The future of the X-Men on the big screen

[Hi-Fi]

Charlie with Cerebro, obv.

Ditch Kitty. Depending on timing, Rogue can be the ingenue --but I'd prefer Jubilee.

Rogue doesn't really work for me as the ingenue.

I'd be down with Jubes, but I feel like they'll go with Kitty as the more iconic character.

[MarvelMaster616]

I want this to be the roster:




Cyclops and Storm co-leading (Scott representing old-school strategy and Ororo new-school methods).
Kitty as the younger newbie.
Wolverine as the loner wild card.
Rogue as the misguided villain-turned hero.
Nightcrawler as the heart of the team.
Colossus as... someone who's also there, I guess.
They do need a telepath, so I guess Jean? I'm kinda tired of her in the movies, tbh.

I could totally get behind this team.

[CRaymond]

I could totally get behind this team.

Having recently bought the DPS hardcover ($$$), and read it as an adult, my controversial opinion is that Wolverine should never have been in romantic love with Jean Grey, but instead felt paternal attachment. Jean should have been the model for all the spunky kid sidekick action girls that followed. It's less boring love-triangle bullcrap and gives nuance to her survivors' relationship. He wants the best for Jean, and that might not be Scott. Instead of subtextual Pearl Fishers, Cyclops and Wolverine become grieving Stiller and De Niro in X-Fokkers.

Which leads me to my most controversial revisionist history opinion ever: I'd rid the X-Men of Kitty Pryde and leave the X-Men's traumatic wound of Phoenix without an ingenue to hold it together.

[yogaflame]

People who want the X-Men to start as older are missing the fairly obvious point that, rather than seeing them discover their powers and their first adventures, then we'll have missed a décade or more of them. Not to mention the even more obvious point of "where were they during Infinity War, Ultron, etc.

[Maestro 216]

I would put in a unique team of Gambit, Magik, Beast, Kitty, and finally Scott with Gambit being a mole for Sinister.

[BishopsJuice91]

I just had the thought that to introduce mutants into the MCU, a good way would be a set piece like Captain Marvel and WW, but go a little further back to Victorian England and have Mr. Sinister or Nathaniel Essex as the main character. This way they could give us a whole film explaining the X gene and where exactly it comes from, also and most importantly, it would give us something different from Fox movies. Allot of groundwork for the future of the franchise could be laid out, with introductions to Logan, Sabertooth and maybe even Apocalypse. This is just the initial brainstorming and I know Marvel would never do something like this, I think to make it work it would have to be pretty dark, but I still think it’s a dope idea and could give Mr. Sinister his just due since he got shafted before...

[MarvelMaster616]

I just had the thought that to introduce mutants into the MCU, a good way would be a set piece like Captain Marvel and WW, but go a little further back to Victorian England and have Mr. Sinister or Nathaniel Essex as the main character. This way they could give us a whole film explaining the X gene and where exactly it comes from, also and most importantly, it would give us something different from Fox movies. Allot of groundwork for the future of the franchise could be laid out, with introductions to Logan, Sabertooth and maybe even Apocalypse. This is just the initial brainstorming and I know Marvel would never do something like this, I think to make it work it would have to be pretty dark, but I still think it’s a dope idea and could give Mr. Sinister his just due since he got shafted before...

I love that idea. I think for the MCU X-Men to work, it has to mix things up from the formula that the Fox movies used. One key component is Sinister. We've seen too much of the Magneto/Xavier dynamic over the years. The X-Men need another villain and Sinister is ripe for reinvention. The MCU worked wonders for Thanos. I think they could do the same for Sinister with the goal of making him the perfect villain for the mutant domain of the MCU. Magneto could still play a part, but I think Sinister needs to be the bigger threat. And if they can get Bryan Cranston to play the part, then that can only help.

[BishopsJuice91]

I love that idea. I think for the MCU X-Men to work, it has to mix things up from the formula that the Fox movies used. One key component is Sinister. We've seen too much of the Magneto/Xavier dynamic over the years. The X-Men need another villain and Sinister is ripe for reinvention. The MCU worked wonders for Thanos. I think they could do the same for Sinister with the goal of making him the perfect villain for the mutant domain of the MCU. Magneto could still play a part, but I think Sinister needs to be the bigger threat. And if they can get Bryan Cranston to play the part, then that can only help.

I commend DC for what it seems like they’re doing with the Joker film and not abandoning the dark side of their nostalgia. I think something like that could work great for Sinister, but on a bigger/freakier scale all while introducing a few characters that will play even bigger roles down the line...

[Glio]

Even if characters like Cyclops and Storm are teenagers and the X-Men just formed that does not explain where Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine and dozens of mutants older than them were.

