Everything old is new again: after living on a sentient island (and Mars) and splitting up into various teams around the country, the X-Men are coming back together to teach the next generation of mutants and be messy as hell.
Marvel recently announced X-Men United, which comes from Exceptional X-Men writer Eve L. Ewing and artist Tiago Palma (New Avengers). Not to be confused with the 2004 movie, the new ongoing series “forms the centerpoint of the mutant world,” said Marvel editor Tom Brevoort. Emma Frost has founded the new school Greymatter Lane, which aims to “take mutantkind to the next step in their evolution.” The school’s teachers include Wolverine, Magneto, and Rogue (and some non-mutant guest stars), and the location itself is meant as a hub where “all the major players of the X world will come together to fight, hook up and hash out their differences.”
Marvel considers United the flagship book of the X-books’ “Shadows of Tomorrow” initiative first announced during New York Comic-Con, and Ewing called the book “some of the most fun I’ve had writing comics ever. Greymatter Lane is so cool because the psychic space allows for things to be weirder and more surreal, while still building on the classic Xavier’s School energy we’ve all loved for decades.”
The X-Men are no stranger to schools, and the introduction of a new one sets the mutants up for their first MCU movie whenever that arrives. (Not to mention the X-veterans hitting the big screen again with these next two Avengers movies.) Hopefully Greymatter doesn’t get blown up as much as the Xavier Institute.
Director Edgar Wright has a short, but storied, history with Marvel Studios. The Shaun of the Dead director, whose new film The Running Man just opened, was famously going to make Ant-Man way back in Phase One. Then, of course, there were creative differences, and that movie happened without him, but fans always try to imagine, “What if?” Well, apparently, there’s an even bigger Marvel “What if?” for Edgar Wright than Ant-Man. There’s the X-Men.
Speaking on the red carpet for The Running Man, producer Simon Kinberg revealed that his desire to work with Wright over the years led to many different projects being floated his way, including everyone’s favorite mutants. “I’ve been trying to make a movie with Edgar Wright for over 25 years,” Kinberg said to the official Movies X account. “We met when we were young guys in Hollywood, just starting out together, and I’ve been such a huge fan of his. I’ve sent him things over the years, many, many [things], X-Men movies, all kinds of things, and he always said no.” Until The Running Man. Here’s the full quote.
It all started right here
Producer Simon Kinberg talks getting Edgar Wright involved with THE RUNNING MAN, in theaters TONIGHT pic.twitter.com/vNsL6O1X1L
Kinberg, who is currently writing a Star Wars trilogy, either wrote or produced every X-Men movie from 2006 to 2020. Basically, the bulk of the Fox years. And he was able to get some stellar directors to help those, from Matthew Vaughn and James Mangold to Tim Miller and David Leitch. But can you imagine Edgar Wright doing X-Men: First Class? Or Deadpool? Or New Mutants? Well, maybe not that last one.
We don’t know which films, specifically, Kinberg offered, but he definitely made it seem like more than one. And we don’t know why Wright turned them down, though his past with Marvel could’ve factored in. But, in a comic book landscape of almosts, an Edgar Wright X-Men movie is pretty damn fascinating.
Of course, Kinberg did eventually get to work with Wright on The Running Man, which you can see in theaters. Read our interview with Wright about it here, where he talks about hearing from Kinberg.
Another major comics convention means another series of announcements from big comics publishers. For New York Comic Con, Marvel spread out big news for major franchises like X-Men and Spider-Man over the past few days and kept affirming that no, really, the Ultimate Universe will end next year. Let’s take those one at a time, shall we?
First, the larger Marvel universe. During Saturday’s “Next Big Thing” panel, the publisher disclosed what’s coming after Doctor Doom’s reign of the planet ends in November. We already know some characters will fight for the title of Sorcerer Supreme, and the new miniseries Dungeons of Doom from Philip Kennedy Johnson, Ben Percy, Carlos Magno, Robert Gill, Justin Mason, and Georges Jeanty will explore what happens when various factions try to ransack the now unoccuppied Castle Doom for its power and technology. That doesn’t go as planned, and they all wind up in a dungeon labyrinth they now have to survive in. Expect it in January.
At that same panel, a new Iron Man solo book was revealed. The title comes from DC writer Joshua Willamson and artist Carmen Carnero, and sees Tony Stark take on a team of geniuses forced by Madame Masque into recreating his initial success at making an armored suit.
For Spider-Man heads, the big thing to know is that Peter Parker’s heading back to Earth soon, after which he’ll be in the Death Spiral event from Joe Kelly (Amazing Spider-Man), Al Ewing (Venom), Charles Soule (Eddie Brock: Carnage) and Jesús Saiz (Eddie). The tale sees Spider-Man team up with his two gooey frenemies to deal with a serial killer coming for superheroes and with a specific axe to grind against the webhead in particular. It’s launching in February, and that summer, there’ll be the Queen in Black event building on the recent return of Knull over in Venom’s neck of the woods and the villain’s own upcoming comic.
Next, the X-Men are currently going through the Age ofRevelation event set in the near future where Doug Ramsey (formerly Cypher, now Revelation) has created a mutant utopia that’s doomed the rest of the world. Once that concludes at the end of 2025, the regular X-books like X-Men, Uncanny and Exceptional X-Men, and Wolverine will continue again under the new Shadows of Tomorrow banner, which is also bringing in some new books.
