How Close Is The Movie To The Comic Book?
Obviously, changes were made. In the original two-part story by the seminal writer/artist team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne in 1981, it was Kitty Pryde that went back in time, planting her future consciousness in her younger self in order to stave off the robot-ruled dystopia of the Sentinels. Of course, the desire to use Days of Future Past as a quasi-sequel to X-Men: First Class quashed that notion, because the film’s 1973 time-setting would mean that it takes place about 20 years before Kitty Pryde is born. But hey, Hugh Jackman’s got to eat, and because his character is over 100 years old and is, for the most part, ageless, he was the obvious choice for the trek back in time.
Once in the past, that aspect of the story’s been rejiggered too. In the comic, Mystique and a new version of the Brotherhood, Magneto’s assembly of mutant freedom fighters, seeks to assassinating the mutant-hating Senator Robert Kelly. In the movie though, a solo Mystique seeks to kill Boliver Trask, inventor of the Sentinels. The result is the same, however, as Mystique’s actions lead directly to a dystopia where mutants and humans alike are brought to the edge of extinction by the Sentinels.
Like the comic, the movie Days of Future Past ends with a promising outlook and shows that the X-Men have avoided catastrophe. The DOFP future has been revisited several times in the comic book, though, thanks to other time travellers like Rachel Summers, the future daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey, Bishop, who was featured in the film’s future fighting with the X-Men, and Cable, who’s from 2,000 years in the future where the fight for survival continues.
Of course, there’s also the “Age of Apocalypse,” which re-wrote our present when Professor X is killed in the past. But more on that later.
