5 X-Men Characters That Were Ruined by the Movies

Fox’s X-Men films helped save Marvel. The company was bankrupt when it sold the film rights to the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and other properties, and the success of 2000’s X-Men showed that Marvel’s merry mutants still had their grip on pop culture. The story of the FoX-Men movies isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. From the beginning, many fans didn’t like how the movies were so different from the comics, with some character choices mystifying longtime comic readers.

Characters like Wolverine, Magneto, and Xavier — played by Hugh Jackman, Sir Ian McKellan/Michael Fassbender, and Sir Patrick Stewart/James McAvoy — are beloved by fans, but not every X-Men character was so lucky. Many fan-favorite mutants were ruined by the movies, which played a very large role in the eventual failure of the FoX-Men films.

The below characters being better probably couldn’t have saved the movies, but they didn’t need to be done so dirty.

Havok

X-Men: First Class gave fans the chronological beginning of the Fox X-Men saga, taking the story back to the 1960s. The movie introduced fans to all-new characters, taking mutants from across the team’s history to create the first X-Men team. One of these members would be Havok, the brother of Cyclops, played by Lucas Till. The movies changed their relationship a bit — Havok became the older brother instead of the younger — and had Havok take Cyclops’s place on the first team of X-Men.

Havok in the comics suffers from the younger-brother syndrome, constantly in the shadow of Cyclops. However, Havok has also become an important mutant in his own right, leading first X-Factor and then several teams of X-Men, developing relationships and his own personality. He also has one of the coolest costumes in X-Men history, designed by the legendary Neal Adams. The Havok of the X-Men movies didn’t suffer from the same neuroses as the comic version, but the movies didn’t replace them with anything interesting. Havok appeared in X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse, but his role in each movie decreased. The prequels left many characters behind and Havok never had a chance.

Cyclops

Cyclops is one of the most important X-Men ever, but he hasn’t always been treated that way in adaptations. In fact, it wouldn’t be until X-Men ’97 that Cyclops fans would feel that the character got the portrayal he deserved. The Cyclops of the Fox X-Men movies was an unfortunate casualty of this tendency. Cyclops, played by James Marsden and Tye Sheridan, never got to shine.

Marsden’s Cyclops was played as the straight-laced team leader and was constantly overshadowed by Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who got all the good lines and cool scenes. He was unceremoniously killed off in X3, mostly because Marsden had chosen to join the cast of Superman Returns with X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer. Sheridan’s Cyclops was overshadowed as well, as the X-Men prequels were all about Magneto, Xavier, and Mystique. Neither version of Cyclops got to grow as a character or do anything cool with his optic blasts, and Cyclops fans don’t look back fondly on either.

Angel/Archangel

Angel/Archangel appeared in the third movie of each X-Men series, played in X3: The Last Stand by Ben Foster and in X-Men: Apocalypse by Ben Hardy. Both versions were bad, for similar reasons. Foster’s Angel was part of an overstuffed movie and didn’t really have anything to do as a character and didn’t stand out. Hardy’s Archangel at least had some cool action scenes, but suffered from the lack of characterization that afflicted almost all of the new characters X-Men: Apocalypse tried to introduce.

[RELATED: Three of Hugh Jackman’s Highest Rated Movies Are X-Men Films (But Which Ones?)]

Angel/Archangel in the comics isn’t the most beloved character, but the drama of losing his wings, being transformed into Death by Apocalypse, and fighting against the monster put inside of him by the ancient mutant has given him some great stories. The movie versions never built Angel/Archangel as a character, so fans never cared enough about him. He at least got to be Archangel in X-Men: Apocalypse, but since he was barely a one-dimensional character, it was just cool visuals with nothing behind it. The movies didn’t take any time to make the character interesting, and Angel/Archangel failed.

Rogue

Rogue in the X-Men movies isn’t a bad character, Anna Paquin does a fabulous job as the Southern mutant, but comparing her to her comic counterpart shows how much the movies ruined her. The two Rogues start in a similar place — young women scarred by their powers and trying to find their place in the world — but the movie Rogue doesn’t have the edge that the comic Rogue did. Comic Rogue was raised by Mystique and Destiny, and was a fighter from the beginning, having a core of toughness to her. Movie Rogue didn’t have that same upbringing and core, and the character never actually progressed.

Rogue is currently leading an X-Men team, has complete control of her powers, and has even been an Avenger, leading the Avengers Unity Squad. She’s transcended her beginnings and is the consummate mutant superhero. It’s impossible to see movie Rogue doing the same things. X3: The Last Stand ended with her deciding to give up her powers rather than learn to use them, which completely misunderstands who Rogue is. Rogue in the comics hated her powers but was proud of being a mutant. Movie Rogue is all about self-loathing and is a perfect example of an adaptation not understanding a character and ruining all the potential that character could have.

Apocalypse

The first two X-Men prequels — First Class and Days of Future Past — were well-received and felt like a turning point for the X-Men movies. Some people even believed that the FoX-Men universe might even be able to do battle with the MCU. X-Men: Apocalypse and Deadpool were both highly anticipated in 2016, but X-Men: Apocalypse wasn’t nearly as successful as it needed to be. It wasn’t a massive bomb and isn’t a terrible movie, but it suffers from a big problem that many superhero team movies can’t get past — having too many characters to make any of them interesting.

However, many fans had the feeling the movie wouldn’t be great the first time they laid their eyes on Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse. The live-action rendition of the character was roundly mocked and, unfortunately, the movie never gave fans any reason to like Apocalypse. Apocalypse is one of the X-Men’s greatest villains and the movie never found what made Apocalypse so great. Apocalypse is grandiose and powerful, an ancient enemy who is as verbose and dramatic as he is dangerous. Apocalypse of X-Men: Apocalypse was generic, which is a worse sin than the character’s designs, and that sealed his fate.