The X-Men are coming to the MCU! And so far, Marvel has whet our whistle for the incoming arrival of the mutant superhero team by bringing back some of the most notable characters from the Fox movies.
Patrick Stewart’s Professor X popped up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is set to co-lead Deadpool 3. Even Kelsey Grammer’s Hank McCoy — aka Frasier Beast — showed up in The Marvels. While this hits us right in the nostalgia, it has to be said that the studio needs to get a little more creative in which X-Men it brings into the MCU in the future, lest it waste the wonderful, wide-ranging potential of mutantkind.
In the past 60 years of X-Men comics, the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters has been home to mutants with some seriously oddball powers. 15 years in, even the ardent MCU defender must admit many of the franchise’s heroes have rather samey skill-sets. But with the breadth of powers on display in the world of the X-Men, Marvel has the potential — and must have the courage — to bring at least a few of these mutants with, let’s say, unique powers into play. Let your freak flag fly, Marvel.
10. Armor
Armor’s power is a little bizarre, but actually it would feel like a neat evolution of the MCU’s recent introduction of Ms. Marvel’s hardlight holograms. You see, Japanese schoolgirl Hisako Ichiki can produce a psionic exoskeleton suit of body armor that is super-strong and impenetrable to pretty much anything but adamantium Basically, if Armor saw Iron Man using technology to suit up, she’d just point and laugh at him.
9. Emma Frost
Emma Frost’s primary mutant power is as cookie-cutter as they come, as she is approximately the 563rd telepath in the X-Men universe. However, her secondary power, the ability to transform her skin into diamond, is vastly more unique and interesting. She’s virtually unbreakable in the comics, which is why the depiction of her diamond form as more glass-like and fragile in First Class was such a disappointment. Pro tip, Marvel, basically just do the exact opposite of how Emma Frost was portrayed in First Class.
8. Marrow
Many of the most interesting X-Men have an element of body horror to them, and that’s certainly true for Marrow. Whether this is a fortunate or unfortunate ability depends on how you look at it, but Marrow can control the growth of her skeletal structure, which essentially means she can pop out bones through her skin and produce an endless supply of weaponry, using them as knives, clubs, or body armor. Although you’d think that the sight of her pulling vertebrae out of her body alone would send her icked-out enemies fleeing for the hills.
7. Lifeguard
Presumably the result of 1990s Marvel Comics writers struggling to come up with a new character while Baywatch was on TV in the background, Lifeguard is, as her name suggests, a superpowered lifeguard. But don’t underestimate her as Lifeguard’s bizarrely specific yet unlimited power make her one of the most exceptional X-Men. Basically, Lifeguard’s abilities kick into gear whenever someone’s life is in danger and then her body adapts to whatever she needs to save them. e.g. transform into steel to rescue someone from being crushed by machinery.
6. Forge
Sure, the MCU is littered with genius inventors, but no one has quite the knack of technology as Forge. This Native American hero (he’s of Cheyenne ancestry) is an intuitive genius as his power allows him to perceive mechanical energy, which gives him an instinctive understanding of how to create, well, literally anything. The drawback is that he’s not actually an engineering know-it-all, so although he can create something, it doesn’t necessarily mean he knows how to operate it.
5. Evangeline Whedon
Cyclops can shoot laser beams out of his eyes, Storm can make it rain? Pfft, big whup. You know what Evangeline “Vange” Whedon can do? She can transform into a freaking dragon, that’s what. A lawyer by day, Vange’s metamorphosis is triggered when she comes into contact with blood, at which point she hulks out into a classic, Game of Thrones-style flying lizard. We’ve had dragons in the MCU already, thanks to Shang-Chi, so there’s no excuse for the MCU not to adapt this character.
4. Jubilee
Jubilee is such an iconic member of the X-Men that we just take her powers for granted, because us 1990s kids have been familiar with her forever, but if you sit down and think about it: what the heck are Jubilee’s powers anyway? She makes fireworks from her hands, people. No wonder Fox had no idea what to do with the character. The ball’s now in your court, Marvel, don’t mess her up this time. Also, extra points if you make her a vampire too.
3. Maggott
Not all superhero powers are pretty. Exhibit A; Maggott. In a nutshell, this South African mutant with natural red skin has no digestive system of his own. Instead his body houses two slug-like creatures that emerge from his body and consume virtually all kinds of matter, before returning to his abdomen and transferring their energy back to him, thereby imbuing Magott with increased strength, stamina, while also dying his skin blue. Maggott’s powers realized on screen would no doubt be gross, but also somehow engrossing.
2. Darwin
The way Fox did Darwin dirty shall never be forgotten. Similar to Lifeguard, Darwin’s body can shift into any form or substance as required, except his abilities are triggered by self-preservation rather than others being in danger. Basically, he’s unkillable… except in First Class, in which he was easily offed. Actor Edi Gathegi is thankfully getting another crack at the superhero whip in DC’s Superman: Legacy, but Marvel still needs to resurrect Darwin and do him justice this time.
1. Glob Herman
When God was handing out mutations, he really pulled a fast one on Glob Herman. With his skin made up of totally translucent bio-paraffin, dubbed “living wax,” Glob Herman is a skeleton in a puffy pink suit with only a pair of googly eyes for a face, leaving him resembling a kind of horror movie version of U.K. television personality Mr. Blobby (OK, an even more horror movie version). If Marvel is brave enough to bring Glob Herman to life, the MCU will be saved in an instant.