The X-Men are coming to the MCU, and it’s time for a true superhero soap opera. Marvel officially announced the X-Men cast at D23, including Christopher Abbott’s Professor X, Inde Navarette’s Rogue, Maya Boyd’s Storm, Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, Samara Weaving’s Emma Frost, and Kit Connor’s Cyclops. We’re still expecting more announcements –Cailee Spaeny is reportedly still in talks for the X-Men film – but we now know pretty much all we need to about the core team.
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We’re clearly skewing young, and two of the confirmed cast – Abbott’s Professor X and Weaving’s Emma Frost – have served as mentors to younger teams in the past. Meanwhile, Adam Driver is confirmed as “Nathaniel Milbury,” an alias used by the twisted geneticist Mr. Sinister in the comics. The alias is a major clue to the film’s plot, given Sinister adopted it when he ran an orphanage, experimenting on the orphaned Scott Summers. It sounds like the first MCU X-Men film will actually be an origin story for Cyclops. But that means we can head into one of the best X-Men love triangles.
The X-Men Have Always Been a Superhero Soap Opera
The MCU has tended to be pretty sexless, but there’s absolutely no way to take that approach with the X-Men. This franchise is (in)famous for being as much of a superhero soap opera as anything else; even the characters themselves have frequently admitted how “incestuous” things can get around Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, because pretty much everyone winds up hooking up at one point or another. I once tried to plot every X-Men relationship, and gave up after several hours because the project was just unworkable.
Cyclops, oddly, seems to be catnip for telepaths. Yes, he’s best known for his relationship with Jean Grey (where he’s part of a popular love triangle involving Wolverine as his rival). But his psychic affair with Emma Frost turned into an equally-popular relationship in the comics, and Psylocke tried to seduce him back in the ’90s. The comic book version of Cyclops is supposed to be a charismatic, inspirational leader and a skilled tactician, whatever Fox’s X-Men movies may tell you. The odds are good that we’re about to get a teen romance between Sink’s Jean Grey and Connor’s Cyclops.
Could We See An X-Men Love Triangle With Cyclops, Jean, & Rogue?
I’ve seen a lot of discussion online about whether the MCU’s X-Men films will ever set up the love triangle between Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Emma Frost. Personally, I think that’s unlikely; we’re obviously going for a teenage Cyclops and a significantly older Emma, so it’s reasonable to assume Marvel has other plans. My own bet is that Xavier and Emma will be rivals, running schools where mutants are trained and schooled in very different philosophies. During the ’80s, Marvel’s New Mutants gave them just this kind of dynamic.
If I’m right, though, then I further suspect Marvel may be drawing from one of the best X-Men animated shows of all time: X-Men: Evolution, which set up a group of X-Men and Brotherhood members competing with one another at the same educational establishment. This show featured a very different love triangle, in part because it didn’t introduce Gambit for a while; rather, it played with a fantastic plot where Rogue had a crush on Cyclops. It was tragic – Scott only had eyes for Jean – but it served as a fantastic, satisfying plot.
Rogue’s natural power is quite simple: she absorbs the memories and powers of anyone she touches. It’s traditionally a power she has little control over, and it’s easy to see why she’d feel she has so much in common with Cyclops, who’s famously unable to control his optic blasts. What’s more, in narrative terms, Rogue’s crush on Cyclops was deeply symbolic; she fell for the guy who was already taken, therefore utterly unavailable even if she could find a way to touch him. No, this love triangle never happened in the comics… but it was an incredible, smart idea from a writing point of view.
In addition to Cyclops and Jean Grey, the MCU’s X-Men film also has Inde Navarette as Rogue. That means it would be so easy for Marvel to tell this particular story, to give Cyclops not one but two love interests, and to commit to the “superhero soap opera” model right from the start. Forget Wolverine, forget Emma Frost; there’s a much more satisfying option already available to Marvel, one that would immediately help the X-Men films stand out from the rest of the MCU.
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