What Is X-Men: Supernova?

Jamie Lovett

01/09/2017 06:02 pm EST

The future of Fox's X-Men movies franchise hasn't been quite so uncertain as it is now since the failure of X-Men Origins: Wolverine led to the cancellation of Fox's other planned solo "Origins" spin-off movies.

The franchise recovered by launching a new trilogy of prequel movies beginning with X-Men: First Class, and pushing another Wolverine movie under a new director in The Wolverine.

But now that the prequel trilogy concluded with X-Men: Apocalypse, what's next? There's Logan in March and the future Deadpool movies, but the main X-Men series' future is a bit cloudier.

We know that Fox is planning a young adult spin-off movie by adapting the young adult mutant team The New Mutants into their on film. Simon Kinberg is said to be working on the next X-Men team movie, but none of these films have firm dates on Fox's schedule (though Fox is keeping dates open for future Marvel projects).

A recent issue of Production Weekly listed the title X-Men: Supernova. This has led to some speculation about what the title may be. There are a few possibilities that we'll cover here.

X-Men: The New Mutants

"Supernova" first popped up in connection with the X-Men movies franchise as a possible production title for The New Mutants. The belief was X-Men: Supernova was a cover for X-Men: The New Mutants, which was supposedly the official title for New Mutants.

But the new Production Weekly does not connect these two titles. Instead, it lists them as if they are separate projects. It could be an error on Production Weekly's part, but what would be the point of using a codename for X-Men: The New Mutants if you're going to stick "X-Men" in the front of it anyway?

It seems more likely that the initial rumors missed the mark and that X-Men: Supernova is a separate project rather than a cover for X-Men: The New Mutants.

X-Men: Supernovas

There is an actual X-Men comic book story that ran in the pages of X-Men with a very similar title.

"Supernovas" was written by Mike Carey, with art by Chris Bachalo and Humberto Ramos. Thes story featured an unconventional X-Men team that was led by Rogue and included Cable, Iceman, Mystique, and Sabretooth.

The team also faced off against some unconventional foes in the Children of the Vault. The Children of the Vault were a divergent species that branched off from baseline humans while evolving in a society housed in a floating ship with accelerated time over the course of the equivalent of 6,000 years for them. They fought the X-Men on the grounds that they the Children were the true heirs to the Earth.

This would be a fun story to see turned into a movie, but we're guessing the similarity in the names is a coincidence.

The Phoenix

What would make a good codename to cover for a story about a fiery cosmic force capable of destroying entire galaxies? You could do worse than X-Men: Supernova.

As mentioned, Simon Kinberg is working on the script for the next X-Men movie. While there are many questions about the next movie that still haven't been answered, like which cast members will be returning, rumors suggest that it will take place in the 1990s and be a new adaptation of the "Phoenix Saga," once of the most beloved and iconic X-Men stories of all time.

If we had to guess, this is what we believe X-Men: Supernova is a code for. However, it seems odd to be getting a production title for a movie that has not even been formally announced, so we're definitely posting this as just a theory. Maybe a post-credits scene in Logan will give us our next clue.

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