Solo-wise, Cyclops and Rogue will get limited miniseries from Alex Paknadel and Roge Antonio and Erica Schultz and Luigi Zagaria, respectively. Plot details for Cyke’s book are under wraps, but Rogue’s will see her confront her past as a villain when it comes to “slam [her] right in the face,” and Destiny and Mystique will play a part in the story. Rogue #1 will launch in January, and Cyclops #1 in February. For Magik fans, writer Ashley Allen and artist German Peralta are returning for new story starring Illyana Rasputin and her brother Colossus in the five-issue Magik & Colossus miniseries also launching in February. The big new team book is January’s Inglorious X-Force from Tim Seeley and Michael Sta. Maria, which stars Cable, Hellverine, Boom-Boom, and Archangel.
Deadpool, Storm, and Laura “Wolverine” Kinney’s books will continue, just with some slightly new creative teams and titles. Wade Wilson: Deadpool from Ben Percy and Geoff Shaw has Wade take on new clients and a “troubling path”; Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant from returning writer Murewa Ayodele and new artist Federica Mancin sees Storm continue to protect the planet, unaware the “most dangerous war in existence” is looming on the horizon. Finally, Jody Houser and Jacopo Camagni’s Generation X-23 reunites Laura and Gabby as they meet their “long-lost friend” and “a new generation of X-subjects” that’ve taken after Laura’s deadly self. All three will arrive in February.
Finally, Marvel unveiled new covers for the Ultimate books as they wind down while Ultimate Endgame plays out. The event comic and the titles it’s spinning out from—Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, etc.—will all end by April 2026. Marvel EiC C.B. Cebulski has recently stated this is a definitive end for the universe, though some of its elements will live on in Earth-616, but it’s unknown what exactly that means. We’ll find just how that spirit will endure, and how much of an ending this really is, in the coming months.
Marvel fans have been eagerly waiting to see Elizabeth Olsen reprise her role as Scarlet Witch, and the two-time Golden Globe award nominee has revealed her thoughts about her MCU return. In a recent discussion, Olsen revealed that she wants to do a movie based on the House of M storyline in Marvel Comics, which would feature the Avengers, as well as the X-Men.
Elizabeth Olsen thinks a House of M movie with Avengers and X-Men ‘would be fun’
During her recent appearance at the LA Comic Con, the 36-year-old actress opened up about the Marvel Comics arcs that she’d like her version of Scarlet Witch to feature in. Olsen specifically singled out the House of M storyline, noting that it would be fun for the Avengers to share the screen with the X-Men in a movie. (via Elizabeth Olsen Nation)
“I think House of M is just the coolest,” the Godzilla star stated before adding, “I just think it could be so fun to deal with X-Men and Avengers and ‘No more mutants.’ It would be fun.”
Written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Olivier Coipel, House of M is an eight-issue Marvel Comics series that premiered in 2005. The storyline revolves around Scarlet Witch, who creates a world where mutants comprise the majority of the population. However, after facing resistance from the Avengers and the X-Men, Wanda Maximoff decides to reset reality once again. She utters the now-infamous phrase, “No more mutants,” and recreates a world where most mutants end up losing their powers.
While a House of M movie with X-Men and the Avengers has yet to be greenlit by Marvel Studios, the MCU’s plan after 2027’s Secret Wars suggests that there is room for such a movie to happen. Kevin Feige has already confirmed the advent of the Mutant Saga after Phase Six, which would provide an ideal setting for a House of M film.
Originally reported by Apoorv Rastogi on SuperHeroHype.
>> NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES. SOME HAVE A PENCIL, TALENT AND A CREATIVE APPROACH TO GET KIDS EXCITED ABOUT MATH. GULF COAST NEWS BRIT SHOWS US HOW IT ALL ADDS UP IN TONIGHT’S STORY TO SHARE. >> AND THEY KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS GOING TO >> INSIDE THE DIMENSIONS OF A HERO IN THE MAKING JERRY TO CARE LIGHTS THE PAGE WITH PASSION. YOU PUT SO MUCH WORK INTO IT. YOU’RE SO GOOD AT IT. NOW THAT IT’S IN ITS COMES TO. SO NATURALLY, IT IS JUST FUND. THAT’S THE POINT YOU WANT TO GET PUT THROUGH MARVEL’S UNIVERSE AND CHANCES ARE YOU’LL MARVEL AT HIS WORK. EXCELLENT FOR WOLVERINE PUNISHER CONE IN NICK FURY, AGENT SHIELD HAWKEYE DEAD POOL. >> EVEN TIME, CAMEOS OF DR. STRANGE IRONMAN. >> WHO ELSE? >> BELIEVE IT OR NOT, HIS DRAWINGS WEREN’T ALWAYS COVER WORD THE THIS BUT BUT I DON’T MEAN TO BUT THIS IS GARBAGE. BUT AFTER 4 YEARS OF STUBBORN, PERSISTENCE AND SKETCHES, HE WAS OFFERED TO DRAW ON X MEN ANNUAL SERIES. AND I SAID THE >> SHE COULD YOU GIVE ME A FANTASTIC 4 INSTEAD AND I’M THE GUY GOES, LISTEN, I’LL GIVE IT TO SOMEBODY ELSE. YOU KNOW, AND I SAID TAKE IT. YOU WITH MORE THAN 10 SUCCESSFUL MARVEL COMICS UNDER HIS BELT, HIS FAVORITE AUDIENCE ISN’T AT COMICON ANYMORE. YOU CAN DROP YOU IN THE CYLINDER FROM PRETTY MUCH YOU KNOW, BELIEVE THAT A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE, YOU CAN IMAGINE YOU CAN DRAW ANYTHING. HIS WORKSHOPS IN SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACROSS AMERICAN MIX. MARVEL WITH MATT. THEY THINK SUPERHEROES A COOL LITTLE THING. MATHIS TO COOL. SO WHEN YOU COMBINE THOSE 2 THAT KIND OF ALL OF A SUDDEN MATHIS KIND OF COOL, WHICH IS WHAT THE MATH TEACHER WANTS FOR THEM. >> WHILE JERRY LOVES DRAWING MUSCLES LIKE THE NEXT COMIC. HIS WORK IS ABOUT STRENGTHENING CONFIDENCE. YOU KNOW SOMETHING TO BE AWARE TO JUST SET YOURSELF APART RIGHT FROM SUPERHEROES TO STUDENTS. HE’S TEACHING NEXT GENERATION THEIR OWN KIND OF SUPERPOWER THAT CAN DO. YOU CAN LOOK REALLY GOOD. AND SO I KN
