So before we kick this off, I just wanna thank @CorndogBurglar, @bkmeijer1, and @Vigor for inspiring me to write this, you three are the last true X-fanatics!
Intro to Mutation
So I've been wanting to write this for a long time but I never had a full plot idea until now so here we are. But before I get into the actual pitch, character bios and other stuff, I wanna take a moment to share my personal love for the X-Men and how they have impacted me.
Since I was around 8 or 9, I've known who the X-Men were but they weren't my favorites. When I was younger, I liked the Justice League, Avengers, Spider-Man, the characters you would expect a young person to like a lot. My dad is a huge Wolverine fan so I know my knowledge of Logan from him.
When I was 15, I discovered this team called the X-Statix. I bought an omnibus and immediatly fell in love with it, this was my introduction to the wider X-Men universe, this is where I began my love for the X-Men...
In my continuing, convoluted, mildly infuriating rabbit hole that is the X-Men lore, I discovered characters I fell in love with (Cyclops, Kitty Pryde, Sunfire, Dazzler) and compelling stories that I couldn't pull myself away from (God Loves, Man Kills, Giant Size X-Men #1, The Phoenix Saga). From all of this newly attained knowledge, I was able to create my pitch for the MCU's X-Men!
Our Mutant Protectors
Before the actual outline itself, let's get to know our main character a bit...
Kitty Pryde: 15, a plucky Jewish girl who's mutant powers have just recently emerged. She struggles to find her true place in the world and wants to prove her worth to Xavier's team no matter what
Scott Summers / Cyclops: 35, the idealistic leader of the X-Men. He, most of the time, is able to lead his team to victory but his confidence issues prevent him from reaching his full potential.
Jean Grey / Prestige: 34, the soft-spoken, compassionate telepathic girlfriend of Scott. She's mostly known for being the passive moral support of the team but if you hurt anyone close to her, you will have hell to pay.
Ororo Munroe / Storm: 31, the level-headed second in command of the X-Men. She often puts her destructive powers to help more than to harm but when angered, she can massacre an entire room of foes with a single lightning strike.
Hank McCoy / The Beast: 37, the sophisticated, witty, blue-fured wolfman who provides the logic and sense behind the X-Men's battle tatics. He ignores the discrimination he often gets due to his appearance and uses his research to keep his feral tendencies at bay.
Sonya Yoshida / Sunfire: 29, the arrogant, overly competitive pyrokinetic of the X-Men. She seems like a total bitch upon first meeting but she has a truly sincere side of her (that very few have seen).
Art Centino / Longshot: 33, the eccentric, dynamic, expertly presice acrobat of the X-Men. His smug, overconfident personality may rub some the wrong way but he will stand and fight for his values even if anyone goes against him.
John Proudstar / Thunderbird: 35, the tough, stern, sligtly out of pocket muscle of the X-Men. His pride can be easily wounded but if he's anything, he's persistant and shockingly, down-to-earth.
Professor Charles Xavier: 67, the wise but sometimes cryptic wheelchair-bound mentor and founder of the X-Men. Although his full motives may be unknown to the public but he will fight for the freedom and peace of mutants everywhere until his dying breath.
Okay, Now It's For The Actual Pitch...
So how this is going to work is that this will be a full outline of what happens in my proposed film but seperated into chapters to make it look more organized (also to make it look more like a graphic novel because I'm cool like that ;).
A quick summary of the villains of this thing, the Hellfire Club. I know, a very out of left field choice for the antagonists of the first X-Men in the MCU but their honestly some of my favorite villains of the group. Not only are they heavily tied into Kitty Pryde's intial recruitment into the X-Men but the whole concept of them is pretty damn cool and creepy in my opinion. A super secret, bondage loving, gala holding mutant society that have existed since the 18th century, personally you can do a lot with that concept. Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw was one of the best things to come out of X-Men: First Class in my opinion (wish I could say the same about January Jones's Emma Frost) and Shaw has a lot of potential in the MCU to be a complex, intimidating and constantly scheming main antagonist.
Now onto the outline, my X-fanatics...
PROLOGUE
- 2008, the Hellfire Gala is going smoothly.
- Ned Buckman, the current White King of the club, gives a speech. Sebastian Shaw stands in the crowd, waiting for his time to strike.
- After the speech, Buckman walks out of the club to clear his head. Shaw walks up behind him and holds a sharpened salad fork to his neck. Without waiting for Buckman to say anything, he stabs the fork right into his shoulder.
