With the Fox era of Marvel characters all but officially over, it’s a fun time to look back at what could have been. For decades, Fox had control over two of Marvel’s biggest properties: X-Men, which they turned into a long series of largely popular and successful movies, and Fantastic Four which ... they mostly whiffed on. And at one point Fox was planning what would have been one of the biggest superhero movies in history to that point: A film combining the X-Men and Fantastic Four into a crossover battle.

Although the film was rumored for years, The Hollywood Reporter has some of the first details about what the film would have entailed, had Fox gone through with it. According to THR, the script (by X-Men: First Class writers Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz) would have...

...saw Johnny Storm go nova while trying to apprehend the villain Molecule Man. Johnny blows a hole in Manhattan and sparks the superhero registration act in response to the carnage. The heroes are split on opposing sides, and among the key matchups was a Wolverine vs. Mr. Fantastic battle that ended with Reed Richards pinning Wolverine down, extending his hands until they're one molecule wide, and using them as scissors to cut the mutant's arms off (!!!). Eventually the heroes make peace … leading to a post-credits scene that teases what's next: A Skrull invasion.

Uh... okay. I guess Wolverine probably would have been ok? Can Wolverine regrow arms? Or is that more something a lizard can do, and not a wolverine?

THR says Paul Greengrass was even interested in directing this behemoth, but like so many projects in Hollywood, it fell apart. (So did another attempt at a crossover written by comics scribe Warren Ellis.) Instead, Fox made X-Men: Days of Future Past. And then the Josh Trank Fantastic Four. And then X-Men: Apocalypse. And Dark Phoenix. Hm... is it too late to hit the reboot button and try that whole sequence again?

Gallery — Every X-Men Movie Ranked:

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