Sketching the outlines of a hero in the making, Jerry DeCaire lights the page with passion.”You put so much work into it that you’re so good at it now,” said DeCaire. “And it comes so naturally that it’s just fun, that’s the point you want to get to.”Flip through Marvel’s comics universe, and chances are, you’ll marvel at his work.X-Men, Thor, Wolverine, Dr. Strange, Iron Man — these are just a few comics he’s worked on.Believe it or not, his drawings weren’t always cover-worthy.”He says, ‘Hey buddy, I don’t mean to break your heart, but this is garbage,’” said DeCaire, describing what his mentor, comics legend John Buscema, told him when he was starting out.But four years of stubborn persistence and sketches later, he got an offer to draw an X-Men annual series.Now, with more than 10 successful Marvel comics under his belt, his favorite audience isn’t at Comic-Con anymore.”If you can draw a cube and a cylinder from pretty much any angle you can imagine or perspective you can imagine, you can draw anything,” said DeCaire.His workshops in schools and public libraries across America mix Marvel with math.”They think superheroes are cool. They don’t think math is too cool. So, all of a sudden, math is cool — which is what the teacher wants,” said Jerry.While DeCaire loves drawing muscles like the next comics artist, his work is about strengthening confidence.”Sometimes just being weird and setting yourself apart, right?” said DeCaire.
Sketching the outlines of a hero in the making, Jerry DeCaire lights the page with passion.
“You put so much work into it that you’re so good at it now,” said DeCaire. “And it comes so naturally that it’s just fun, that’s the point you want to get to.”
Flip through Marvel’s comics universe, and chances are, you’ll marvelat his work.
X-Men, Thor, Wolverine, Dr. Strange, Iron Man — these are just a few comics he’s worked on.
Believe it or not, his drawings weren’t always cover-worthy.
“He says, ‘Hey buddy, I don’t mean to break your heart, but this is garbage,’” said DeCaire, describing what his mentor, comics legend John Buscema, told him when he was starting out.
But four years of stubborn persistence and sketches later, he got an offer to draw an X-Men annual series.
Now, with more than 10 successful Marvel comics under his belt, his favorite audience isn’t at Comic-Con anymore.
“If you can draw a cube and a cylinder from pretty much any angle you can imagine or perspective you can imagine, you can draw anything,” said DeCaire.
His workshops in schools and public libraries across America mix Marvel with math.
“They think superheroes are cool. They don’t think math is too cool. So, all of a sudden, math is cool — which is what the teacher wants,” said Jerry.
While DeCaire loves drawing muscles like the next comics artist, his work is about strengthening confidence.
“Sometimes just being weird and setting yourself apart, right?” said DeCaire.
Halle Berry has called out “shady s***” in Hollywood, responding to a revelation by director Matthew Vaughn over the X-Men franchise.
An interview clip has resurfaced from last year’s New York Comic Con, where the British director claimed that he quit X-Men 3 (released in 2006) after Berry was sent a fake script to entice her to sign on.
The Oscar-winning actress had previously played the character Storm in the hit franchise from its debut in 2000, including the original and sequels.
The Daily Mail reports that Vaughn claims a phony script was produced to appeal to Berry with an extended story arc for her character, and he said: “I thought, if you’re going to do that to an Oscar-winning actress who plays Storm, I quit; I thought, I’m mincemeat… One of the main reasons I quit X-Men 3, and this is a true story: Hollywood is really political and odd.”
Berry did appear in X-Men 3, which co-starred Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Kelsey Grammar, Fame Janssen and Elliot Page. Vaughn was replaced by Brett Ratner to direct the movie, which went on to make more than $460million at the global box office.
Mapping the Marvel universe is not the kind of thing one can do just by snapping their fingers.
For starters, there are many Earths out there in the multiverse; there are also all kinds of mystical dimensions and other weird locations. But even on just one version of Earth there are many points of interest, from the hometowns of fan-favorite heroes to fictional nations that exist only in comic books. Trying to find every Marvel-ous hangout in New York City? Fuggedaboutit.
Still, for his latest book of cool charts, that’s exactly what Tim Leong did: map the Marvel universe. For his new book, Marvel Super Graphic, Leong made a diagram of mystical planes, an illustration of the proximity of Kamala Khan’s New Jersey residence to Moon Girl’s Lower East Side lab, and even a Mean Girls–esque illustration of who-sits-where in the Empire State University cafeteria.
But that’s just the beginning. Leong—who, full disclosure, once served as WIRED’s design director—filled Marvel Super Graphic with charts and graphics about many aspects of the Marvel comic book universe. Check out some geographically-focused highlights from the book above.
Hugh Jackman shared a sweet story about his reunion with Ke Huy Quan 24 years after the two worked together on X-Men, which introduced Jackman’s Wolverine.
The actor posted a photo of him and Quan at Kevin Feige’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony with a voiceover, recounting what it was like for the two of them to see each other again for the first time in over two decades.
