X-Men: Dark Phoenix has come out and it has agonized critics all over. But we have to admit the fact that this has happened due to the belief all around that this film was a screw up right from the beginning. Just like the critics were wrong about Venom, are wrong about Dark Phoenix. This film does tell a simple story, but it has sudden little twists which keep you invested in the film if you watch it as an individual film without comparing it with others. There were certain good elements, and Director Simon Kinberg should be given credit for what he has done under complex situations.
This post contains spoilers for X-Men: Dark Phoenix. So check it out at your own risk.
One of the good things that the Writer-Director does is keep the film more linked with the source material than The Last Stand. In doing so, we finally get one element of the X-Men that we’ve not got in any other movie, at least not as well defined. It is safe to say that there are major similarities between The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix. But the new movie sure does evolve and make things better than the previous film. There were Retcons, and one of those led us to Magneto’s Genosha!
In ‘The Last Stand’, Magneto assembled his army of Mutants to fight against the Humans, but in Dark Phoenix, we see Magneto’s group of Mutants assembled on a specific Island under much different circumstances. The Last time we saw Magneto was when he left the school for the Gifted to do his own thing. Apparently, this film reveals that the US Government has made peace with the Mutant race, and it has even given Magneto & his followers a place to live.
This place is none other than the Island Genosha. The film never mentions it, but it has been confirmed by Director Kinberg that Genosha exists in the film. In the comics, it is a country on an Island which is a safe haven for the Mutants. It is located off the Southeastern African coast northwest from Seychelles and northeast of Madagascar. This place is led by Magneto, as his followers live here in peace. In the film, it was a much smaller Island, so it cannot be the country that we’re familiar with in the comics.
If X-Men: Dark Phoenix would have had a sequel, then Genosha could have been developed even further. So we should be happy that we at least got a look at it before the franchise ended. No other X-Men movie dealt with Genosha in the past, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix gave us a good enough version of it. Sadly, it was the last time that we will see it in the franchise because this is the final X-Men movie before Disney’s inevitable reboot.
Genosha could certainly have future on-screen appearances within the MCU when they decide to bring the X-Men into the mix. But even then, it is a given that we won’t be seeing the place right from the first movie. Marvel is not going to give us a pre-established X-Men world, as it will be a complete reboot. They will have to introduce Mutants into the MCU, and that will take some doing. So, if the Mutants will be brought in slowly, then comic book elements like Genosha will also take time to be established.
But we will have to be patient for the X-Men to be coming to Marvel’s shared continuity. Kevin Feige has said it time and time again that Marvel will currently follow the slate they have planned for the next 5 years. So the entry of any Fox properties will take a while. He told io9:
“It’ll be a while. It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set. So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men & Fantastic Four will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”
Let’s see what Marvel does.
