Summary
After several decades of teasing and incremental additions, it’s finally happening: the X-Men are coming into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, if the recentAvengers: Doomsdaycasting announcements from Marvel Studios are to be taken at face value, it isn’t as many might have expected. Instead of a new team of characters and actors, the MCU’s first X-Men team will include many returning members from the 20th Century FoxX-Menfilms of the early 2000s. Which begs the question: what version of the X-Men is this?
Cast members from the original FoxX-Mentrilogy, such as Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, and James Marsden, have all been announced as returning for the upcomingAvengers: Doomsday. However, the continuity of thoseX-Menfilms is anything but pristine. Eventually, they became so convoluted and difficult to keep track of that even the most ardent offans admitted defeat, leaving modern audiences wondering how those characters will be incorporated in the MCU.
The Mass Confusion of the Fox X-Men Timeline
As an example of these films' confusion, consider the big-screen role of Cyclops, originated by James Marsden in the firstX-Menmovie. However, Cyclops was killed off-screen after what amounted to a cameo appearance inX-Men: The Last Stand. The character next appeared inX-Men Origins: Wolverine(not played by Marsden), where audiences saw his origin story. Cyclops then popped up again (once more played by Marsden) in a brief epilogue toX-Men: Days of Future Pastseveral years later. But then, the sequel to that film,X-Men: Apocalypse, would feature a younger version of Cyclops (again, not played by Marsden or the other prior young Cyclops actor) getting another, different origin story.
If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is. However, it’s critical to note that there are some in-narrative justifications for parts of the timeline’s messiness. While all theX-Menfilms prior toDays of Future Pastare meant to be one cohesive story, that culminating installment featured its fair share of time-travel and timeline-altering antics. As a result, it teed up the franchise totake things in new, uncharted directions. However,X-Men: Apocalypsesquandered this opportunity and just reset the board. The result was that things were mostly the same. Hugh Jackman’s Logan, for example, is still experimented upon and turned into Weapon X. Yet, there were just enough baffling changes (somehow, Angel was now born several decades earlier) to make things even more confounding.
On top of all of this, no one seemed certain whether later additional films such asDeadpool,Logan, or evenDark Phoenixwere supposed to all be set within alternate timelines from one another or the same one.Loganfeatured a storyline in which all the X-Men except for Logan and Professor X are dead. However, director James Mangold said that wasn’t necessarily reflective of where the mainline series would go.Deadpool 2featured a gag in which Ryan Reynolds bemoans not being able topay for any of the actual X-Mento be in the movie while he unknowingly stands in front of a room full of theX-Men: Apocalypsecast — all of whom are the younger ’80s-set versions of those characters, despite the fact thatDeadpool 2is set in present-day.
Marvel’s Desire to Milk Nostalgia
To say that the FoxX-Mentimeline got muddled would be an understatement, but those original incarnations of these on-screen characters and their respective actors remain beloved to this day. Marvel Studios has had penchant for cashing in on nostalgia in recent years, from the appearance of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield inSpider-Man: No Way Hometo Chris Evans' Human Torch and Hugh Jackman’sWolverine inDeadpool & Wolverine. It makes perfect sense thatAvengers: Doomsdayis opting to bring back these OG cast members.
Additionally, things got sour at the end of the franchise.Dark Phoenixwas an unprecedented critical and financial disaster. With that in mind, it also makes sense that the MCU would sidestep those younger, more recent castings in favor of choices that are more tinted by the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.
But which actual iteration of the X-Men will be showing up inAvengers: Doomsday? The smart money would be on Marvel looking to cherry-pick from the most favorably received era of the films, like they did with the returning characters inNo Way Home. To this end, it would make the most creative sense to pull from the team as seen inX2: X-Men United. That film was themost well-received of the bunchand is still talked about as one of the great superhero sequels of all time. Plus, it includes all the OG cast members who are returning forDoomsday. ByX-Men: The Last Stand, Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler, Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique, and James Marsden’s Cyclops have been removed from the story through death or depowerment. The Russo Brothers will likely avoid this period of the timeline altogether.
Streamlining the Old for Fan Service
Deadpool & Wolverinepulled a version of Hugh Jackman’sLogan from a separate timeline, and kept him vague enough to serve as a stand-in for the established movie version while also being more comfortably comic-accurate (i.e., wearing the costume). Marvel will likely do the same with thereturning characters inAvengers: Doomsday. Given how much has changed in the superhero movie space since the early ’00s, Marvel will likely want the freedom to augment some of the character designs. They can embrace a more pulpy comic-book aesthetic for the characters while at the same time capitalizing on the nostalgia these versions of the characters hold.
The ultimate key to what audiences should expect from this version of the X-Men is most blatantly on display in a different multiversal MCU film:Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. During that film’s Illuminati-centric setpiece, Patrick Stewart made his initial MCU debut, returning as Professor X. While he was recognizable, he was also in a more comic book-accurate, science-fiction-indebted wheelchair that the films had never featured before, and was welcomed onscreen by the playing of thetitle theme fromX-Men: The Animated Series. Through these means, Marvel was able to cherry-pick fan-favorite elements from across the character’s history while still retaining the recognizable element of Patrick Stewart.
Expect the same thing from the roster of X-Men characters set to show up inAvengers: Doomsday.Considering how fractured and disparate the FoxX-Mentimeline already was, it’s safe to say that Marvel probably isn’t too concerned about adhering to those films. Instead, it will likely simply use the returning cast as a launch pad to deliver nostalgic moments of fan service.
