X-Men ’97 showed what a property can do outside of the MCU, which the rumored Fantastic Four setting could also take an advantage of.

The Fantastic Four has been rumored to take place in a completely separate universe for the MCU, before making the jump to the Sacred Timeline during the events of Avengers: Secret Wars. There is yet to be official confirmation about whether this is actually going to be the case, but if true, The Fantastic Four will be able to deliver a cliffhanger as big as the one we saw in Avengers: Infinity War.

If Marvel’s The Fantastic Four does indeed take place in a separate universe, this allows the film to take a more liberated approach with its story, as the film would not be beholden to all the development of the mainline MCU. This could encourage the film to deliver a cliffhanger like that of Avengers: Infinity War, which could see the Fantastic Four lose to the antagonist of the film, which might or might not be Galactus, who has been confirmed to be a part of the film.

X-Men ’97 not being connected to the MCU allowed the show much more free reign when it came to the plot

It was widely speculated that X-Men ’97 would make some efforts at the end of its season to tie into the MCU in some manner. However, given that the show is not part of the Sacred Timeline, Marvel was able to depict a narrative that was free of the contents of the MCU. What also perhaps added to the viewership of the show was the lack of the need to be familiar with the mammoth amount of content that the MCU has put out since 2008, making it a great entry point into the Marvel Universe for a host of new viewers who would have otherwise ignored it.

Similarly, if the rumor that The Fantastic Four will take place in a separate universe of its own is correct, this has a lot of exciting implications for the story that we might see on screen. The writers of the film will have the opportunity to flesh out an entirely alternate Marvel timeline, which could be in line with the 50s-60s sensibility that the film is looking to emulate. Given that some of Marvel’s most popular characters like the X-Men and Spider-Man only came well into the 60s, the writers have a lot of room to play around with in terms of narrative, worldbuilding, and characterization.

The X-Men of the MCU are also rumored to be a part of a separate universe, like The Fantastic Four.

So far, all the X-Men that we have seen in the MCU have hailed from other universes. The X-Men already existing the MCU, might require a lot of narrative gymnastics as to where they were during key points of the story, and why they were not sought out and recruited by SHIELD and other factions.

Given that the MCU has expanded vastly and might not have the space for established villains and heroes to make an appearance without it becoming a huge plot hole, it makes sense that the Fantastic Four and the X-Men appear from different universes, before uniting with the Avengers in the multiversal storyline of Avengers: Secret Wars.

It would be exciting to see the Fantastic Four and X-Men develop into their own little universes before they are eased into the mainline MCU. Secret Wars could also collapse the multiverse in one Sacred timeline, which could also serve as a soft reboot for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, allowing yet another entryway into the MCU.