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Between the release of the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer following up that X-Men-riddled post-credits scene in The Marvels featuring the return of Kelsey Grammar’s Beast, it seems that the X-Men’s official big screen debut into the MCU is just around the corner now. It’s an intimidating task adapting a team as diverse and large as the X-Men, because there needs to be few enough characters that everyone present has an arc and enough characters that the superfans watching feel like they truly got an X-Men movie.
The problem is something X-Men films have struggled with in the past. As Marvel Studios lines up its mutant heroes and prepares for the upcoming first X-Men MCU film, the team has an opportunity to correct mistakes of the past by ensuring the future of the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t simply “Wolverine and co.”
Underutilized Heroes
Admittedly, three of the most recent X-Men films tried to move away from placing Logan as the central character that the entire plot revolves around; those would be First Class, Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix. Results may vary, but X-Men films have always been all over the place in terms of quality. Three movies may seem like a lot, but when looking at the whole picture, what fans see is that leaves the entire original trilogy, X-Men, X2, and X-Men: The Last Stand, plus the entire trilogy dedicated solely to Logan himself, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Wolverine, and Logan, not to mention X-Men: Days of Future Past all completely revolving around the Canadian with claws.
The X-Men have always been about far more than just Wolverine. It’s a large team of incredibly diverse heroes all coming to terms with being a mutant in a world that hates and fears them while trying to save their own kind from destruction. Wolverine has often played a key role in many of these stories, but it’s rarely him alone that saves the day, and more often than not, it’s other heroes like Shadowcat, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and even Juggernaut that wind up playing the central role. That’s almost never happened in the X-Men films, and this new Deadpool & Wolverine movie stokes fears that that will continue to be the case, only with Wade Wilson as an equally important central role now.
The X-Men, Deadpool, & Wolverine in the MCU
To be fair, it makes a lot of sense to have Wolverine be the character that ushers the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially with Hugh Jackman back onboard to do his irreplaceable portrayal. The point of this is not to try and knock Deadpool & Wolverine down a peg, because there’s a lot to be excited about, but hopefully, there’s some due consideration coming for Logan’s beloved allies as well.
The fact is, iconic X-Men characters like Jubilee, Storm, and Angel have never really received the screentime and character development that they deserve, while other equally iconic characters like Gambit, Dazzler, Northstar, Armor, and more have never received any screen time at all. It would just be nice to see the MCU’s X-Men spread the love a little bit outside of Wolverine, especially when there’s ample opportunity to have films and Disney+ shows working side-by-side. The X-Men always did well on TV anyway since shows like the original ’90s X-Men cartoon and X-Men Evolution were the best ways to give the various mutants all the varying stories they deserve.
