With Fox having made a dozen X-Men movies that largely focused on the same group of characters, many of whom were recast and rebooted more than once, the smartest idea for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s in-development take on the mutants could be to utilize names that we haven’t seen on the big screen before.
Most of the conversation surrounding the MCU’s X-Men has unsurprisingly focused on Wolverine, and the task facing any actor willing to step into Hugh Jackman’s iconic shoes could be so daunting that the studio might be better off leaving Logan out of the mix entirely until their version of the team has been fully established.
Of course, it would be difficult to make an X-Men movie that doesn’t feature Charles Xavier and Magneto in some form, as The New Mutants has been repeatedly finding out, so the leaders of both rival factions are widely expected to appear. However, we’ve now heard that Marvel are considering diving deep into the comic book back catalogue and will be introducing one of their lesser-known antagonists into the mix, too.
According to our intel – which comes from the same sources that told us Taskmaster would be the villain in Black Widow and that a Captain Pike Star Trek spinoff is in the works, both of which were correct – Kevin Feige reportedly wants Vulcan involved in some capacity alongside big bad Mister Sinister, who we previously revealed was Marvel’s number one choice to be the MCU X-Men’s major foe in the reboot.
Vulcan only made his comic book debut in 2006 but has already proved to be a major thorn in the side of the X-Men, and his origin story matches up with what we’ve heard about the reboot taking a much heavier cosmic angle than the Fox movies. Not only that, but as the third Summers brother alongside Cyclops and Havoc, using Vulcan instantly presents a fresh story that hasn’t been seen on the big screen before and plays up to the dysfunctional family dynamics that feature in almost every MCU film.
While nothing is set in stone just yet, of course, the smart money is on the latest X-Men reboot distancing itself from the previous franchise as far as possible, and actually giving Cyclops something to do for a change and using his brother as the villain would definitely be a solid way to go about it.
