The X-Men were the great white whale for Marvel Cinematic Universe fans. They wanted to see what Marvel Studios could do with the mutants and are finally getting that chance. While Disney has owned the rights to the mutants since 2019, it’s only been since 2022 that we’ve started getting mutants on the big screen. With Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars about to change the face of the MCU, mutants are about to become the biggest thing in pop culture again. Fans have been talking about what stories the MCU should adapt for years now; however, even the biggest fans know that not every story should come to the big screen.
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Some of those stories shouldn’t be adapted because they aren’t very good, but there are others where that’s not the case. The stories themselves are pretty awesome, they just wouldn’t really fit in the MCU very well or are something that Marvel Studios doesn’t do well (so… superhero stories? I’m kidding. Mostly). Just because they aren’t being adapted doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be read. They are excellent stories that MCU fans should actually check out, showing why comic fans have made the X-Men the most popular team in comics for years. These five X-Men stories shouldn’t be adapted but MCU fans should read them, expanding their knowledge and love of Marvel’s merry mutants.
5) “The Twelve”
The ’90s were all about the X-Men. The team was the most popular in comics; if you like Marvel now, thank X-readers in the ’90s, because we paid all the bills. However, as the decade went on, the books started to become less popular, with plot lines stretching years before they were resolved, if at all, the glories of the past long forgotten. “The Twelve”, by Alan Davis, Terry Kavanaugh, Roger Cruz, Joe Pruett, Rob Liefeld, Mike Miller, Fabian Nicieza, Erik Larsen, Tom Raney, and Bernard Chang, ran through Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Wolverine, Cable, and X-Man. Apocalypse has returned and he’s out to gain the power of the Twelve, 12 mutants who unlock godhood when brought together. Only the X-Men stand in their way, but Apocalypse is ready for them, leading to a desperate battle for survival. This story paid off numerous plot lines and ended the 20th century for Marvel’s merry mutants with some fantastic spectacle. It’s a bit complicated and of its time, but it’s an important part of X-Men history that MCU fans need to experience. It’s X-Men weirdness of the highest order and that’s its charm, but that charm wouldn’t really translate very well to the big screen.
4) “Second Coming”
“Second Coming” was the culmination of years of plots, starting with House of M. The mutant race had been greatly reduced and no new mutants were being born until the birth of Hope Summers. This led to the stories “Messiah Complex” and “Messiah War”, as the enemies of mutantkind went after Hope and the X-Men, forcing her to hide out in the timestream with Cable. They returned in “Second Coming”, a story that saw Bastion and his Friends of Humanity begin their final assault on the island of Utopia in an effort to finally destroy the entire mutant race, including Hope. It ran through Uncanny X-Men, X-Men: Legacy, New Mutants, X-Factor, X-Force,X-Men: Hellbound,X-Men: Blind Science, and X-Men: Second Coming and was epic in every sense of the world. This story is a key part of the history of the X-Men in the ’10s, and it’s one that MCU fans are going to want to know about. However, it comes from the grimmest, darkest time in X-Men history and the MCU should never attempt to take the mutants in this direction. It’s grimdark X-Men at their finest and it’s an exciting read, but it’s definitely not the kind of story that the MCU could actually do well.
3) Generation Next
“Age of Apocalypse” is an X-Men classic and there’s plenty of people who want to see it on the big screen. I am not one of those people, but mostly because I don’t think the MCU does this kind of story very well. The MCU is great for spectacle, but can’t really do dark storytelling, relying too much on humor to be able to really capture the right tone. Marvel Studios needs to stay away from the “Age of Apocalypse”, but they probably won’t. If I have to see them butcher the story, I don’t want to see them ruin the best “AoA” book –Generation Next, by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo. This four-issue series follows the young trainee X-Men as they break into the Core to find Illyana Rasputin, who is crucial to changing history back to the way it was supposed to be. This series is a masterpiece of tone, the X-Men’s mission getting more and more hopeless as it goes on. By the last issue, there’s so much tension it’s palpable and the ending is one you have to see to believe. It’s brilliant and MCU fans need to experience it, but Marvel Studios couldn’t do this book justice and shouldn’t try.
2) “Children of the Atom”
1997 was a weird year for the X-Men. “Onslaught” had just upended the Marvel Universe and the mutants were dealing with that, all while writers Joe Kelly and Steve Seagle were building their run. Eventually, Marvel made them go in a direction they didn’t want to, leading to the end of their run, which began with the story “Children of the Atom”, from Uncanny X-Men #360 and X-Men (Vol. 2) #80, by Kelly, Seagle, Chris Bachalo, and Brandon Peterson. Professor X has returned, recruiting a new team of mutants and pitting them against the X-Men, who he says failed the dream. The story introduced a cool new team of mutants and a new roster for the X-Men, and has some awesome action. It’s an excellent story, with a twist ending that leads into the fantastic “Hunt for Xavier” (another story that MCU fans should probably read). However, the only way to get to this story is to do “Onslaught” and “Operation: Zero Tolerance”, and neither of those should be adapted. There are other ways to do the story, but it only works so well because of the events before it, so Marvel Studios should leave this one in the long boxes.
1) “Here Comes Tomorrow”
The X-Men are known for their dark alternate future stories, especially the classic “Days of Future Past”. This story has already been adapted to the big screen, so Marvel Studios might go for another alternate future story down the road. There are lots to choose from, luckily, with the best of them coming from writer Grant Morrison’s fantastic New X-Men run. “Here Comes Tomorrow” ran through New X-Men #151-154, with art by X-legend Marc Silvestri. The book takes place in a future where the Beast of the Apocalypse has risen, trying to destroy the remnants of society in a dark future. With only the X-Men standing against him, the two sides discover the ultimate weapon, but only one of them can wield it – the Phoenix Egg – leading to an apocalyptic final battle. New X-Men was an interesting book in that it took classic ideas and made them new, using nostalgia to take readers in bold directions. “Here Comes Tomorrow” takes the dystopian ideas of “Days of Future Past” and does them differently. I do not trust the MCU to do justice to a Morrison story. The MCU is mostly meant to appeal to the widest fanbase and they’ll neuter anything interesting from this story to make it work on the big screen for their fanbase. Unless Marvel is going to pay Morrison to write the script, they don’t need to adapt this one.
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