“One of the things about the movie being released is so many moments are happening that are making me appreciate the 25 years that I’ve been playing Wolverine,” the Les Misérables star said about Deadpool & Wolverine. “I saw Ke Huy Quan — and of course, he won an Oscar recently, and his story is incredible, and his career is incredible — and we saw each other, and we embraced because we worked together on X-Men.”
Jackman explained the Loki actor was on the stunt team of the 2000 film, and he was incredible. “That’s really where I learned a lot, a lot about how to do action movies, and how to do stunts, and it was just really cool to see him again and to reconnect,” the Logan star said.
Quan also posted about their reunion all these years later on his social media, sharing one of his now-famous selfies with Jackman. He began the caption by saying that he saw Deadpool & Wolverine, and it was “awesome.”
“Ran into Hugh Jackman recently,” he continued. “The last time I saw him was 24 yrs ago on the set of X-men when he first trained as Wolverine. He is just as nice as I remembered. Huge congratulations to @thehughjackman @vancityreynolds and the entire Deadpool team on a record opening. Bravo.”
That’s one of the new images above, featuring Wade (Ryan Reynolds) and Peter at work together. It’s from a scene early in the film that screened at CinemaCon 2024 and you can read all about it here. Basically, Wade and Peter are car salesman and while Peter wants Wade to go back to being Deadpool, Wade does not. This is before the birthday party you see in the trailers.
Then here’s another photo of Peter that looks more like it’s from Superstore than a superhero film but hey, he’s great so we like it.
Image: Marvel Studios
Finally, here’s the new image of Cassandra Nova, the character we all expect to be the big bad of the film. Either way, she’s certainly one of the main villains, considering the trailers have shown here with a team of B-level X-Men characters, in a gigantic Ant-Man helmet, and her powers completely baffling Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). But here we get a bit more of her stare, a bit more of her fashion, and a bit more of her lair. She looks very calm, very confident, and very much like Professor X, whom she’s related to in the comics but…is she here?
Image: Marvel Studios
Just a brief tease of Deadpool & Wolverine, which is coming very, very soon. Starring tars Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, and Matthew Macfadyen, it opens July 26.
ThatX-Men ‘97 season finale was quite the sucker punch for fans invested in Marvel Animation’s revived classic series coming into a modern era. We saw the X-Men overcome seemingly insurmountable odds against Bastion after the reveal that he was this season’s big bad—not the red herrings Magneto and Sinister (who still played a major villainous role in the finale).
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But it was the surprise during the end credits scene that revealed more end-of the-world sized threats were on the way—including a major villain. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, supervising producer and head director Jake Castorena, head of Marvel Animation Brad Winderbaum, and episodic director Emi Yonemura discussed the exciting X-Men ‘97 twist.
“All roads eventually lead to Apocalypse,” Castorena told EW about bringing in the major X-Men foe into the fold. “I mean, how do they not? It’s either Apocalypse or Magneto or Sinister more often than not.” It makes sense after having the X-Men appear in the past in Egypt to meet En Sabah Nur, who has been affected by the alien powers of his origin, to contrast that with him as Apocalypse in the present, post-Bastion battle.
“It was always part of Beau [DeMayo]’s pitch to bring Apocalypse in at a certain point,” said Winderbaum, referring to the series creator, who has since left the show. “Apocalypse was never really on the table for season one, but he was always top of mind as we thought about the future.”
Yonemura added that it’s a plan they’re still keeping in place. “I love it because both Magneto and Xavier are right and wrong, so you’ve got to have this other party come in and completely destroy how both of them see the world, completely put both of them at odds and challenge their thoughts,” they said. “But also, his ultimate goal is power. What does that mean? How does that manifest?”
Added Castorena, “Magneto is somebody that embraces their mutant identity, their mutant nature, and behooves others to do the same. Apocalypse is the first mutant that refuses to acknowledge that.” The character helps raise the tension surrounding Charles and Magneto’s ever-evolving discourse about the X-Men existing among humanity.
It will be interesting to see how the X-Men influence En Sabah Nur before he progresses into Apocalypse with powers that include strength, shapeshifting, mental abilities, and immortality; he shows up when the X-Men scatter across timelines and does the wildest thing—picks up Gambit’s card—which to fans foreshadowed how, in the comics, he used his superior tech to turn certain mutants into his his Four Horsemen: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. Will Gambit be reanimated like in the comics to be the Horseman of Death? Castorena’s reference in the interview was knowingly cryptic: “Oh, did something happen with Gambit in the comics? Oh, that’s cool.”
Watch X-Men ‘97 season one now streaming on Disney+.
This week’s season finale of X-Men ‘97 brought an emotional, explosive climax to mutantkind’s battle against Bastion and the Prime Sentinels—and the X-Men love nothing more for their soap operatic drama than a big emotional twist while everything’s going bonkers. The finale delivered on that front… although as with a lot of the X-Men’s problems, we’re going to have to wait and see how it pans out.
What Did the Actors Bring to Their Back to the Future: The Musical Performances?
As the battle on Asteroid M rages around the X-Men in “Tolerance Is Extinction, Part 3” and the team attempts to stop the station from plummeting into Earth in a cataclysmic event, a brief moment cuts to the X-Men’s blackbird jet as Morph watches over a sedated Wolverine, grievously wounded the episode prior when Magneto used his powers to tear the adamantium from Logan’s skeleton. Ouch. In his regenerative slumber, Logan keeps calling out for Jean Grey—but it’s Morph who’s at his side. Realizing they might not get another chance, with the base crashing down around them, Morph mutters to themselves “she can’t say it, but I can…” as they shapeshift into Jean, and use her form to add “I love you, Logan. Stay with me.”
