As you may already know, 20th Century Fox owns the film rights to Marvel‘s “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four“, which is why the mutants and the Fantastic Four members were not included in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). However, both Fox and Marvel share the rights to use Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch as the members of Avengers and X-Men in their respective film franchises.
With Sony‘s recent agreement to let Marvel include Spider-Man in their cinematic universe, comic books fans were hoping that Fox would let the Maximoff twins to be introduced as the mutants in the MCU too. However, the chances of that happening are very slim now, considering the fact that Marvel recently altered the origins of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver – again.
In the cinematic universe, many changes were made towards their origins, especially in terms of their parentage.
Quicksilver (played by Aaron-Taylor Johnson) appeared in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” as an “enhanced human” along with his twin sister, Wanda Maximoff (played by Elizabeth Olsen). The twins blamed Tony Stark for the death of their parents. The speedster (played by Evan Peters) also appeared in Bryan Singer’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past“, but he was introduced as a mutant and briefly hinted as Magneto’s son instead.
But sooner or later, the fact that he is Magneto’s son (or a mutant, to be exact) is about to change because the preview of “Uncanny Avengers #4″ confirmed that Pietro and Wanda Maximoff are indeed not the children of Magneto and his then-wife Magda.
Image source: Marvel Wikia
In the comics, the twins were originally introduced as the children of a Romani couple Django and Marya Maximoff, who later joined Magneto as part of his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But in 1983’s “Vision and the Scarlet Witch Vol.1, #4″, Marvel altered their origins by revealing that they are actually the children of Magneto and his then-wife Magda Lensherr.
The twins, who were born at the Wundagore base of the High Evolutionary, were placed in the care of the Maximoffs after Magda fled off and died of exposure. The twins then separated from their “foster parents” when their encampment was attacked.
In the current Marvel Comics event “Axis”, Magneto discovered that he is not the father of the twins when Scarlet Witch unleashed a spell that would “crush their bones, boil their blood dry in their veins, rupture their souls, and end the line”. Quicksilver collapsed in extreme agony, but nothing happened to Magneto. Not only did this confirm that Magneto is not their parents, it also confirmed that the twins are not mutants.
Their new origins remained a mystery, until ComicVine debuted a preview of “Uncanny Avengers #4″.
Instead of being the ones who survived Hydra’s experiments in the cinematic universe, they were actually the failed experiments of the High Evolutionary. The experiments gave them powers, but they were then returned to their real parents, Django and Marya Maximoff, so that they can be raised as “ordinary mutants” instead.
We know right, Pietro. “What kind of an answer is this?!”
Does that mean Fox can no longer have them for the future “X-Men” films? Is this a way for Marvel to gain full film rights to use the Maximoff twins in their cinematic universe? Or like what io9 said, are they “retconning for the sake of retconning”? Let us know what you think in the comments box below.
(Sources: Comicvine, Newsrama, Bleeding Cool via io9)