What Is Madripoor?
Madripoor is a small island nation located in Southeast Asia (specifically in the Strait of Malacca). Like Singapore, Madripoor is made up of a single city. The country was originally founded by pirates centuries ago, which explains why the local government has such a tolerant attitude toward crime and corruption. Madripoor is a place where pretty much any vice can be indulged without fear of being arrested or extradited. And if you've made a fortune on the black market, there's no place safer than Madripoor to hide your ill-gotten gains. Also, the island sits atop an enormous, sleeping dragon, so there's that. That's not to say everyone in Madripoor is a criminal, terrorist, human trafficker or drug dealer. Madripoor is also one of the true economic hotspots in the Marvel Universe, with a number of legitimate businesses and even a full-fledged trade center as part of the city's skyline. Madripoor's residents generally don't care what your morality is. All that matters is you have money. Sadly, that obsession with money also makes Madripoor a place of extreme wealth. As we see in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the city is divided into two regions, Hightown and Lowtown. Even as Hightown's inhabitants bask in the lap of luxury, the residents of Lowtown are stuck living in complete squalor. Life is cheap in Lowtown, and it's not a place many superheroes dare tread. Unless, that is, you have adamantium claws and a healing factor.Wolverine's History in Madripoor
If there's one Marvel character associated with Madripoor above all others, it's definitely Wolverine. Following its original debut in 1985's New Mutants #32, the island became a major setting in the 1988 Wolverine series. During this period in the X-Men franchise, the world believes the X-Men are dead, and so Wolverine spends a great deal of time in Madripoor fighting criminals and villains like Silver Samurai. He even takes up a new secret identity as the eyepatch-wearing rogue known as (shockingly) Patch. Somehow, covering that one part of his face actually works, though it's entirely possible everyone on the island is just humoring him out of pity and a desire not to be stabbed. All that time spent drinking, gambling and stabbing in Madripoor has made Wolverine intimately familiar with Lowtown and its people. What's more, Wolverine comes to love Madripoor enough that he fights to save it. He helps his new ally Jessán Hoan, whose family owns one of Madripoor's largest banks, assume control of Madripoor's criminal underworld and attempt to bring some semblance of law and order to a lawless land. Taking up the codename Tyger Tiger, Hoan consolidates her power and institutes a ban on slavery and drug trafficking. Wolverine leaves her with a warning - keep steering Madripoor toward a brighter future or he'll return to kill her next.Since then, Tyger Tiger has done about as good a job of keeping the peace as can be expected for such a seedy hellhole of corruption. She's repeatedly dealt with would-be usurpers and attempted takeovers by everyone from Hydra to the Chinese government. But ultimately, Tyger Tiger and the mysterious masked man known as Patch are the only two leaders the downtrodden citizens of Lowtown will follow.
The Princess Bar
While the MCU's version of Madripoor seems to follow the basics from the comics, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier hasn't yet introduced characters like Tyger Tiger or Wolverine himself. Bear in mind - we're still very early into Phase 4 of the MCU, so it's probably far too soon to expect the X-Men to start putting in appearances. Even WandaVision's "Quicksilver" turned out to be nothing more than Ralph Bohner.However, there is one small but important Wolverine cameo in "Power Broker." We see a brief shot of a sign for The Princess Bar, one of Wolverine's favorite local hotspots. Tyger Tiger herself is one of the owners of that bar. This may well be Marvel Studios' way of acknowledging the growing demand for the X-Men to debut in the MCU. We may be a ways out from even hearing about X-Men casting news, much less actually seeing mutant characters, but the Princess Bar cameo at least reminds us the MCU is shifting in that direction.
For that matter, the simple fact that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier used the Madripoor setting in lieu of other fictional Marvel locales is an encouraging sign. The Marvel Universe has another, very similar hive of scum and villainy called Bagalia. In fact, Bagalia is closely associated with Baron Zemo in Marvel's comic book universe, so it's almost surprising The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn't choose that setting instead. That only further suggests there are long-term plans for Madripoor and its most famous guardian angel.The Future of Mutants in the MCU
The fact that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the first MCU project to include tangible X-Men elements may give us some clues as to how those characters will eventually be integrated into this shared universe. For one thing, the Princess Bar Easter egg may be a sign Wolverine will be among the first mutant characters to emerge in the MCU. That makes sense, as both the X-Men comics and Fox's X-Men movies have long since established Logan had a long, active career well before he was recruited by Charles Xavier. For all we know, "Patch" has been kicking butt and downing beer in Lowtown for years by this point.The Wolverine tease may also play into the show's larger exploration of the super-soldier arms race in the MCU. Episode 2 already introduced Carl Lumbly's Isaiah Bradley, one of many examples of the decades-long push to recreate Captain America. Wolverine himself is a byproduct of that arms race. The Weapon X program that gave him his adamantium bones is actually "Weapon Ten," one of many branches of an organization called Weapon Plus. Cap himself is the original Weapon I. While it's still probably too much to hope for Wolverine to appear in this series (surely that casting rumor would have surfaced by now), the series does seem to be opening the door to Weapon Plus and the many other ill-fated super-soldiers that were created in the wake of Captain America.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier may even hint at how Marvel plans on tackling one of the biggest MCU questions post-Endgame. How exactly are mutants being introduced? Will they be a new phenomenon in the MCU, or have they already existed under the radar? Is it possible Professor X used his power to make the world forget about mutants? Is the lingering gamma radiation from the Blip causing widespread genetic mutation?Given the direction and thematic content of this series, we have to wonder if the MCU is borrowing a page from Marvel's Ultimate Universe comics. In the Ultimate Universe, the mutant gene is an entirely artificial phenomenon created in a lab. Wolverine himself is the world's first mutant, and Magneto's parents are among the scientists responsible for that genetic tampering [sidebar - Magneto isn't depicted as a Holocaust survivor in this universe]. Like in the Ultimate Universe, the creation of Captain America is one of the biggest watershed moments in the MCU. It begins a new superhuman age, and it makes sense to include mutants in that conflict. And if that's the case, we could see the X-Men dealing with an entirely different struggle in the MCU. Far from being the next step in natural evolution, they'd be like Isaiah Bradley - the misbegotten castoffs of a never-ending war machine. No wonder humans and mutants don't get along.
For more on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, check out the best comics to read in preparation for the MCU series and learn more about the inspiration behind the Flag-Smashers.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter. Article From & Read More ( Madripoor Explained: The MCU Just Took Its First Step Toward the X-Men - IGN - IGN )https://ift.tt/2PWd7FW
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