How the MCU Should Handle the X-Men
Fox put out a handful of good movies during their run with the X-Men. They also put out some pretty bad movies. Between 2000-2020 they released 16 films before being sold to Disney which led to the release of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ as a part of the MCU under the Disney banner. The films include the original X-Men trilogy ‘X-Men,’ ‘X2,’ & ‘X-Men: The Last Stand,’ released in 2000, 2003, & 2006, respectively. These films were sequels and directly related with the same characters throughout the trio. The timeline of the films released afterwards is genuinely incredibly confusing, even for avid viewers like myself who are willing to deep dive. I will list these films chronologically in release order, not at all in timeline order within their own canon.
2009: ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ which is a prequel centered in the late 70s on Logan and his half-brother Sabretooth (who is seemingly a different Sabretooth than we see in ‘X-Men’), but is later retconned by the events of ‘Days of Future Past’ & ‘Deadpool 2,’ (though the latter of these is really just more of a gag).
2011: ‘X-Men: First Class’ also a prequel, but taking place in the early 60s and focused on Professor X & Magneto’s early relationship and their founding of the X-Men.
2013: ‘The Wolverine’ which is a direct sequel to ‘The Last Stand,’ but the only characters that appear are Wolverine and his visions of Jean Grey. Its events were also erased after ‘Days of Future Past.’ The films ends with Professor X (who died in ‘The Last Stand,’ but transferred his consciousness to his comatose brother) & Magneto (the old versions, not the prequel versions) showing up in a scene that leads to…
2014: ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ which is both a sequel and prequel because of time travel! I won’t get too much into this, but this retconned the events of ‘Origins’ as well as the original trilogy, although these are still reference in other films. The sequel part takes place in a dystopian 2023, but ends in a more normal 2023 after Logan adjusts the timeline. And the prequel parts takes place in 1973, a decade after ‘First Class.’
2016: ‘Deadpool’ which is very… loosely… related to the rest of the films. It takes place in 2016 and focuses on Wade Wilson, but not the one we see in ‘Origins: Wolverine.’ The other returning character is Colossus, but this is not Daniel Cudmore’s Colossus we see in the original trilogy or ‘Future Past.’
2016: ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ which is a sequel to the prequel part of ‘Days of Future Past.’ It takes place in 1983, another decade after the event of Future Past. It reintroduces younger versions of characters we see in the OG trilogy: Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, & Storm.
2017: ‘Logan’ is a great film, but makes no sense timeline wise. And before you get mad Internet-bro, this isn’t because of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’ It takes place in 2029, and says no mutants have been born in 25 years. This is supposed to have taken place after Logan corrected the timeline in 2023, but somehow all the mutants still died, including the X-Men at the hands (or mind) of an aging Professor X. But we see children and teenage mutants in this 2023. It also references the original X-Men trilogy several times even though this shouldn’t have ever happened in this timeline.
2018: ‘Deadpool 2’ is straightforward enough. Following up ‘Deadpool,’ it ges a little crazy at the end because of Cable’s time travel device. But nothing too life altering, most of it is done for the purposes of gags. One inconsistency is that the X-Men team from ‘Apocalypse’ makes an appearance all looking exactly the same, but this is meant as more of a joke as well.
2019: ‘Dark Phoenix’ mirrors the events of ‘The Last Stand’ focusing on the Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix storyline, this is just without Wolverine so it’s lame. It was clearly meant to be the first of another series of films, but the studio found out they weren’t getting a series so they jammed it all into one. The strangest part to me is that it again chose to jump forward a decade taking place in 1992. So the prequels have a decade in between each of them which was a… choice.
2020: ‘The New Mutants’ is a spinoff that contains none of the same characters (although a different version of Roberto de Costa/Sunspot appears in ‘Future Past’), but does reference Professor X. It takes place at an unknown time, but most likely during the 2020s, pre-Logan.
All of this resulted in a film series that is incredibly segmented and not at all continuous. The big missteps here were jumping from era to era in different films, resulting in inconsistencies and also major time jumps in the prequels leaving so much of the story to the imagination. The four films of the McAvoy-Fassbender prequels all take place about a decade apart from one another, spanning 40 years. Yet somehow characters we see throughout don’t age at all. The characters that appear in all four (Charles, Erik, Hank, & Raven) do have slight changes to their appearances, but certainly don’t appear to be in their 60s by the last film. Havok is another example to me of a character introduced in ‘First Class’ then appears in the first two sequels, looking nearly identical even though he goes from ~20 to ~40. He also has a teenage brother in the third film (Cyclops) that is introduced with other teenage characters (Jean, Storm, Nightcrawler) that all look exactly the same 10 years later in ‘Dark Phoenix.’ It is almost as if the filmmakers forgot so much time was passing, resulting in the characters staying the same, but the world around them aging as it should (displaying real life events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK Assassination, & the Endeavour mission). We also got the tired trope in every single film of Erik reuniting with everyone else and Charles saying “hello old friend” with everyone acknowledging they haven’t seen each other in like ten years.
I think a great way for this to be fixed in the MCU is by using television shows. I’m definitely not pro more content, especially with how much you’d have to watch if you’re starting the MCU fresh to date. So I truly think the X-Men should barely be associated with the rest of the MCU, so that you could only watch X-Men content and be okay. I’m not opposed to them culminating together in some films, but overall keep them as distinct franchises. I think a series about the team would provide interesting character dynamics and growth that just can’t be executed in film. And then maybe have each season or multi-season arc (the big events: Dark Phoenix, Age of Apocalypse, House of M, etc.) culminate with a film. This also leaves potential for each character to get their origin story shown in an episode, or multi-episode arc for the big characters (Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto, etc.), but still remain a continuous story. This will allow more characters to get the spotlight and grow connections with the audience. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Logan, but not every story needs to be about him. The X-Men have significantly more major characters than even the Avengers do in the comics, and so many of them were relegated to inconsequential, unimportant, or minor characters in the films (Gambit, Colossus, Juggernaut, etc.) and some never appeared at all. And I want to reiterate this. I think the MCU’s biggest misstep over the past few years is too much content. But I think a TV format (if done well) would really benefit the mutants of Marvel.
I have a feeling this isn’t how it will go down, but however the MCU does it I do trust them and I do trust Kevin Feige, especially in comparison to the folks spearheading the Fox X-Men films. In fact I’ll have another essay soon about how good the MCU is. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how the MCU should advance with this and I’d also love to hear some of your fan casts for Xavier and Co.! (I’m personally pro Daniel Radcliffe Wolverine).
