Ever since Disney brought the character rights for the X-Men back into the Marvel Studios fold, fans have wondered what Marvel’s X-Men will look like as well as when they will ultimately make their MCU debut. Marvel has been tight-lipped about their plans for the Children of the Atom, but a recent rumor indicated that Marvel Studios Chief Kevin Feige has a plan to recast the roles of Professor X and Magneto with African-American actors. This would be a big change for those characters, as they’ve traditionally been caucasian both in the comics and in Fox’s previous movie franchise, but during a recent conversation with TMZ, Democratic Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg thinks that kind of change is what makes comic books and movies based on them work so well.
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“I don’t think there’s anything about the role that makes it white,” Buttigieg said. “Look, certainly the actors that have portrayed Magneto and Professor X in the past were brilliant, but it’s not because they were white and it doesn’t have to be them forever. Look, one of the beauties of making comic books into movies is that you can reimagine them constantly, and there’s nothing intrinsically white about any of those character roles.”
For Buttigieg, it ultimately comes down to whether the movie and the actors in that movie are good, whether you’re talking about superhero films or some other franchise, and luckily Marvel Studios has a pretty good track record in that regard.
“I think whether we’re talking about James Bond or whether we’re talking about comic books, it makes sense for the portrayal of these characters to reflect the amazing cultural diversity of the country, our country, producing the films,” Buttigieg said. “And you know, I just care about whether it’s going to be good, and I believe they’re up to that in producing a new film and I would love to see that kind of diversity.”
You can check out the full clip in the video above.
Now, this is just a rumor at this point, but it would certainly make sense for Marvel to change up some characters in bringing the X-Men to movie life. It’s not the first time Marvel has done that, as the original Nick Fury in the comics was Caucasian too, but in the Ultimate universe he was changed to be African American, and in that specific case, was based on Samuel L. Jackson. That version ended up being a hit and was ultimately what the movies based their Nick Fury on.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