To be fair, Morph has not been a subtle person about their feelings for Logan throughout this season—we’ve seen them spending a lot of time together, and Morph has constantly had a flirtatious vibe with Logan, from thinking he was eagerly following him into the showers in “Fire Made Flesh” (tricked by a supernatural vision of their desires, happens to the best of us) or bringing a six pack of beer and shifting into Logan’s archnemesis Sabretooth for some late night grappling. But just in case you’ve not been picking up what they’ve been putting down—it’s not exactly clear if Logan has been, either—former showrunner Beau DeMayo took to social media in the wake of the finale that yes, that wasn’t Morph trying to reassure Logan as Jean, that was Morph mustering their courage to reveal their own feelings to Logan.
It would make Morph the first explicitly romantically queer character on X-Men ‘97 so far, but as for how it’s going to pan out for them, things might not be so rosy. In the replies to DeMayo’s post confirming the intent behind Morph’s confession, the former showrunner acknowledged that Morph was potentially chasing after a straight man, and that never goes well for queer people. And that’s even before you get to the hot mess of confessing your feelings for someone while wearing the face of the person they have feelings for already. Hoo boy, Morph, you truly are a member of the X-Men with dramatic timing like that! It’s also something that Morph’s voice actor JP Karliak doesn’t necessarily want for the character, either.
“As somebody who’s consumed a ton of queer media over the years–what coded things we had in the ’90s—I think there have been so many stories told about the queer person that’s pining over the straight best friend. Meh!” the actor told Polygon this week about potentially setting Morph up for catching feelings that will go unrequited. “It’s kind of meh to me! I think it’s so much more interesting that they love each other like they’re Frodo and Samwise, and that’s great. It doesn’t need to be more than that. And they can support each other. It makes Morph razzing Wolverine by turning into Jean Grey so much less about like, ‘Oh, I’m jealous, so I’m gonna, like, razz you about your girlfriend who I hate,’ and more about, ‘Hey, buddy, I think this is harmful for you, and I just want to point this out, that maybe you need to move on.’”
Whatever DeMayo and X-Men ‘97‘s creative team has planned for Morph and Logan’s relationship remains to be seen—before DeMayo exited the series, his work had already been completed on season two. But suffice to say, poor Morph is going to be in for a hell of a time between being flung through time, watching the aftermath of the person they’ve caught feelings for get half their skeleton ripped out of their body, and y’know, the whole surviving yet another threat of eradicating their entire kind and the rest of the planet along with them. Business as usual for the X-Men.
Marvel’s animated series has continued the tales of the X-Men from the ‘90s cartoon, adding in timely relevance with great aplomb. Here’s a short tease of the next installment, featuring a fashion shake-up as well as more hints about the story, which finds humanity needing to trust in the X-Men once more. As tends to be the case, they may be the best hope the world has to survive.
Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97 | Official Clip ‘Trust In The X-Men’ | Disney+
To avoid early anxiety about what is actually going to happen in the next episode, let’s just geek out for a moment about the costumes here. We see Jean reach for her mask without her Dolly Parton-sized wig, Wolverine grab his red-tinged gloves, Storm put on her crown, and Cyclops don his visor. We see you, Marvel: using the old costumes for the main team from the 1980s Uncanny X-Men era. It’s just really cool to see the show pay homage to the comics and iconography in this way.
Image: Disney+
“Tolerence Is Extinction, Pt. 2,” the second piece of X-Men ‘97‘sthree-part finale, starts streaming May 8 only on Disney+.
Like the original series, X-Men ‘97has been adapting a variety of comic book storylines from the 90s. Thus far, the likes of Inferno, The Trial of Magneto, and Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly’sNew X-Men run have been brought to life, with varying levels of time and success. The show has a lot of stories it can tell, and one of them may bring the team in conflict with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
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Speaking to ComicBook, Ross Marquand (who voices Professor X) indicated there was a “real chance” the show gets to adapt Avengers vs. X-Men. Speaking to Captain America’s appearance in the seventh episode “Bright Eyes,” Marquand noted how it could be the first step toward adapting that storyline. “[Rogue] threw [his shield] in the side of a snowy mountain,” he said. “He ain’t gonna find that shield. It’s not like Mjolnir where you can just like pull it back, it’s stuck in that thing. He’s gonna be pissed at Rogue for a while.”
Released in 2012, the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline—from writers and artists like Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Matt Fraction, Adam Kubert, and Olivier Coipel—was arguably the last big event before Marvel went into its MCU synergy phase. Like the title implies, the two teams went to war over the returning Phoenix Force, which eventually split itself into five pieces that bond with Colossus, Magik, Emma Frost, Namor, and Cyclops. Things eventually end with the Phoenix Force restoring the then-dwindling mutant population, Cyclops as a mutant revolutionary, and Cap forming the Uncanny Avengers to mend fences with mutants.
What makes a potential adaptation interesting in the context of X-Men ‘97 is that it’d how, by design, the X-Men’s POV would take center stage instead of the Avengers like in the comics. The show’s shown how characters like Rogue and Cyclops are fed up with how mutants are currently treated, and how Cap’s “by the book” approach with violent acts against them is unacceptable. If anything, its version of the storyline would be titled X-Men vs. Avengers, and make whatever the late 90s/early 2000s version of the Avengers out to only stick their neck of mutants if they get to look good.
AvX is a big story, and it’d probably be easier (and more fun) to pull off in animation than the movies. Recent episodes have had no problem showing that characters like Scott and Magneto are right in their anger and actions, and one can imagine that it’d find an interesting way to present those viewpoints (and those who are swayed to their side) when they’re influenced by the ever-corrupting power of the Phoenix Force.