- Buckman, now severely wounded, pulls a revolver out of his coat pocket and shoots Shaw in the chest several times. But it has no effect, if anything, it’s making him stronger, he glows a bright orange from the inside out…
- Back at the party, Shaw walks up on stage, carrying Buckman’s charred corpse. His associates (Emma Frost/The White Queen, Selene Gallio/The Black Queen, Jason Wyngarde/Mastermind, Harry Leland/Black Bishop, and Lady Tessa) walk on stage with him. Emma, using her telepathy, mind controls Emmanuel Da Costa (human unlike his son) to kill all of the human members of the Inner Circle, including the current Red Queen [that will become important later].
- Shaw inducts Emmanuel into the group and we CUT TO…
CHAPTER 1: PRYDE COMETH…
- In modern day (2026), we get introduced to our main X-Men, all hanging out in the X-Mansion. Scott getting his combat suit on (even though there is no battle), Jean admiring the nice weather from her and Scott’s room balcony, Hank working in his lab on something that will become important to the plot later, Ororo watering her collection of plants, Sonya and Art having a playful sparring session, and John just finishing up a long jog.
- Xavier calls the X-Men down to the Danger Room for their daily training session.
- The seven of them (all in their combat uniforms) take on an elaborate and deadly obstacle course as the OPENING CREDITS play.
- After the session, we get some fun “post-game” banter between the characters.
- Xavier asks Scott to stay back so he can show him something. Xavier pulls up a computer screen, showing information about a mutant he recently found in Deerfield, Illinois…
CUT TO:
- The Chicago suburbs. We get introduced to Kitty Pryde walking back from school until she gets stopped by a group of boys who begin to harass her. She phases through the group and lands face first on the ground. The boys, terrified, run away from Kitty. She gets up from her fall, her face bleeding and backpack thrown into the grass. Kitty tries her best to hold back tears but breaks down crying, scared and ashamed over what she has become.
- An hour later, at the Pryde house, Emma Frost shows up at the door, posing as a headmistress planning to recruit Kitty to a private school.
- Kitty’s parents call her down from her room to meet Emma. She takes an immediate dislike to Frost and begins to throw scathing quip after scathing quip at her until she leaves.
- As Emma is leaving, Xavier, Scott, Jean, Ororo, and Art approach the Pryde’s with a pitch of their own…
- The Prydes let the group in. Xavier and his team calmly try to explain what Kitty is and how they can help her. Kitty yells at them out of frustration and fear, saying that she’s a freak and there’s nothing anyone can do to help her move on from that fact.
- Ororo manages to calm Kitty down and convinces her to join them.
- Kitty talks with her parents in private about going with Xavier, they approve and she goes on her way…
CUT TO:
- At the Hellfire Club’s headquarters in Massachusetts, the group is having a meeting about what to do with their newest find (Kitty). Emma walks in, frustrated and unsuccessful. She tells them about Xavier and his students and the group comes up with a sinister plan…
CUT TO:
- At the mansion, Kitty begins to get used to her surroundings. She meets Hank, Sonya, and John, tours and is given a history of the mansion, and quickly gets settled into her room.
- She’s called down to the Danger Room by Xavier where she begins her training as an X-Man.
- Kitty (wearing her classic Sprite outfit without the mask) gets into some one-on-one battles with the Danger Room’s sparring robots where she is not that good at hitting them (she just passes through them and they knock her down).
- Scott notices her struggling and tells Xavier to give her a different simulation that would suit her abilities better. Xavier agrees and asks John to go in there with her.
- He activates the obstacle course simulation and Kitty and John race to get to the end…
- Kitty manages to beat John and he’s a pretty sore loser about it (this is the first time he's ever lost the obstacle course).
- She begins to phase through the floor by accident, causing the Danger Room to go haywire. Scott and Ororo rush in and save Kitty from a falling buzzsaw.
- In the War Room, Ororo tends Kitty's wounds. She feels awful about almost destroying the Danger Room but Ororo cheers her up.
- Ororo tells Kitty about her first months in the X-Mansion. She was nervous like her, not knowing how to control her powers but her teammates were the people that helped her cope with her abilities. She tells Kitty to let the X-Men help her, “I promise you, mutant to mutant, you will never be alone.”
- CUT TO hours later, the team is having a takeout Thai dinner where some team banter ensues. We also take this time to get to know the characters more personally as we get some important backstory beats (Sonya killing her father under the manipulation of her abusive uncle, John’s upbringing as a Apache warrior, Art’s past life as a stunt actor and the discrimination he faced for being a mutant).
