The X-Men‘s eventual Marvel Cinematic Universe debut is the most exciting thing to happen to the MCU in years. The MCU has become, for many, stale with its plot formula finally wearing thin for fans. Most of the most popular MCU characters are gone, and fans are noticing just how weak the MCU can be without Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man or Chris Evans’ Captain America. Bringing in the X-Men opens up a multitude of doors for the MCU; the X-Men form their own mini-universe in Marvel and have over 60 years of amazing stories behind them. If there’s anything that can make the MCU vital again, it’s bringing in fresh blood and the X-Men have plenty of that.
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But while there are some X-Men stories that definitely should be adapted for the MCU, there are plenty of others that definitely shouldn’t. The X-Men are deceptively simple; their history is full of complex stories that show just how different from the rest of the Marvel Universe they are and the MCU isn’t exactly known for subtle storytelling. With that in mind, there’s some X-Men stories that definitely wouldn’t be the best fit. These five X-Men stories are brilliant, but they should never be brought into the MCU.
“The Dark Phoenix Saga”
“The Dark Phoenix Saga”, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, is widely considered the greatest X-Men story of all time. There’s a very good reason for that — it really is that amazing. The story of Jean Grey’s descent into omnipotent madness and the X-Men’s battle to save their friend and stop her rampage is a Greek tragedy with superheroes, supplying the kind of heartbreaking emotion and pulse-pounding action that has made the X-Men so popular over the years. “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is an important building block in the mythos of the X-Men, and it’s hard to imagine a world where the X-Men never go through its events.
That said, the MCU should never, ever touch “The Dark Phoenix Saga”. Fox tried to adapt the story twice and failed both times. The problem with “The Dark Phoenix Saga” as a movie is that the story really only works in the monthly serialized world of comic books. There’s so much that has to be established before the story, and the story itself is quite long, that putting it in a movie would take years and years to develop it all. “The Dark Phoenix Saga” can’t fit into a movie, or even several movies, and it should stay in the comics where it can be fully explored.
“Days of Future Past”
Marvel is known for its dark alternate futures, something that the X-Men basically started with the classic story “Days of Future Past”. Another Claremont/Byrne joint, this story shows off a terrible alternate future where Sentinels have rounded up mutants and put them into camps, killed most of the superheroes in the world, and slaughtered the X-Men. The team decides to a two-pronged attack to save the day — attacking the Master Mold facility while sending Kate Pryde back in time to try to prevent the assassination that made this future happen. “Days of Future Past” is a classic.
It’s a story that does lend itself to adaptation. In fact, Fox gave fans a pretty great adaptation of “Days of Future Past” with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Any new adaptation of the story would be compared to that movie and would almost certainly be found lacking. On top of that, “Days of Future Past” doesn’t really fit the MCU superhero formula. Seriously, would anyone want to see a hopeless future full of quippy, sarcastic X-Men? Do we want to see someone say, “Well, that happened,” when the Sentinels kill Wolverine? The MCU doesn’t do this sort of story well at all.
X-Men: Deadly Genesis
Professor X is a much more complex character in the comics than casual fans know, and a big reason for that is the six-issue miniseries X-Men: Deadly Genesis, by Ed Brubaker, Trevor Hairsine, and Pete Woods. The story sees a mysterious villain attack the X-Men, one who seems to know more about their past than he should. By the time all is revealed, the sins of Xavier are laid bare, and that changes the relationship between him and the X-Men forever.
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X-Men: Deadly Genesis jumps between the present day and the past, telling the story of an X-Men team that no one ever knew existed. It’s a pretty good story all things told, introducing new characters and concepts that changed the X-Men in a variety of ways in the ensuing years after it was published. However, the story is another example of extremely dark storytelling that the MCU just doesn’t do very well and it adds things to the X-Men mythos not every X-Men fan thinks belong there. It’s a big part of the modern era of the X-Men, but it’s a direction that the MCU shouldn’t take the X-Men.
“The Twelve”
“The Twelve” is a very interesting story, with a very contentious reception. A crossover story from the late ’90s, “The Twelve” is a story that was meant to tie up all the loose ends of the ’90s X-Men stories while giving readers what was at the time the ultimate battle against Apocalypse. The story revolved around Apocalypse trying to bring together the Twelve, a group of mutants whose power will allow him to become a god. The X-Men spring into action, but they find themselves enmeshed in a plan that was set into motion years before, battling against their most dangerous foe.
“The Twelve” ran through every major X-Men book of 1999 — Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Wolverine, Cable, and X-Man — and has a very checkered reception with fans. Some readers think that the story did a good job of an impossible task — the X-Men comics of the ’90s were notoriously complex, their loose ends akin to miles of thread. Other fans didn’t think it did a good job at all, and it’s been maligned often. The MCU wouldn’t be able to make the story better, and would probably actually do a worst job.
House of X/Powers of X
House of X/Powers of X, by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, and R.B. Silva, was called “the two book that are one”. The two series introduced readers to the Krakoa Era, showing the X-Men starting their own country and going after the first big existential threat to the existence of their new nation in House of X. Meanwhile, Powers of X is basically a supplement to House of X, taking readers through the past, present, and future of the X-Men to show how things developed and the consequences of their actions on the timeline. It’s an amazing story, earning its place among the best X-Men stories of all time, and kicked off five years of X-Men stories that changed everything for the team.
The Krakoa Era could be cool on the big screen, but here’s the problem with the MCU adapting House of X/Powers of X. The MCU just doesn’t have writers and directors skilled enough to make the story work. That’s the long and short of it. Jonathan Hickman is a once in a lifetime creative talent, and was able to take the concept of the X-Men and chart a new course for it. The MCU is not revolutionary and doesn’t do well with new concepts and stories. House of X/Powers of X is a brilliant work and nothing in the MCU has even gotten close to it. The MCU just wouldn’t be able to do it justice in the slightest, and that’s before you even consider the legwork they’d have to do to establish everything necessary to tell the story to begin with.
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