Marvel X-Men Movie Reboot: Why Wolverine Isn’t Needed

Leave Wolverine and Magneto Alone

We’re not here to disparage Fox’s X-Men movies. Well, not overly so. That series was instrumental in sparking the current superhero movie boom and exposing the merry mutants to a much wider audience. They broke new ground and raised the bar for comic book adaptations.

That said, the classic X-Men movies have their share of problems. For one thing, the series has possibly the most nonsensical continuity of any major Hollywood franchise. Deadpool and Wolverine’s insistence that every single X-Men movie is part of one, singular timeline only exacerbated that particular problem.

But another, possibly even more fundamental issue is that not all mutant characters are treated equally in those films. Too often, it felt like they couldn’t be bothered to focus much attention on any characters other than Jackman’s Wolverine and Ian McKellen or Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. Those two quickly came to unfairly dominate the franchise, to the detriment of pretty much every other mutant character. As great as 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is, the decision to pivot back to Wolverine after the clean slate approach taken by 2011’s X-Men: First Class really derailed the momentum of those pseudo-reboot movies, and they never recovered in later sequels.

That’s one reason Marvel’s new cast reveal is so exciting. There’s nary a Weapon X or a Master of Magnetism to be found in the bunch. Instead, Marvel is keeping the focus tight and prioritizing a team of youngsters that includes Cyclops, Jean, Storm, and Rogue (note – Beast has also been heavily rumored for the film, but he wasn’t included in the D23 reveal).

It’s definitely a risk excluding what are easily the two most popular X-Men characters. There’s a reason why Wolverine appears in roughly 37 different X-Men comics every month. He’s a proven commodity. The fact that Marvel is confident enough in this new approach that they can safely exclude the Ol’ Canucklehead is a great sign. They no longer feel they need Wolverine or Magneto to put butts in seats. They’re finally looking to give the Cyclopses and Storms of the franchise the attention they were so frustratingly denied in the Fox universe.

It probably doesn’t hurt that X-Men ‘97 has been busy proving that you don’t need Wolverine front and center to make fans fall in love with an X-Men project. That series has worked wonders with characters like Cyclops, Rogue, and Storm. Now it’s the MCU’s turn to continue that good work.

Mister Sinister: The Next Great Marvel Villain?

Logic would dictate that any rebooted X-Men franchise would begin by pitting the team against Magneto. After all, he was the original X-Men villain, and as we’ve established, he was a huge focus in the Fox movies. But that’s not the direction Marvel Studios is heading. They’re instead kicking things off with a villain who never appeared at all in the previous series – Mister Sinister.

The lack of Sinister is another knock against the Fox movies. They did two mediocre takes on The Dark Phoenix Saga but couldn’t be bothered to feature one of the most important X-villains of all time? Well, at least the reboot will make up for lost time.

For those not familiar with the character, Mister Sinister was originally a Victorian-era geneticist named Nathaniel Essex (or Nathaniel Milbury, as he’s called in the film). Essex isn’t traditionally depicted as a mutant himself, but he holds a deep fascination with the mutant genome and the potential it holds for creating powerful new lifeforms. After being transformed into a sort of immortal, energy-manipulating vampire by Apocalypse, Sinister sets about his decades-long quest to study and harness the power of mutantkind. Much of his research centers around his two favorite test subjects, Cyclops and Jean Grey.

Sinister has been a vital part of the X-Men franchise since he was introduced in 1986, fueling key storylines like The Mutant Massacre, Inferno, and Messiah Complex. All of those stories offer a wealth of material for the MCU to adapt. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that introducing Sinister opens the door for Apocalypse in the MCU. Could En Sabah Nur be the next great overarching villain of this universe after Robert Downey, Jr.’s Doctor Doom?

But it’s really Marvel’s more recent X-Men comics that have us so excited about the potential of Sinister in the MCU. The character has undergone a bit of a renaissance over the past 15 years or so. Writers like Uncanny X-Men’s Kieron Gillen and House of X’s Jonathan Hickman have drastically reinvented Sinister’s personality. He’s evolved from being an imposing but fairly one-note villain to a devilishly entertaining, deranged mad scientist. He’s downright sassy in those comics, and it’s hard to imagine the character ever reverting back to his older, blander personality.

We can only hope that Schreier, Driver, and writers Joanna Calo and Lee Sung Jin are looking intently at those books when it comes to their portrayal of Sinister in the reboot. Given how much humor and banter are a priority in the MCU, they’d be remiss if they didn’t bring Mr. Sassy to life in the reboot.

Reinventing the Young X-Men

There’s one final reason Marvel’s D23 reveal has us so stoked for the X-Men reboot. This is shaping up to be a very solid cast. Marvel has assembled some very promising up-and-comers to bring these rebooted X-Men to life.

Inde Navarrette’s Rogue might be the most exciting pick of the bunch. Navarrette is currently an indie darling thanks to her career-making turn in the horror movie Obsession, and we can’t wait to see what layers she can bring to a girl who’s terrified of human touch and connection. We’re also very intrigued by Boyd’s casting as Storm, particularly in light of rumors that she also has a key role to play in 2028’s Black Panther Part III.

But really, the whole cast looks solid. Connor seems like a great choice for Cyclops, as does Abbott as Xavier. And we’ve already gotten a taste of what Sink can deliver as Jean Grey thanks to Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

As we’ve explored before, Brand New Day establishes a very promising new template for the X-Men in the MCU. If Sink’s Jean is any indication, Marvel is striving for something very different with these rebooted characters. The emphasis seems less on traditional superhero adventures and more on painting these characters as dangerous outcasts in a world that hates and fears them.

We see in Brand New Day how much damage Jean can cause with her powers. She’s not a villain, but she lacks the benefit of a strong mentor figure who can train her in how to use her powers responsibly and ethically. That’s where Abbott’s Xavier comes in.

We assume the same will hold true for all these young characters. They’re struggling with the sudden onset of these terrible gifts, like puberty amplified to the nth degree. Maybe someday they’re destined to be heroes, but right now they just need somebody to teach them how not to kill innocent civilians. The reboot has a lot of potential to explore these characters as lost souls in need of salvation, even as Driver’s Sinister and (potentially) Weaving’s Emma Frost tempt them in a darker direction.

If all goes well, we’ll see a far deeper exploration of the psychology and evolution of these characters than we ever got out of the Fox series. For as many X-Men movies as we’ve gotten over the years, there’s still so much untapped potential to explore. And that’s why the 2028 reboot is so exciting.