[The Kid]

So I asked this before but it kinda got lost in the scuffle. Who will the funny characters be? That's a key piece of the MCU

I could see Iceman, Nightcrawler, Emma, Wolverine, Beast all be funny as hell

[Jackraow21]

I’m hoping that however they introduce the mutants into the MCU that we don’t have to sit through an origin film. Personally I loved how they introduced Spider-man and just hit the ground running, and am optimistic that after establishing that mutants exist in the MCU somehow they can do the same with the X-men. Something akin to how they introduced them in the first episode of the Animated Series would be ideal in my view.

[Omega Alpha]

Even if characters like Cyclops and Storm are teenagers and the X-Men just formed that does not explain where Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine and dozens of mutants older than them were.

If there were only a handful of them before the X-men appeared, that's easy enough. Much harder to explain if there's a team of X-men formed and fighting already.

[Arsenal]

If there were only a handful of them before the X-men appeared, that's easy enough. Much harder to explain if there's a team of X-men formed and fighting already.

Not necessarily, it mostly depends when they were formed. If they formed something around the events of AoU, it would make sense why the X-men wouldn’t want people to know they exist. You can frame it that they were still active and doing good work but doing it “underground” away from the public eye.

[CRaymond]

They've always been there. They're just incredibly much more rare and far less known. Between the scenes and behind top secrets.

MCU X-Men flashback scene groundwork:

1952
SHIELD Agent Peggy Carter introduces a young boy -rescued from Argentinian Nazi Hydra- to three more children at a top secret SHIELD site at Alamogordo. The girl introduces herself as Destiny. Peggy corrects that her name is actually Irene, but the girl eerily says they'll all take new names in time. One boy is bald, the other wears a black whoopee cap. Peggy leaves the room to let the children watch Bozo the Clown, saying their guard will keep them safe. "He's the best there is at what he does."

1987
The camera opens on the eyes of Magneto, filled with tears. Behind him, a bald man is crawling on the ground toward him, desperately pleading, "Eric, wait."
Magneto lowers his eyes behind his helmet. "That's not my name anymore Charles." They are in Kursk, in an abandoned nuclear silo, surrounded by the bodies of dead Soviet soldiers and separatists. Magneto is one button press away from launch.
"Irene knew what you'd do. She told me. She told SHIELD. They've sent the Pyms."
"It doesn't matter Charles. It's all a lie. All of it."
"I know."
In a fury, Magneto spins around to face his crippled friend. "YOU KNEW SHIELD WAS HYDRA? ALL THIS TIME? After what happened to Logan... Shaw... when we lost Raven... Did Irene tell y--"
"Of course."
"Then it's too late. What will be will be." The fire of the missile silo lights Charles' face. "auf wiedersehen, mein freund."

1997
Charles Xavier's wheelchair is being pushed through the courtyard in front of (Captain Marvel's movie's SHIELD headquarters) by a young man in red glasses. They arrive at a park bench where young Agent Nick Fury waits with a banker's box of old SHIELD files. Fury greets the elder man with a sarcastic comment and asks if the boy is his son. "He's a rescue." As Xavier rifles through the box, we see folders titled Cerebro, Hazard, Wolverine, Mystique.

Fury informs the pair that mutants are still largely an unknown among SHIELD's upper echelon, but he's followed the money to unspecified deterrent technologies being developed throughout the world. "There's a lot of hate and fear in this world, Professor."

"Which is why we have to work together to protect its future."

2012
Christine Everhart is reporting from the devastation of downtown Boston, where millions of Americans lost their lives in an assumed terrorist attack. She informs the audience that the assumed ground zero of the detonation was the elite "Hellfire Club", where owner billionaires Sebastian Shaw and Warren Worthington, Professor Charles Xavier, and several other members were caught in the blast and killed. The President is headed there shortly, no terrorists groups are claiming responsibility yet, and NATO members are sending resources to aid in recovery.

Agents Coulson and May are surveying the wreckage, and mention to each other their headaches get worse the longer they stay there. Science Agent Weaver leads teams to take samples and readings. Coulson heads to a secure bunker to interrogate a small group of rescue workers, seen saving lives and evacuating the detonation survivors. He finds Agent Isabelle Hartley, passed out on the ground, and evident claw marks in stone, steel, and wood.

In a stolen van, Storm and Nightcrawler are leaving the city of Boston. Both are beaten and bruised badly. Kurt looks behind her to the people in the van, turns to Ororo as she drives, and asks "What's next?" Ororo continues to look at the road ahead says "We do what we do best. We get lost. We get safe. We rescue. We teach. So that this never happens again."

[yogaflame]

I don't want the whole history of the X-Men to be flashbacks. A sprinkle to get things started, sure, but not the main meat and bones of their adventures.