X-Men ‘97’s already got a second season secured, and it may have a third under its belt as well. Let us know in the comments how you think it’d do tackling Avengers vs. X-Men, or if it’s even worth doing in the first place.
The X-Men find themselves, perhaps almost always, on the precipice of great change. But right now they really do feel like they’re on the edge of something new again. In the comics, after years rejuvenated by the Krakoan Age, they’re ready to rise from the ashes of tragedy once more. On the big screen, we’re ready to bid farewell to the Fox X-Men era in Deadpool & Wolverine this summer. And on TV, mutantkind rides high with X-Men ‘97‘s re-imagining of an animated classic.
Who Should Be The New Wolverine? io9 Picks
If anything, there are so many parallels in 2024 to the turn of the 21st century, when Grant Morrison was preparing to take on writing a new generation of X-Men comics with what would eventually become New X-Men in the summer of 2001. Alongside Frank Quitely and other artists, New X-Men boldly redefined what the X-Men’s stories were about for the modern age, emboldened further by the cultural moment the X-Men found themselves in. While the ‘90s were very good to the X-Men in terms of comics sales for the most part—and of course you had ancillary support in wider culture from the explosions of things like X-Men: The Animated Series and the iconic Jim Lee trading cards—mutantkind hit the mainstream even harder with the release of the first X-Men movie in 2000.
The herald of a new age of superhero moviemaking, X-Men was, in Morrison’s eyes, equally a shot in the arm and warning alike of what had to change in the comics, so they could try and match the audience the movie had enraptured all over again. “Let’s aim for the big audiences. Let’s push books we can be proud of on every level. Books that kids will dig for their sheer gee-whizz, kinetic strut, which college kids will buy for the rebel irony and adults will love for the distraction, just like the movies and the TV shows—just like when Stan [Lee] was doin’ it!!!” Morrison wrote in their pitch bible for New X-Men—which has floated around online for a few years now, but becomes especially potent reading in the crossroads Marvel’s mutants find themselves in in 2024, as a comics reset looms and a future in Marvel’s vaunted cinematic universe looms. “I believe we have a rare opportunity to bust some self-imposed barriers and run screaming through the streets if we just cut loose a little and do work aimed at the mainstream, media-literate audience of kids, teenagers, and adults with disposable income.”
In this part pitch bible—including some early descriptions of story arcs and characters that would go on to appear in the book, like “Charlie X,” an early identity for Cassandra Nova—part manifesto, Morrison charismatically weaves an argument for a truly 21st century vision of the X-Men, galvanized by the embrace of the franchise’s core concepts and characters in the movie. “To make the X-Men feel fresh once more, we need to take a closer, harsher look at what’s not working in this book and the comics field in general,” they write in part. “The recent X-Men stuff has been written in an old-fashioned, over-dense style for one, and we need to update, streamline, and demystify the storytelling techniques considerably to appeal to modern sensibilities.”
Image: Frank Quitely, Tim Townsend, Hi-Fi, and Saida/Marvel Comics
It’s full of Morrison’s thoughts on what they thought worked and was worth revisiting in X-Men—pointing to Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s legendary run on Giant Sized and eventually Uncanny X-Men in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s as a touchstone (“they had the freedom to create new material, reconceptualize the old stuff which still worked and ignoring the outmoded elements which had sapped the original series of its vitality”)—and what had to be left behind in the ‘90s. “In the last decade or so, the tendency at Marvel has been intensely conservative; comics like X-Men have gone from freewheeling, overdriven pop to cautious, dodgy retro,” Morrison argued. “…The comic has turned inwards and gone septic like a toenail… X-Men, for all it was still Marvel’s bestseller, had become a watchword for undiluted geekery before the movie gave us another electroshock jolt.”
To Morrison, the movie represented so much of what they wanted to bring to New X-Men’s cultural and aesthetic presence. Beyond a feeling of contemporary cool that had defined the Claremont era of the franchise, mutant stories that still reflected these heroes less inwardly as superheroes, but people of the modern world, it was also important to them that X-Men felt less like a superhero comic, and more like a sci-fi epic, something that resonates in New X-Men’s eventual approach to things like the Sentinels or its grasp on the Shi’ar Empire, but also how it divided mutant culture as something distinct from humanity, on both a societal and evolutionary level. Above all though? Morrison adored the ideas behind those movie suits.
“The movie had it almost right: I think we should go for hardcore bike style exo-rubber uniforms, maybe military pants and wrestling style boots… the look’s brutalist and military and I think the X-Men should reflect that to stay on the cutting edge of cool,” Morrison writes, before adding that not everything the movie did design wise quite worked for them. “I’d like to see some yellow in paneling or detailing on the costumes—if only to avoid the dull black leather look of every film superhero—but it should be pop art dayglo yellow, the kind cyclists and bikers wear to be seen… X-Men is a soap opera about super-people in the same way that Dallas was a soap about oil people. The oil only provided window-dressing and an excuse to look great.”
In hindsight, Morrison’s bold bet paid off. While not every aspect of their run on New X-Men escaped controversy, the book endures as one of the definitive 21st century X-Men texts, an influence that is still felt in the comics today—and elsewhere, in things like Deadpool & Wolverine’s use of Cassandra Nova, or X-Men ‘97‘s examination of the Genoshan genocide. As the X-Men once again find themselves thrust towards the potential of a mainstream embrace arguably not seen since the early aughts, Morrison’s words resonate—and perhaps make for a fine set of watchwords as we see where Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics alike take mutantkind’s evolution next.
Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has defined the Fox era of X-Men movies. His storied tenure from the 2000 film all the way up to Logan gave us perhaps one of the most definitive live-action superhero performances of our lifetime. That makes the temptation of his return in Deadpool & Wolverine so potent—but for Marvel Studios’ head honcho, it was almost a curse.
Who Should Be The New Wolverine? io9 Picks
“I said, ‘Let me give you a piece of advice, Hugh. Don’t come back’,” Feige recently told Empire about advising Jackman on a potential return to the character he’d stunningly bid farewell to in 2017’s Logan. “‘You had the greatest ending in history with Logan. That’s not something we should undo.’” But Feige’s advice actually pushed Jackman to really consider what he’d want out of a return.
“I was about an hour into the drive,” Jackman said of his headspace after initial pitches. “And that question came into my head: ‘What do I want to do?’ And as soon as I asked the question, I wanted to do Deadpool & Wolverine. I just knew it. I drove for another hour. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I got out of the car, called Ryan [Reynolds], and said, ‘Ryan, if you’ll have me, I’m in.’”
What Jackman wanted to do was not actually return to the same character we saw perish in Logan, but offer a new take on Wolverine that, while drawing on his presence in the history of the Fox X-Men saga and its myriad permutations, also did something new with the character. Even if that ‘new’ was something as simple as finally letting Jackman put on the yellow spandex Logan and Cyclops had joked about way back in the first X-Men film. “We almost [had the suit on] in The Wolverine,” Jackman added. “But from the moment I put it on here, I was like, ‘How did we never do this?’ It looked so right, it felt so right. I was like, ‘That’s him.’ There are different sides of Wolverine we haven’t seen before in the movies. It was exciting for me.”
Hopefully we’ll see many more sides of Logan beyond just a costume change when Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters July 26.
Janet Jackson and Drew Barrymore are looking back at their acting careers and revealing some iconic movies they passed on.
The singer made a surprise appearance on Friday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, and in a preview clip, Jackson shared which legendary superhero she almost played.
After being asked if she was supposed to star in The Matrix, she responded, “No.” Jackson added that she couldn’t remember the film’s name but knew who got the role when she turned it down.
“It was…this is horrible,” the Good Times alum said. “I can’t remember the film, but Halle Berry played Storm.” Barrymore exclaimed in response, “X-Men?”
“I couldn’t because I was just embarking on the Janet tour,” Jackson continued. “But I think that’s what you’re confusing it with. It wasn’t The Matrix.”
Berry debuted her superhero Storm in the 2001 movie, adapted from the Marvel comic book, and reprised her role in X2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Barrymore, who can relate to Jackson as she has also passed on projects that she later regretted, proceeded to recall another big film role she didn’t take, instead signing on to something else at the time.
“It’s so hard when you, like, are thinking of doing a film and then you don’t end up doing it,” she explained. “I have so many of those experiences. I’ve never said this out loud, Boogie Nights. There was a moment where we were talking about Boogie Nights and I think it’s when I went and did Ever After [A Cinderella Story] and I went in a very different direction.”
While the 50 First Dates actress didn’t share which role she was considered for, the 1997 film Boogie Nights ultimately starred Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds and Heather Graham.
The Poetic Justice star hasn’t appeared on the big screen in more than a decade, so when asked if she would be open to returning, she responded, “I would for sure.”
Many might be feeling the weight of superhero fatigue. The quantity of superhero films is exceeding the quality of those movies. Out of all the heroes, the only one that seems exempt from that feeling is Deadpool 3, now officially titled Deadpool & Wolverine. Fans are extremely excited about the return of the Merc with the Mouth. We will get to see Ryan Reynolds back in Deadpool’s iconic red suit. Not to mention it will also be the return of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (in a comic book-accurate costume!) It will also be the official entry of the X-Men (and all the other beloved mutants) into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s a lot to be excited about.
Now that Deadpool & Wolverine has a trailer out and several minutes of footage screened at CinemaCon 2024, details have started to come out about the film, including its villain. We know that Deadpool and Wolverine will team up to help save the multiverse from a threat, and Emma Corrin (The Crown, My Policeman) is reportedly playing the role of the villainous Cassandra Nova. Cassandra is a majorly powerful villain in the X-Men comic books, with a complicated history and a wicked personality.
Here’s everything we know about Cassandra Nova!
Who is Cassandra Nova?
Created by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, Cassandra Nova first appeared in New X-Men #114 (2001). Cassandra is called a “Mummudrai” by the Shi’ar. This means she is the exact equal and polar opposite of another person. In her case, Cassandra’s opposite is her twin brother—the ultra-powerful Professor Charles Xavier, leader of the X-Men. Yes, Charles Xavier was a twin. And it just gets weirder from there! Even as a fetus, Xavier was apparently so powerful that he had consciousness and thought. In the womb, he felt the evil of his twin and tried to kill her with his psychic powers.
The battle caused early labor (!?) and the doctors believed Cassandra to be stillborn. But this is the comic book universe where no one ever truly dies, so Cassandra used her mental powers to rebuild her cells until her body was restored. After she was whole, Cassandra used her abilities to seek revenge against her brother and anyone else who crosses her path. Being the antithesis of Charles Xavier without his compassion sets her up to be a great villain for the MCU. Besides her powers, her convoluted and strange origins are something that only Deadpool could make work.
In the story arc of the limited X-Men Red (2018) series, Cassandra is featured as the main villain. Tapping into racist hate breeding online, Cassandra builds a “hate machine” to make her more powerful. Although the series can be a little heavy-handed at times, it is one of my favorites. Everything Jean Grey and her team through at her doesn’t seem to work. They finally defeat her by injecting her with empathy, so she can feel the pain of the world rather than fuel the anger. Laura and Gabrielle Kinney (my favorite Wolverine clones) play a major part in taking down Cassandra. Cassandra’s plan in X-Men Red would fit well in Deadpool & Wolverine, using real-world drama, but ratcheted it up for an over-the-top supervillain. And maybe that means Wolverine’s clone kids will be entering the MCU right alongside their “dad.”
