When the X-Men finally arrive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, everybody will be expecting to see the usual faces; Wolverine, Professor X, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Rogue, Iceman, Nightcrawler… we could go on.
Don’t get us wrong, most – if not all – of those characters are essential members of the team and we do want to see them in the MCU. Heck, there are some characters who featured in the X-Men franchise that fans will DEMAND to see improved on in the MCU because of how poorly they were depicted previously.
But it’s also important that we see some X-Men who’ve never been depicted in a live action movie before, so the new version of the team is differentiated from the one we’re used to. The exact same set of characters would be boring, even with new actors portraying them – there’s no doubt about that at all.
With that in mind, we’ve come up with a list of ten X-Men, who’ve never appeared in an X-movie before, who it’d be great to see in Marvel’s flagship movie franchise. These are ten new X-Men we’d like to see in the MCU.
Let’s get to it!
10. Strong Guy
All superhero teams need a big, hulking brute to perform the role of “muscle”.
In movies to date, it’s been the Hulk for the Avengers, the Thing for the Fantastic Four, Colossus for the X-Men and Drax for the Guardians of the Galaxy, for example – but it’d be cool to see someone new in that role for the MCU’s X-Men team.
Step forward Strong Guy.
Strong Guy is a really interesting character because, while he does possess superhuman strength that he can increase by absorbing kinetic energy, he can’t store that energy for very long.
As a general rule, he needs to expel the energy within ninety seconds to prevent it from permanently distorting his body – and if he holds it in for too long, it could actually kill him.
Just imagine a fight between him and the Hulk (an Avengers vs X-Men movie, anyone?!) in which he takes a punch from the big green guy and uses the kinetic energy absorbed to hit him back twice as hard! It’d be awesome in live action!
He’s also had some great story arcs in the comics, which could be depicted on screen, like when he became the Lord of Hell. That’d be cool.
9. M
M is the superhero name of the mutant otherwise known as Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix – which is probably why she eventually decided on “M”!
Born in Bosnia and the daughter of a French father and Algerian mother, she is a Muslim superhero who has illustrated the struggle of accepting ethnic minorities into the X-Men comic books – an incredibly important issue that has been sorely lacking in the world of superhero movies, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
She’s a great character who has a vast array of superhuman powers and abilities that would be awesome to see depicted in live action. They include superhuman strength, speed, agility, dexterity, reflexes, coordination, balance, vision, hearing and endurance, a genius level intellect, intuitive aptitude, an accelerated healing factor, supersonic flight, telekinesis, telepathy and the ability to perceive the auras of other mutants.
She’s played her part (albeit to various extremes) in many prominent and important Marvel story arcs over the years – including World War Hulk, Messiah Complex, Secret Invasion and House of X – and she could very easily become a big player in the MCU going forward, given how powerful and culturally important she is.
8. Sunfire
Shiro Yoshida is the real name of the mutant superhero known as Sunfire – and he’s a very cool character.
Sunfire was only a member of the X-Men for a brief amount of time in the comic books, but he’s maintained something of a relationship with the team since then and has also been a member of several other teams in the Marvel universe.
We’d love to see him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as he would be interesting to see depicted on film for a variety of reasons.
Sunfire is Japanese – and Asian superheroes have been sorely neglected in the MCU to date – but his personality also means he’d be a lot of fun to see on screen.
You see, in spite of the fact that he’s a hero, Sunfire is both incredibly arrogant and extremely temperamental, so tensions are high whenever he’s attempting to fit into a team. We love a bit of tension!
But he also has a cool superpower that would look great when utilising modern special effects – he can absorb solar radiation and convert it into super-heated plasma bolts!
In addition to that, he can also fly and view the infrared spectrum, which is pretty neat!
7. Mirage
Sticking with the theme of much-needed cultural representation in comic book movies, we come to Danielle Moonstar AKA Mirage.
Mirage is a Native American mutant (specifically Northern Cheyenne) who, in spite of being more closely associated with the New Mutants team, has indeed been a member of the X-Men.
It’d be fantastic to see her in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as there have certainly been no Native American superheroes in the franchise to date.
She initially possessed the psionic ability to telepathically create illusions of her opponents’ darkest fears or widest wishes, but later developed a wide range of psionic and energy manipulation powers, as well as some magical abilities following a series of adventures in Asgard.
If she was to appear in the MCU, she could connect the world of mutants to New Asgard and characters like Valkyrie, which would be very cool indeed.
It should be noted that Danielle Moonstar is the one character on this list who’ll appear in the upcoming The New Mutants, played by Blu Hunt, but the fact is she hasn’t appeared on the big screen yet and a Native American character in the MCU is long overdue, so we had to include her here (especially due to her links to Asgard)!
6. Pixie
The Marvel Cinematic Universe could definitely do with some colourful and cute superheroes, rather than all the bad-ass ones it currently has – you know, just for the purpose of variation – and, for that profile, the franchise really need look no further than Megan Gwynn.
She’s the mutant superhero known as Pixie – and she’s got a variety of awesome powers!
Her mutation grants her pixie-like eyes, colourful wings that allow her to fly, as well as “pixie dust” which causes hallucinations – and she’s also been known to use magic and a mystical weapon called the “Souldagger”.
She’s also Welsh, having been born in a fictional mining town in Wales, in the United Kingdom, called Abergylid – and that is certainly a nationality that lacks representation in the MCU at the moment!
