The X-Men are finally entering the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday, but it looks like we’re about to witness another dark timeline. The new Doomsday teaser finally unveils the X-Men, spending a great deal of time with three characters: Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Sir Ian McKellen’s Magneto, and James Marsden’s Cyclops. Unlike the last two Doomsday teasers, this one even features an action shot: Cyclops unleashing the full power of his optic blasts, apparently in pitched battle with the Sentinels.
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We don’t have any context for that thrilling Cyclops scene, of course. This being the X-Men, it could even be a scene from their Danger Room training simulator, with Cyclops taking advantage of an artificial scenario to release pent-up emotion after some sort of tragedy. But the key point is that everything in this new teaser points to some kind of tragedy; there’s an older Magneto and Professor X playing chess talking about death, while Cyclops seems to be burning with heartfelt anguish as he projects optic blasts. It’s pretty clear we’re entering a very dystopian X-Men timeline.
Every X-Men Timeline Looks Set to End in Tragedy
There’s a sense in which this is nothing new for the X-Men. Dystopian timelines have been a dime a dozen in the comics ever since Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin’s “Days of Future Past” all the way back in 1981, and Fox’s movies constantly riffed on this. Logan, generally seen as one of the best films in the Fox X-Men era, introduced a dark timeline in which Professor Xavier’s own psychic powers had killed his students. Marvel Studios followed the trend with Deadpool & Wolverine, which likewise featured a timeline where the X-Men had died.
Doomsday looks set to introduce another dark timeline, and it’s striking that only seven X-Men members are confirmed for the Avengers film:
- Kelsey Grammer’s Beast
- Channing Tatum’s Gambit
- Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler
- James Marsden’s Cyclops
- Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique
- Sir Ian McKellen’s Magneto
- Patrick Stewart’s Professor X
It’s safe to assume Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine will turn up as well, but his version is likely to be the one seen in Deadpool & Wolverine (perhaps working with Channing Tatum’s Gambit, so the Ragin’ Cajun might not be part of this X-Men timeline either). All this naturally raises a single disturbing question: what’s happened to the rest of the X-Men?
Are the Other X-Men Actually Dead?
We do not, of course, know exactly which mutants were ever members of the X-Men in this particular timeline. That said, the set design around Professor X and Magneto is evocative of the timeline briefly seen in the epilogue of X-Men: Days of Future Past, originally presented as a more utopian reality but potentially just as ill-fated. Assuming this is indeed that specific timeline, we should be expecting characters like Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey, Anna Paquin’s Rogue, and Shawn Ashmore’s Iceman. None of these are expected to return, however, a fact that in itself suggests something has happened to the X-Men.
Jean Grey’s death appears to be the most likely, simply because it would explain Cyclops’ emotion. As an Omega level mutant (or host to the Phoenix Force, depending on the approach Marvel intend to take), she would also be a primary target for Doctor Doom and/or the Sentinels, simply because she’d be the greatest threat in the entire timeline. But, given death and resurrection are such a major part of any Jean Grey story, a death may actually be setup for a surprise twist rather than anything else.
Meanwhile, it’s shocking to see Sentinels in the Avengers: Doomsday teaser. The Sentinel timeline was supposedly erased in Days of Future Past, meaning they should never have developed to the point they were a threat to the X-Men. This may support the theory Cyclops is in a Danger Room simulation; alternatively, it may point to multiversal events, with the Sentinels emerging from a different timeline. There have long been rumors Doctor Doom has developed his own Sentinel program (something he did do at one point in the comics), so this entire scene could reflect a timeline currently being ravaged by Doom.
Doomsday is building up to Avengers: Secret Wars, a movie inspired by Jonathan Hickman’s classic 2015 comic book event. This, too, took place at a point in time when Jean was dead; Cyclops became one of the multiverse’s defenders because he somehow acquired a Phoenix egg, using it to supercharge himself. It’s possible Marvel plan to do something similar, with Jean’s death setting up an exciting plot for Cyclops, but there’s little information at the present time. We’ll have to wait until a full trailer hopefully reveals far more of the X-Men.
What do you think is going on in the Doomsday trailer? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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