One of the big questions about the X-Men coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is how exactly the MCU will present mutants. Mutants debuted in the comics not long after the rise of the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Avengers, and other Marvel heroes. They were a “normal” part of things throughout the history of Marvel, which doesn’t feel like it’s the case in the MCU. Mutants have only just started to appear in the MCU, so it would be strange to find out that suddenly there are hundreds of thousands of people around the world with powers, and that they’ve been there for ages. A mutant school that no one ever talked about existing in upstate New York in the MCU makes no sense. However, there was a perfect way to make it all make sense if Marvel had been brave enough to utilize it — the Krakoa Era.
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The Krakoa Era was the most inventive X-Men era in ages. It took the concept of the X-Men to a new place, one where instead of just trying to make humanity love them, they decided to separate. Marvel Comics has since dropped the Krakoa Era for something that is more MCU adaptation-friendly, but that’s ironic. Looking at the realities of the MCU and mutants, using the Krakoa Era as inspiration for the X-Men in the MCU would have been a perfect idea.
The Krakoa Era in the MCU Would Have Explained Everything
The Krakoa Era stemmed from a major change to X-Men history — that human scientist and mutant ally Moira MacTaggert — familiar to fans of the First Class X-Men movies — was actually a mutant. Moira’s powers were reincarnation. Every time she died, she was reborn at the beginning of her life with all of her memories. As long as she died after her mutant powers manifested, she would always be reborn. Moira watched mutantkind lose the evolutionary war against humanity and machines in nine lives and during her tenth life decided to change everything. So, Moira went to Xavier and had him read her memories. With the truth revealed, the two of them went to Magneto, linked him into the caper, and laid the ground work for Krakoa.
The whole point to was maneuver events to a place where mutants would have the power to move to their own nation. The mutant island of Krakoa was chosen because not only was it alive, which would make it a willing partner, but it grew flowers which could be made into pharmaceuticals to sell to humanity. Krakoa became a world power through a combination of economics and behind the scenes uses of telepathy, and mutants went from hundreds of thousands of individuals around the world that were easy to keep weak, and became a united front against humanity’s hatred. Heroes and villains worked together for the good of mutantkind, and the X-Men were changed forever.
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The Krakoa Era debuted multiple new X-Men concepts, and was audaciously different from everything that came before. Mutants had figured out a method of resurrection by a group of mutants called the Five using their powers in tandem, with Professor X supplying the minds and memories and Mister Sinister the DNA. New teams were formed to deal with the problems of a nation. An all-new anti-mutant threat called Orchis was introduced, with old foes and new ones joining their ranks. It was a heady time to be an X-Men fan.
So, how does all of this help the MCU? Well, it explains where the mutants have been all of these years. Krakoa is home to the most powerful telepaths in the world, they could easily have been messing with the minds of the world, keeping the secret of mutants, while silently amassing wealth, only coming out to help save the world whenever it is that they appear in the timeline. S.H.I.E.L.D. and the highest levels of government may know about them, but otherwise, Krakoa and mutants are legends passed around the world. Krakoa was the perfect way to explain away where mutants have been without that much fuss. All it would take is redefining what casual fans think the X-Men can be.
Bringing the Krakoa Era to the MCU Would Have Been Brilliant
The Krakoa Era is vastly different than anything that more casual X-Men fans have ever imagined the X-Men to be. In the opening Krakoa Era story, House of X, Xavier reveals the dream is dead — that humanity killed it. Krakoa is a way to keep mutants alive in the face of intense human racism. This is quite different from the X-Men of the movies, and Marvel was scared that this version of the X-Men would be unrecognizable to non-comic reading fans. This was why the Krakoa Era was ended — something that was almost certainly exacerbated by the success of X-Men ’97. However, that was shortsighted in the extreme.
The MCU needs to plausibly explain mutants in their 616 universe at some point, and Krakoa represented the most interesting way to do so. Things like Wolverine’s history with the military or Xavier and Magneto’s travels through Europe and Israel could have still happened, or other long-lived mutants could have appeared in the past and no one could have known they were mutants. However, it gives the perfect answer for why mutants have never been seen until recently. MCU fans lost out on an entirely new type of X-Men story, all because Marvel Studios didn’t trust their fans with a different vision of Marvel’s merry mutants.
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