The MCU Ruined Quicksilver and People Still Aren’t Over It
Not too many characters have been duplicated by the Marvel Cinematic Universe and what had been the Fox X-Men Universe. One of those duplicates was Quicksilver, and there’s some thought that was one of Disney’s rare botches.
Now that Disney owns those X-Men characters outright, could we see Quicksilver renewed and resurrected? Or was seeing double enough already?
A tale of two Quicksilvers
Fox got to Quicksilver first, when the X-Men equivalent of The Flash appeared in X-Men: Day of Future Past in 2014 Evan Peters played him as a rather smug smart-aleck, which is understandable when you can run so fast that the world slows down around you. The sequence where he breaks Magneto out of the Pentagon and helps the X-Men dodge a kitchen shoot-out was a fan-favorite – so much so that the stunt was repeated in X-Men: Apocalypse.
The following year, Quicksilver appeared in an MCU movie: Avengers: Age of Ultron, where he was played by Aaron-Taylor Johnson. True to comic book origins, he was presented as the twin of Wanda, AKA Scarlet Witch. Unlike Wanda, however, Quicksilver didn’t stick around very long at all, because he died in the third act. That was not how fans wanted to see Quicksilver come and go.
Marvel President Kevin Feige explained the difference to IGN this way:
“We follow him throughout the whole movie — him and Wanda — as (their past) relates to their feelings about the Avengers and how that shifts and changes over the course of the movie. So it’s a very different thing than coming out from one, unbelievably awesome showcase sequence of the movie, and much more interwoven throughout the entire movie.”
Could the MCU introduce Quicksilver a second time?
Feige made those comments before Disney bought Fox. Now that Disney owns the X-Men characters, it’s theoretically possible that they could bring Quicksilver back.
With all the alternate timelines floating around thanks to Avengers: Endgame, a reappearance of even a recasting to Evan Peters could be explained away quite easily, even though the logic may not stand up to scrutiny.
Still, one fan in a Reddit thread would like to see Disney/Marvel try, writing, “Quicksilver is much better in the comics, the MCU wasted the chance to build a better character.” There’s a chance they could try again with WandaVision, the trippy Disney+ series centered around Elizabeth Olsen’s character. If they could have Wanda and Vision in Leave it to Beaver garb, why not bring back Quicksilver too?
Taylor-Johnson has previously said he’s open to the idea. It would certainly be in keeping with WandaVision’s out-there ideas to have him and Olsen reunite for a third time, after Age of Ultron and the 2014 Godzilla, where they played husband and wife. What would Vision say?
Who are some other Marvel characters who need do-overs?
Quicksilver was just one sliver of a Reddit discussion about characters who played better in the comics than in the movies. Another example was Baron Zemo, played by Daniel Bruhl in Captain America: Civil War.
One fan wrote: “Daniel Bruhl does a fine job with the material, and movie Zemo is an interesting enough character, but he ain’t comic Zemo. Comic Zemo is a tactical genius, a charismatic field leader on a level with Cap, and, initially, an absolutely mad, irredeemable bastard … Let’s hope his TV appearance (on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) gives him some self-respect back.
And it goes without saying that the Hulk was mentioned too, since there are no less than three big-screen versions of him: Eric Bana, Edward Norton and Mark Ruffalo – three and a half if you count Professor Hulk as an additional version. Ruffalo too, is reportedly considering the Disney+ route with an appearance on She-Hulk.