Has Cassandra already entered the MCU?
With X-Men ’97 currently streaming on Disney+, there has been speculation that Cassandra is already in the MCU—but not onscreen quite yet.
Episode 5 of X-Men ’97, “Remember It,” adapts a storyline from the comics in which the mutant nation of Genosha is destroyed by sentinels. In the comics, Cassandra is the one pulling the strings and ensuring Genosha’s demise. Could the same be true in X-Men ’97? If so, could Cassandra’s appearance in the series pave the way for her live-action debut in Deadpool & Wolverine?
We’ll have to wait and see!
(featured image: Marvel)
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There’s exactly one Marvel Studios movie coming to theaters this year, but it’s one of the biggest to date. Deadpool & Wolverine is scheduled for release on July 26 and it won’t only be the first MCU film for Ryan Reynolds’ wisecracking killer, but also the MCU debut of Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman.
Who Should Be The New Wolverine? io9 Picks
That alone already has fans excited and the number of people who watched the first trailer proved it again. Continuing the fun, Disney debuted new footage at CinemaCon 2024, and here’s what happened.
Wade Wilson grabs a staple gun, uses it to put on his wig, and says “Now let’s sell some certified pre-owned vehicles, motherfucker.” Smash cut to Wade in the back seat of a car with a family on a test drive. They ask him some questions but he keeps cursing and mentions he doesn’t have kids because he doesn’t have much vaginal sex. He’s bad at this.
Peter (Rob Delaney) apparently works there too and they talk in the locker room about how Wade may be a bad salesperson, but he can always go back to being a superhero. Wade explains that he’s done for good. This is the life he wants and if you “aim for the middle, you’ll never miss.” Peter shows him that he keeps an old Deadpool suit in his locker anyway.
Wade and Peter ride bikes home from work and Wade notices someone taking photos of them. The conversation continues about wanting to be superheroes again and Peter asks Wade if he’s just sad because it’s his birthday. He also mentions a very interesting piercing he’s just gotten.
Yes, it’s Wade’s birthday. He goes into his apartment and it’s a surprise party. There are all his friends from the first two movies: Negasonic, Colossus, Dopinder, Blind Al, and others. Wade goes around the room and catches up with everyone. One highlight of this is Wade and Al going back and forth with a ton of insults. She asks him if he wants to do some cocaine and he says that’s the one thing Kevin Feige said was off the table. She rattles off a bunch of different fake names and he says Feige knows them all. Finally she says, “Do you want to build a snowman?” To which he says, yes but I can’t.
Vanessa is also there and they are no longer together. She’s seeing someone from work though, and Wade is happy for her, though he’s not seeing anyone.
The group sings “Happy Birthday” and then Wade gives a heartfelt speech about how much he loves everyone in this room. He says that despite some tough years, he’s truly happy now because of them. He then goes on to blow out the candles… and the second he does, there’s a knock at the door.
You’ve seen some of this in the trailer. It’s the TVA. Wade assumes they’re a group of men who are there to have sex with him and he gets very dirty about what he wants them to do with all his holes. They then get fed up, knock him out, and put him through one of those TVA doors.
In the TVA, Mr. Paradox (Matthew McFayden) tells Wade that a) he soiled himself, and b) what the TVA does. “That’s a shit ton of exposition for a threequel,” Wade says. Mr. Paradox tells him he knows that Wade has been abusive of the timeline previously, with Cable’s time travel device, but that’s not why he’s there.
Apparently Wade has been chosen for a higher purpose. One that’s even unclear to the TVA. He needs to save the sacred timeline from a grisly fate at some point in the future. The two guys joke that it needs to be “Avenged.” That they’re going to “Marvel” at how “Cinematic” is. Wade says he wants it all, cameos, variants, the works.
They turn to the screen and on it is Steve Rogers as Captain America. Wade knows him and salutes the screen. “You’re no longer lost,” Mr. Paradox says, “You can now be a hero.” At this point, Wade notices a screen where Thor is holding a dying Deadpool and crying. “Why is Thor crying?” he asks. Wade isn’t supposed to see that though; that’s something that happens in the distant future.
Wade is all in and says he will return and help. He then turns to the camera, runs toward it, grabs it, shakes it and says “Suck it Fox! I’m going to Disneyland!” He also fellates the boom microphone a bit.
“Oh, there’s one more thing I need,” Wade says. It’s a costume. A TVA tailor makes him a brand new upgraded Deadpool costume, which comes together in a quick series of fast edits… which include more than a few of the tailor grabbing Wade’s crotch.
Wade loves the new costume, even if he has to tell them the tailor is a predator. He also mentions that his samurai swords are made out of adamantium. He jokes around that one of the TVA employees is eyeing him up and his underwear is getting tighter. The employee picks up the phone to call HR.
That leads into a montage of action scenes largely from the first trailer. Dog Pool running in slow motion. Lots of shooting. Wade in the back seat of a bloody car. And then, finally, we see him and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine sitting together in a car.
“What’s with the suit?” Wade asks. “Do the X-Men make you wear it?” He comments he looks like he fights crime for the Los Angeles Rams, but Wolverine isn’t having it. “I’m just trying to bond a bit,” he says.
Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. It opens July 26.
Update: the headline on the original post was updated to more accurately describe the length of the footage.
