Now that the historic deal between 20th Century Fox and the Walt Disney Company is in the books, fans are eager to see how Fox's catalog of characters and IP will further evolve. One of the most highly-anticipated parts of that is Fox's Marvel characters, and it sounds like they're one step closer to being folded into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. During Disney's quarterly earnings call, CEO Bob Iger referred to the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool as "part of Marvel Studios", although he did not hint how they would be introduced.

While discussing 20th Century Fox's place at Disney, Bob Iger name-checks X-Men, Deadpool, and Fantastic 4 as "part of Marvel Studios," but he does not mention any plans of how those properties will be integrated in the MCU. Will we hear more at the D23 panel in 2.5 weeks? 🤷‍♂️ — Adam B. Vary (@adambvary) August 6, 2019

To an extent, diehard Marvel fans have been assuming as much for several months now, ever since the Disney/Fox deal was officially done. Of course, there's still the nature of when those characters will be introduced. While Fox's characters were not part of Marvel's Phase 4 slate that was revealed at last month's San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige did hint that they had plans in the works for mutants and the Fantastic Four.

“The truth is, I’m excited for all of [the characters]." Feige said in an interview earlier this year. "I’m excited, and it’s not just the marquee names you know — there are hundreds of names on those documents, on those agreements. And the fact that Marvel is as close as we may ever get now to having access to all of the characters, is something I’ve been dreaming about for my almost 20 years at Marvel. And it’s very exciting.”

“It’ll be fascinating to see what Kevin Feige does with the properties he’s now getting from the Fox merger with X-Men and Fantastic Four,” Avengers: Endgame co-writer Christopher Markus explained earlier this year. “And to see what the MCU version of those things is, because I very much doubt it will be something that resembles what you’ve seen before. So that will be very exciting.”

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall of 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If…? In Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021.