Marvel fans should have seen the writing on the wall with the original X-Men movie back in the year 2000, a film that took the idea of the series and the characters that we knew and simply told its own story. Despite decades of Marvel comics at their disposal, the first X-Men film arrived at a time when superhero movies largely ignored the source material in favor of doing their own thing. To that end, it was no surprise that this was something of a criticism around the original film, which wasn’t exactly a big deal at the time since it became a major hit and the groundwork for a major movie franchise.
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With the sequel, though, the X-Men series started to actually pull from the comic books for its storylines. That said, though there were specific storylines that the films started to pull from, they were more in the “inspired by” vein than actually adapting the plot of comics that fans had read previously. Even 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past carries the name of one of the most famous X-Men comics of all time, but the film bears only a passing resemblance to it. Though there are a slew of major X-Men storylines that the movies have brought to life (The Phoenix Saga has been adapted multiple times) there are countless others that the films barely even looked at, let alone adapted.
5) E Is for Extinction
When Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely took over the X-Men, the pair did so by making a major splash within the continuity. They did this not only by actively working to make some of the best characters in the series even stronger, but by delivering Earth-shaking revelations that expand the narrative in a way that fits into the larger conventions of X-Men storytelling. That’s a lot of fancy words, but they did it very simply.
First, they introduce a new villain in Cassandra Nova, who concocts a grand revenge plan against Professor X that not only includes a large-scale mutant genocide but also eventually makes her way into the X-Mansion and swaps bodies with the leader of the team. On top of that, they introduce the idea of secondary mutations, with characters like Beast getting a new redesign and Emma Frost gaining the power to turn her skin into diamonds.
Pieces of this storyline were plucked and used in some films, but the scale of “E is for Extinction” required an X-Men team that is at its peak, something that the films were never capable of allowing to happen, in order to tear them down with an epic storyline. As fans know, Cassandra Nova finally made her big screen debut in Deadpool & Wolverine. Even though that film’s version of the character clearly demonstrated power on par with her comic book counterpart, it didn’t do her larger place in the comics justice.
4) From the Ashes
“From the Ashes” is a distinct collection of stories from the pages of X-Men comics, which not only shows how great the series was when it was at its prime. Across just eight issues of Uncanny X-Men, Chris Claremont, Paul Smith, Walt Simonson, John Romita Jr., delivered iconic X-Men twists that not only changed the trajectory of the series but gave fans moments that still get referenced today.
In one story, “Professor Xavier Is a Jerk!”, Kitty Pryde not only gets the spotlight (unhappy that she’s being moved to a different team) but also meets her alien dragon Lockheed. The story not only added depth to the Pryde character, gave her her iconic pet, but also played with the idea of the larger X-Men roster having various teams, all things that the movies never accomplished.
Other stories included in this collection are the introduction of the group the Morlocks, the wedding of Wolverine and Mariko Yashida, and, most importantly, Rogue’s defection from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to the X-Men after being unable to control her absorption of Carol Danvers’ powers. The X-Men movies never knew what to do with Rogue anyway, without getting repetitive, meaning her most powerful comic book storyline never got close to the big screen.
Finally, the introduction of Madelyne Pryor in this arc delivered a unique storyline for Scott Summers, who found himself falling in love with a clone of Jean Grey and thus into a trap set by Mastermind. The X-Men movies were too busy retelling the larger Phoenix storyline to even come close to introducing the likes of Madelyne Pryor into its own convoluted continuity.
3) Inferno
Madelyne Pryor, not being a figure at all in the X-Men movies, of course, means that the demonic invasion seen in “Inferno” was an impossibility for the big screen version of the characters. Central to the Inferno storyline is both Magik and Colossus, the mutant brother and sister who both appear in the films but never together, with the former becoming a key for demons of Limbo to stage an attempt at taking over Earth. The demons later work with Madelyne Pryor to bolster their attempt, offering her revelations about her origins in exchange.
What’s revealed in the storyline is not only confirmation that Madelyne Pryor was a clone of Jean made by Mister Sinister, but that the villain has been actively meddling in and altering the course of the X-Men’s lives for years. It’s one thing for the X-Men movies to have never introduced Madelyne Pryor; she’s a character that requires a lot of explanation and even willing suspension of disbelief that comics can more easily afford, but to never bring in Mister Sinister feels criminal.
To be frank, it would probably be pretty impossible for the X-Men movies to have pulled off this storyline since it involved not only so many different teams from their corner of the Marvel universe, but was largely all about demonic forces invading Earth. On the flipside, though, the story had major ramifications for Jean Grey and even had her regain some of her Phoenix abilities, something that was like catnip for the X-Men films.
2) Lifedeath
Lifedeath is a simple story that unfolds across two issues. Though it sometimes deviates to other characters, it’s largely about just two of them, Storm and Forge. Having lost her abilities, Storm has lost her will to live, but over the course of time the pair become very close and even fall in love, with Forge revealing how he was once in her place and managed to find his way out.
The story takes a dark turn, of course, when it’s revealed that Forge is the one who created the machine that stripped Storm of her powers. The larger arc of Storm having no powers and later regaining them is a long one, with the hero not having her abilities for almost forty issues of Uncanny X-Men, but “Lifedeath” is a meditative story that X-Men does well in between world-changing stories.
There’s a clear reason why this storyline never made it to the big screen, and it’s one that proves comics are always going to be the best medium for these stories. The X-Men films are only allowed to be a blockbuster spectacle. Any attempts to stray from that formula have been a disaster (even some that stick to that formula are a disaster), so every film needs to be about world-ending stakes and major action scenes. As such, a quiet, reflective storyline with only two characters might as well be illegal.
1) Age of Apocalypse
Yes, Apocalypse himself did appear in an X-Men movie, finally, but a recurring narrative trope in X-Men comics that the movies only barely flirted with was the “grand alternate universe.” X-Men: Days of Future Past, the film, toyed with this some, but only as a bridge into the period piece setting of most of the movie. Outside of that storyline, perhaps the most famous alternate universe is the Age of Apocalypse, the universe that answered the diabolical question “What would happen if Charles Xavier were killed before he could form the X-Men?”
A story like Age of Apocalypse can really only be done in comics; it’s a narrative that is so big in scope that it required every title in the X-Men line to be replaced. Across these titles, there were a slew of nooks and crannies that were explored, plus epic redesigns for almost every character, like Wolverine’s one-handed look and Cyclops really living up to his name. Furthermore, Age of Apocalypse lasted more than a year across Marvel’s comic line, which is an eternity when you consider how many titles it meant it replaced.
Movies have precious real estate within their runtime, meaning it would be almost impossible for a film to actually do this storyline and its gigantic size justice. To that end, probably best that the X-Men movies ignored it, but we can’t help but wish they’d tried (the brief cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t count).
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