The MCU’s Next Hero Has a Secret X-Men Connection
Kit Harington’s Black Knight will soon appear in the MCU – and Marvel Comics has just given his character a shocking new X-Men connection.
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Warning: this article contains spoilers for Excalibur #23!
The upcoming Eternals movie will introduce Kit Harington as the Black Knight – and Marvel Comics has just revealed the character has an unexpected connection to the X-Men. Marvel’s Eternals movie promises to rewrite the history of the MCU, introducing a powerful group of ancient aliens who have lived on Earth for millennia. It will also feature Kit Harington as the Black Knight, a character older than Marvel itself.
Marvel Comics is always keen on synergizing the comics and the movies, and they’ve spent the last year or so retconning the Black Knight’s origin and abilities. They’ve revealed the Black Knight is an ancestor of King Arthur himself, presumably meaning the first Black Knight Sir Percy of Scandia was Arthur’s illegitimate son. Meanwhile, the Ebony Blade has been retconned as a weapon that is the inversion of Thor’s Mjolnir, a mystic blade whose power increases in proportion to the unworthiness of the one who wields it. But the latest retcon is particularly surprising, because it seems the Black Knight has a secret connection to the X-Men.
Inspired by the legends of King Arthur, one of the first Black Knight’s greatest enemies was Arthur’s son Mordred, who hated his father with a fierce passion. The comics have never been entirely clear about why the gulf developed between Arthur and Mordred, but Tini Howard and Marcus To’s Excalibur #23 sees a group of X-Men realize the truth. Transported to the mystical realm of Otherworld, where Camelot now resides, they fight off what seem to be agents of King Arthur and are initially bewildered at being identified by the designation “friends of Mordred.” Later, the X-Men’s ally Meggan figures out the truth. “If someone didn’t know what a mutant was,” she observes, “what sort of cursed would they believe we were? I think Arthur cast out his son… because he is one of us. I think friend of Mordred means mutant.”
It’s a stunning retcon, but one writer Tini Howard has been building to since Excalibur #1. There, she revealed ancient mutants were known as “witchbreed” in the days of Camelot, believed to be cursed. The book has deliberately conflated many legends of magic and sorcery with early mutants, suggesting the history of anti-magic violence – from the Valais witch trials of the 15th century to French legends like the Beast of Gévaudan – has in part been directed against mutants. Now, it seems that prejudice ran right to the throne of Camelot, and indeed that Camelot’s greatest defender – Sir Percy, the first Black Knight – was unwittingly an agent of anti-mutant bigotry.
There is a rich, twisted irony to this. While Sir Percy of Scandia seems to have been the first Black Knight to have fought mutants, he was not the last. In the 12th century, his descendant Eobar Garrington participated in the Siege of Jerusalem and heard rumors of a dark power hidden in the deserts of a fictional land called Akkaba. This place was ruled by the ageless, immortal mutant Apocalypse, who became interested in the Black Knight and sent his pawns to test him. Ironically, Apocalypse proved far more interested in one of Garrington’s allies, Bennet du Paris, who possessed a latent mutant gene and was transformed into the Omega mutant named Exodus.
Marvel Comics has teased the modern Black Knight will fight the X-Men ahead of his MCU debut, and it’s now easy to understand why; he is the sworn defender of Camelot and King Arthur, and this legendary quasi-utopia is being retconned as a stronghold of anti-mutant prejudice. This is also huge news for movie fans, as it means the introduction of the Black Knight into the MCU with Eternals could well be paving the path to introduce the X-Men next.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/black-knight-mcu-introduce-xmen-mutants-excalibur-mordred/