14 Years Ago Today, the X-Men Movies Made Their Biggest Mistake Ever

Fox’s X-Men movies found success right out of the gate. With very little competition in the way of superhero movies in the first couple of years of the new millennium, mutants were all the rage. It also didn’t hurt that the first two films were actually pretty good, bringing ridiculous characters like Nightcrawler and Cyclops to life with ease. However, the good times didn’t last forever. X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine failed to hit their marks, and rather than try to retool on the fly, Fox decided to reboot the franchise. X-Men: First Class hit theaters in 2011 and immediately helped the series get back on track.

What First Class really had going for it was its setting. It turned the clock back to the 1960s, when characters like Professor X and Magneto were much younger and just coming into their own. However, there were also plenty of new faces ready to make an impact. Unfortunately, one of First Class‘s coolest characters got done absolutely dirty.

X-Men: First Class Introduces a New Generation of Mutants

At the start of First Class, Charles Xavier is earning his doctorate from Oxford. He’s studying mutation, which puts him on the radar of CIA officer Moira MacTaggert. She’s tracking a group of superpowered individuals known as the Hellfire Club and wants to learn more about mutations. Wanting to learn more about his fellow mutants, Xavier joins her cause and meets Erik Lehnsherr, a man with the power to control metal, who has an axe to grind with the leader of the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw.

It becomes clear that Xavier and Lehnsherr are outmatched, so they seek out other mutants. They recruit Banshee, Angel, Mystique, Beast, Havok, and Darwin and bring them back to a CIA black site to train. Eventually, Shaw catches wind of the army the CIA is raising against him and takes action. He makes quick work of the officers guarding the base before locating the mutants. Shaw gives them a speech about how his mission to cause nuclear war is important and tries to convince them to join him.

Angel likes what she hears, so she agrees to join Shaw’s crew. Darwin also says he’s ready to leave his friends behind, but his betrayal turns out to be a ruse. He grabs Angel and uses his mutation that allows him to adapt to survive to shield her from an attack that Havok launches at Shaw. Sadly, Shaw is ready for it and absorbs the blast, which he drops inside Darwin’s mouth. Despite being able to change his body to fit any environment, Darwin’s ability lets him down, and he dies. It’s the most tragic moment in First Class, but it’s also an unnecessary one.

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Darwin Had So Much Potential in Fox’s X-Men Universe

From a thematic standpoint, Darwin’s death makes sense because it proves just how powerful Shaw is. After all, he’s going up against heavyweights like Magneto and Professor X, so he can’t be a slouch. However, there are other ways for characters to prove their strength. Thanos’s big entrance in Avengers: Infinity War features him throwing down with the Hulk, and he avoids killing the hero because he has bigger fish to fry. First Class could’ve easily taken the same direction with Darwin, having Shaw badly injure the mutant but not kill him. Darwin would’ve then had the chance to have a big moment in the finale, where he arrives to help his friends.

What makes Darwin’s death sting even more, though, is that he dies so that the other mutants can live. Well, Angel and Banshee don’t even make it to see X-Men: Days of Future Past, dying in between films due to the experiments Bolivar Trask is doing for his Sentinel project. If Darwin’s sacrifice wasn’t going to matter all that much at the end of the day, the least Fox could’ve done is let him live and fight alongside his teammates in Cuba. Instead, Darwin is a forgotten mutant who is only ever mentioned when discussing the worst deaths in superhero media.

X-Men: First Class is streaming on Disney+.

Are you still hurt by Darwin’s death in X-Men: First Class? Do you think the character had more potential? Let us know in the comments below!