Interestingly, she’s also the daughter of the villainous Mastermind, as well as the half-sister of Lady Mastermind and Mastermind II, which could mean the potential introduction of a family of super-powered individuals in the MCU – and that would definitely be cool to see (we’ll be talking more about that particular subject later in this piece)!
5. Husk
Husk is Paige Guthrie – a young mutant from a Kentucky coal mining family who is extremely self-conscious about being seen as a “hick” (a negative stereotype of unsophisticated, simple, naive and sometimes inbred country folk).
She has a very peculiar mutant ability – and one that’s rather icky, to be honest – in that she can remove one layer of skin to reveal an epidermis of a different composition beneath it.
That composition can vary depending on what she feels she needs at the time. Often, she changes into a metallic or stone form, but she can shift into a variety of other substances as well.
She’s also adept at a variety of martial arts – and nobody wants a karate kick to the face from a foot made of stone!
Husk’s live action potential is awesome. Seeing her in combat, whilst composed of different materials would be fantastic – and it’d be fun to have a “yokel” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for sure. Just imagine her interacting with all those high-flying rich, super-intelligent city folk – the potential for humour when it comes to that clash of cultures would be huge!
It’s worth mentioning that, in 2003’s X2, her name was listed in William Stryker’s computer, but she didn’t appear on screen.
4. Forge
Now Forge (real name unknown) is a fantastic character – and one who’d be particularly great to see in the tech-laden Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You see, Forge’s mutant ability is that he has an intuitive talent for inventing mechanical devices, which is backed up by the ability to visually perceive mechanical energy in action.
It all enables him to instinctively recognise the potential and functions of any machine or technological device in his visual range – and when that’s combined with his natural intelligence, it means he can conceive, design and build highly advanced mechanical devices.
Notably, it also means he can operate, modify and disassemble existing technology or create countermeasures for it – which would be incredibly useful in the MCU.
He’s also a Native American character – specifically of the Cheyenne nation – meaning he would add some much-needed diversity to the franchise.
Just imagine him with the technology of Tony Stark, Hank Pym or the Guardians of the Galaxy at his disposal in the MCU – it’d be awesome to see (although the heroes of the franchise could probably have used his help long before now, if we’re being honest!)!
3. Rachel Summers
Remember in the Pixie entry, when we touched upon the interesting idea of a family of super-powered individuals in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Well we’ve now come to the first of three more characters who would help with that theme in the franchise.
Rachel Summers – also known as Rachel Grey – is the daughter of Cyclops (Scott Summers) and Jean Grey-Summers from an alternate dystopian future.
This also makes her the sister of Nate Grey, the half sister of Cable, and the niece of Havok and Vulcan – but she’s an exceptionally powerful mutant in her own right, possessing telepathy, telekinesis, temporal astral projection and superhuman empathetic senses.
The fact she’s from an alternate future means she’s far more suited to appearing in the MCU than she ever would have been before – now that the concept of time travel has been introduced to the franchise courtesy of Avengers: Endgame – and it would make a completely different live action retelling of the Phoenix storyline possible, given that she’s hosted the powerful cosmic entity before.
It would be awesome to see some alternate universe characters in the MCU’s X-Men, as it would certainly differentiate the team from the one in Fox’s X-Men movies – and seeing how mainstays like Cyclops and Jean Grey would react to their alternate universe family members would be very interesting indeed.
2. Polaris
Sticking with the family theme, we come to Polaris – who we believe would be an excellent addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
She is Lorna Dane, a mutant with the power to control magnetism, much like Magneto, whom she long suspected to be her biological father – a fact that was finally confirmed in 2003’s Uncanny X-Men #431.
Of course, we’ve already seen Magneto’s other kids in the MCU – Wanda Maximoff and her twin brother Pietro, who was there before he was killed in Avengers: Age of Ultron – so adding Polaris to the mix would be particularly interesting if we’re getting a Marvel Studios version of the Master of Magnetism.
Of course, we’ve seen Magneto on the big screen many times before – played by Sir Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender respectively – so having a new version of the character knowingly interacting with his children, should he be introduced to the MCU, would be a cool way to differentiate him from previous versions.
Having Polaris in the franchise would be a cool way to do that – and it’d be great in general, because she’s an awesome character in her own right.
1. Nate Grey
The final character on our list – the one we’d most like to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and another who’d contribute to the family theme we’ve been focusing on in the last few entries – is Nate Grey.
Nate – who also goes by the very derivative name “X-Man” – was genetically engineered by the villainous Mister Sinister on Earth-295 (the alternate reality known as “Age of Apocalypse”).
He was designed to be the ultimate telepath and telekinetic and was made using the DNA of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, effectively making him their biological son – and it would be interesting to learn how the MCU versions of those characters would react to discovering that!
He also possesses energy manipulation powers, teleportation, the ability to traverse dimensions and precognition, amongst other powers, so he really is a beast!
Given that the multiverse is now a thing in the MCU, Nate could very easily make the jump to the main MCU reality – and even in a universe boasting the likes of Thor, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch, he’d be right up there with the most powerful heroes in the franchise (if not THE most powerful).
He is genuinely awesome.
What do you think of our list? Which X-Men who haven’t yet been depicted in a movie would you like to see in the MCU? Let us know!
