto braindead after Xavier psychically attacks him with his helmet off. For the first time, the X-Men are embraced by the public. The film ends with Xavier being visited by Nick Fury, who sanctions the X-Men and appoints Xavier to deal with any mutant crises that may arise.
The second film, Astonishing X-Men, has the American/Canadian black ops division Weapon X send in their best operative, Wolverine, to assassinate Charles Xavier. Wolverine grows to like the X-Men when they treat him like a human being instead of an animal. Weapon X sends in their augmented mutants (Sabretooth, Deadpool, Juggernaut, Omega Red, and Lady Deathstryke) to capture the X-Men. They are imprisoned at the Weapon X facility, run by Professor Cornelius and Nathaniel Essex. There the X-Men meet other mutant captives, including Rouge, Gambit, Collossus, and Nightcrawler.
Wolverine expresses guilt over betraying the X-Men and helps them escape, including the captive mutants. During this time Beast is experimented on to gain his blue form, Angel is fused with metallic wings, and Jean's telekinesis gets a massive boost. The Weapon X soldiers fight the X-Men, but in the end the main facility is blown up and Cornelius is killed. The soldiers, led by Essex, escape with Jean in their custody. They bring her to Emma Frost, and we learn that Weapon X was set up by the Hellfire Club, which inducts the Weapon X soldiers and the remaining Brotherhood members into its ranks. They speak of using Jean in their plans.
The last film, Ultimate X-Men, reveals that Essex and Frost serve En Sabbah Nur, the first mutant, an immortal who once ruled Ancient Egypt. Nur is currently hibernating and needs a powerful form of energy to recuperate his strength. The Hellfire Club uses Jean's increased telekinetic powers to wake Nur from his slumber. Nur takes the name Apocalypse and, using Frost's telepathy, mindwipes Jean into believing she is Apocalypse's Queen, the Dark Phoenix. Apocalypse hopes to use Jean's powers to scorch the Earth, creating a world where the Hellfire Club rules and only the fittest survive.
The X-Men work to get Jean back, and get assistance when two mutants from the future, Cable and Bishop, travel back in time using Bishop's temporal powers to prevent Apocalypse's dark future from happening. A final fight between the X-Men and Hellfire Club ends with Apocalypse destroyed, but an enraged Jean goes beserk and tries to execute Apocalypse's plan of scorching the Earth. Cyclops is forced to kill his love to save the world. In the end the Hellfire Club is defeated and the X-Men are victorious.
Fantastic Four will also be a trilogy. The first film, The Fantastic Four, begins with Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Victor Von Damne working on a portal to the Negative Zone in the Baxter Building, a SHIELD think tank. Something goes wrong with the portal and Victor is scarred, forcing him to return to his homeland of Latveria. Years later, Reed, Sue, her brother Johnny and their friend Ben get funding from Nick Fury to recreate the N-Zone portal. They attempt to harness the cosmic energies of the N-Zone using a scepter-like device of Reed's own making, but the initial experiment goes awry and the four are doused with N-Zone radiation, giving them their powers. Giant creatures also escape from the N-Zone, and when Reed leads his friends against them in public they are christened the Fantastic Four.
Von Damne, having renamed himself Doom, has become dictator of Latveria. The first accident years ago gave him the ability to channel cosmic energy, and he has been trying to recreate the portal to increase his power. After hearing about the FF, he sends a squad of Doombots to infiltrate the Baxter Building and steal the scepter, which Reed is trying to reverse engineer so to return them to normal when Ben hates his condition. Doom steals the scepter, and although he has diplomatic immunity, Fury allows the FF to leave for Latveria in Reed's newly designed Fantasticar to retrieve it. Doom uses the scepter to augment his own abilities and open a stable portal to the N-Zone, which he plans to feed off of to make himself a god. The FF fight an army of Doombots, steal the scepter back and trap Doom in the N-Zone. Reed and Sue then marry and Ben comes to terms with his new form.
The sequel, FF: Annihilation, has the FF explore the N-Zone and discover Annihilus, who makes a deal with Doom: if Annihilus lends Doom his army, the Annihilation Wave, to take over Earth, Doom will give him the scepter to rule the N-Zone. The two villains break into our world and begin wreaking havoc, but Annihilus betrays Doom and steals the scepter for himself, wishing to control this universe and leave the N-Zone behind. The FF destroy Annihilus and imprison Doom, and Sue reveals she's pregnant.
FF: Doomsday has Sue give birth to Franklin while SHIELD detects bizarre anomalies stemming from a being called the Silver Surfer. The FF are brought in as opposed to Stark or Banner because Richards is the expert on this type of energy. Reed uses the cosmic scepter to capture the Surfer, who reveals he's faithful to a massive, planet consuming energy being called Gah Lak Tus. Doom drains the Surfur of his powers and escapes, and the FF and the Surfer team up to stop him before Surfer confronts his master. Reed uses the scepter to trap Gah Lak Tus in the N-Zone, where it has an unlimited amount of energy to feed on. Doom is killed, the Surfer is freed, and the FF celebrate their growing family.
As for Daredevil, Blade, Punisher and Ghost Rider, I'd prefer they be (re) introduced through the SHIELD tv show before teaming up in a Marvel Knights film, alongside Spider-Man. They would all be potential Avengers candidates brought together by SHIELD to solve a crisis the regular Avengers can't handle. Following this, I'd like to see a massive team up film with the Marvel Knights, X-Men, FF, and Avengers together, in a film that adapts the Infinity Gauntlet. At this point in the main Avengers' story, I'd like them to fight Masters of Evil for Phase Two and Ultron for Phase Three, all being set up by Thanos to lead into the Infinity Gauntlet storyline. This would be followed by a final trilogy of films to end the MCU, which would adapt Civil War, Dark Reign and Seige and lead into a bright Heroic Age for the future. While right now this is a pipe dream, I hope one day that a true Marvel Cinematic Universe can be seen on screen.
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