The X-Men are the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s biggest hope. Sure, movies like Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps are good steps to take in a post-Endgame MCU, but neither of them has the cultural cache that the X-Men have. The X-Men were basically the most popular superhero team in comics for almost three decades, and only lost that spot because of the MCU. With the MCU in a place where it has never been — with movies bombing or underperforming at the box office while critics and fans have cooled on it — Marvel Studios needs to bring in a game-changer, and the X-Men are that. Deadpool & Wolverine and the announcement of X-Men actors from the Fox movies joining Avengers: Doomsday set the Internet on fire, showing how much fans want the X-Men in the MCU.
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The X-Men have over 60 years of stories under their collective belt, and in that time, creators have created a Marvel sub-Universe of heroes, villains, allies, and antagonists. The X-Men have evolved a lot over the years, which was evident when Giant-Size X-Men came along and made the team stars. With Marvel going back to the Giant-Size X-Men well with Ms. Marvel, it’s a good idea to look at the various generations of X-Men and weigh whether they should make their MCU debuts. The last time the X-Men came to the big screen, fans got a team of fan-favorite X-Men. However, that isn’t the way that Marvel Studios should move with their X-Men movies. There are some X-Men that they should wait to debut. These seven X-Men definitely need to be in the MCU movies… just not right away.
Jubilee
Jubilee has been a fan-favorite since her debut. She was the stereotypical late-80s/early-90s mall rat and the perfect sidekick character. Sidekicks were originally put into comics to give the readers a character they could pretend to be, and for young X-Men fans in the ’90s, that character was Jubilee. She was every ’90s kid hanging out with the X-Men, and her popularity in X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men ’97 means that she should definitely join the MCU’s X-Men.
However, putting her on the team right away is something of a waste. The whole reason that Jubilee worked so well was because fans already understood who the X-Men were by the time she got there. Putting her on the team the first time we see them is a mistake, but Jubilee definitely needs to show up down the line.
Rogue
Rogue is another extremely popular X-Men character that fans definitely need to see on the big screen. Rogue’s mutant powers made her one of the most interesting members of the team, and her relationship to villains Mystique and Destiny makes her an important part of the X-Men’s history. Rogue was also the touchstone character of the 2000s X-Men, which is reason enough not to put her in the MCU X-Men right away.
One of the biggest problems with Marvel Studios bringing in characters from other film universes has been their reliance on nostalgia. Putting Rogue on the team right away will feel exactly like the Fox movie, and Marvel Studios shouldn’t do that. The whole reason fans want MCU X-Men is because they want to see how the MCU makes the X-Men work. Throwing Rogue in immediately would be a callback to the old movies, and it’s not a callback that Marvel needs to make yet.
Mystique
Speaking of Rogue, her foster mother, Mystique, is another very important character to the X-Men mythos. Mystique became one of the X-Men’s biggest villains in their comics in the ’80s, her leadership of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants/Freedom Force making her a force to be reckoned with, all while using the visions of her wife Destiny to attempt to chart the future of the mutant race. Mystique has also been one of the most important X-Men characters in the Fox movies. She was set up as a huge part of Magneto’s war against Xavier, with the First Class movies showing her history with the X-Men.
Much like Rogue, Mystique is a character that played a major role in the Fox movies, and that’s enough to keep her out of the MCU X-Men movies for a time. Mystique definitely needs to show up — she’s a way better villain than she gets credit for and has ties to several of the most important X-Men — but putting her in the movies right away is just going to be playing into nostalgia, a problem that has hurt the MCU — and superhero stories in general — a lot over the years. Plus, the budget you save on blue body paint could be put to much better use.
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Nightcrawler
Everyone remembers the opening scene of X2: X-Men United, with Nightcrawler fighting his way through the White House in order to kill the President of the United States. The scene was exactly the kind of fight scene that comics fans always imagined for Nightcrawler, and fans loved him immediately. Nightcrawler is one of the most popular X-Men, having been with the team on and off since 1974. He plays key roles in the X-Men — the little brother and the man of faith — and his good-natured, swashbuckling personality brings levity to the often dark proceedings of X-Men stories.
Nightcrawler is definitely an X-Man that should be in the MCU movies, but putting him in right away just isn’t right. Xavier chose the most photogenic mutants for his inaugural X-team to make sure the common person wasn’t scared of mutants. A nightmarish-looking mutant like Nightcrawler doesn’t fit with that early X-Men aesthetic. Nightcrawler is integral to the X-Men, but he doesn’t need to be a founding member of the team.
Dazzler
Dazzler is one of the most beloved X-Men characters. She was created in 1980 to take advantage of the disco craze. Marvel was going to make the character into a multimedia star, even planning on a Dazzler disco album, but the death of that music style halted all of that. Dazzler had her own ongoing series for 42 issues, running from 1981 to 1986, which was better than she would have gotten if she had premiered in the modern day. She joined the X-Men during their Outback era, falling in love with Longshot. That was the height of Dazzler’s Marvel tenure, and she’s mostly spent the years in between the late ’80s and now in varying degrees of obscurity. However, that hasn’t stopped fans from loving Dazzler, who has proven to have much more staying power than the disco music that inspired her creation. The current generations of Marvel comics still use her as a pop-star bend on superhero mythology – and she even got pop-culture hype when it was rumored Taylor Swift could play Dazzler in Deadpool & Wolverine.
Dazzler is a very cool idea to bring into the MCU — a mutant music star beloved by the general population — but putting her in the first MCU X-Men movie is a big mistake. The relationship between mutants and humanity needs to be fleshed out more before Dazzler shows up. Dazzler could finally fulfill the multimedia promises of her creation, but fans should definitely wait a little while before she makes her debut.
The Sentinels
The Sentinels are a very important part of the X-Men mythos. They are humanity’s hatred for mutants made manifest, cast out of metal, and armed with the most dangerous technology that humanity can create. The Sentinels have played a huge role in the history of the X-Men, especially in the future. Nearly every future for mutants involves the Sentinels, and usually the Sentinels are eradicating mutants. When the Fox X-Men movies started to come out, fans speculated on when we’d finally get Sentinels. They made a big screen cameo in X3: The Last Stand, with viewers getting to see the tail end of a fight between the X-Men and a Sentinel in the Danger Room, which was pretty underwhelming.
It wouldn’t be until X-Men: Days of Future Past that fans would get to see the Sentinels in action, showing the future adaptive versions, as well as the first versions created in the ’70s. The X-Men are all about the relationship between humans and mutants, which is why Sentinels should definitely show up at some point, but that relationship needs to be built up before Sentinels show up. The Sentinels shouldn’t even be mentioned in the first MCU X-Men movie, because the events of that movie should be what makes the humans first build them. This is the best way to bring the Sentinels in, and then X-Men fans can get all the mutant versus robot big-screen fights that they want.
Wolverine
Everyone loves Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and his return in Deadpool/Wolverine was a smash hit. However, Jackman’s place in the future of the MCU has raised a big question mark over how Marvel is going to use the character. Most fans want Jackman back as much as possible, but having him become the Wolverine of the MCU on a full-time basis would be yet another example of Marvel Studios playing into nostalgia too much. This doubly goes for putting Wolverine — whether it’s Jackman or a new actor — in the first MCU movie.
Wolverine was one of the main characters of the Fox X-Men movies, and there’s a good reason for that — he’s the most popular X-Men. However, it’s that very popularity that should keep him out of the MCU X-Men right away. Wolverine is the best there is at what he does, and what he does is steal spotlight from other characters. If Wolverine is in the X-Men movies right away, it’s just going to become the Wolverine show. The X-Men have some amazing characters that deserve their big screen star turn. Putting Wolverine in the MCU X-Men movies right away will make sure that he’s the star, so making fans wait for him is the right way to go. And, based on some of Marvel’s latest Ultimate line of comics, it wouldn’t be crazy to have Logan introduced as an antagonist in his more frightening “Weapon X” persona, before he reforms into being an X-Man.
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