- After dinner, Kitty helps Hank clean out the mansion’s attic where they find a collection of old 80s records and a record player. They get an idea…
- They bring the record player downstairs and put in a random record. A FUN AND COLORFUL DANCE SEQUENCE BEGINS!
- As they dance, a group of Hellfire soldiers place an invisible electric shield around the mansion, somehow remaining undetected by the mansion’s security…
CHAPTER 2: LET HELL REIGN!
- The next morning, Kitty wakes up to find Hellfire soldiers inside the mansion, aiming their rifles at her. SHE SCREAMS!
- Her scream wakes up the other X-Men where they find the Inner Circle, menacingly standing on the upstairs balcony, holding Xavier hostage. They’ve been waiting for them.
- Shaw gives the team a proposition. Either they surrender Kitty to them or Shaw kills Xavier. Scott silently tries to make a decision…
- Without warning, Art leaps onto the balcony, throws a knife into Shaw’s shoulder, and moves Xavier out of the Inner Circle’s clutches in one precise feat.
- A BATTLE BREAKS OUT! As the X-Men and Inner Circle duke it out, Kitty runs away and the Hellfire soldiers chase her through the mansion’s halls.
- Kitty hides from the soldiers in Hank’s lab where she finds that thing he was working on in the beginning of the film.
- The Hellfire soldiers find her! She attempts to use Hank’s device against them but it has no effect (she doesn’t know how it turns on). They knock her unconscious.
- As the X-Men get their asses kicked by the Inner Circle, the Hellfire soldiers bring Kitty’s limp body to Shaw. Getting what they were looking for, the group leaves the mansion, leaving the X-Men beaten and bruised.
SLAM TO BLACK.
- Kitty wakes up in the Hellfire headquarters. She’s tied to a chair and dressed in a red and black 18th century style dress. Emma sits with her at a table, a chess game is set up and she’s drinking some tea while Kitty regains consciousness.
- Kitty and Emma talk (if you define talking by spewing insults at each other). Emma tells her the lore of the Hellfire Club and their view on humans. The club sees humans as pawns in the “eternal chess game of mortal existence” as Emma calls it. They compare themselves to kings, queens, bishops, and rooks, controlling the pawns they want to keep and killing the paws that they have no use for.
- Selene enters the room, extremely dressed up for the Gala. She and Emma shoot each other passive aggressive comments, Kitty quickly catches on to the two women’s rivalry.
- After Selene leaves, Emma vents to Kitty. Kitty surprisingly is able to sympathize with Emma’s feelings and they begin to get along over a game of chess.
CUT TO:
- In the mansion’s War Room, the X-Men sit around, trying to figure out their next move. The conversation gets heated quickly, causing Scott to storm out of the room out of stress, Jean follows him.
- Outside, Scott hangs out there to clear his head. Jean sits down next to him, trying to provide some comfort.
- Scott blames himself for not being prepared to fight the Inner Circle. Jean tells him there was nothing they could do to prepare but they can always try again and hopefully win this time.
- Back in the War Room, the X-Men get a message from Lady Tessa who turns out to be an ally of Xavier, being undercover for him for a whole decade. She gives the team Hellfire HQ coordinates and they begin planning their rescue mission.
CHAPTER 3: I CAN’T DANCE
- At Hellfire HQ, the 2026 Hellfire Gala begins.
- In the meeting room, Shaw officially inducts Kitty as part of the Inner Circle as the Red Queen.
- The Inner Circle walks out on stage and welcomes the other members of the Hellfire Club. Kitty, Emmanuel, Harry, and Jason stay in the ballroom while Shaw, Emma, Tessa, and Selene go back into the meeting room.
- Dazzler, an up-and-coming singer, walks on stage and plays as the night’s entertainment.
- Back in the meeting room, Shaw pulls Hank’s device out of his coat pocket, revealing to the group that he stole it from Kitty. It turns out to be a thermal absorber, he plans to use it to amplify his own powers and absorb the body heat off of every human inside the headquarters to make him nigh unstoppable.
- Selene is completely on board with this plan while Emma is very hesitant. Tessa decides to finally reveal her true alliance and attempts to shoot Shaw but the bullet is manipulated by Selen to shoot Tessa right in the stomach, severely wounding her.
- Back in the ballroom, Kitty hears the gunshot and sprints to the meeting room. Emmanuel follows her.
- They show up. Tessa is bleeding out, Shaw is about to put on the thermal absorber, and Selene and Emma are arguing.
- The two try to stop the chaos but Shaw shoots Emmanuel in the chest, killing him instantly. Selene attempts to absorb Kitty’s life force; she's almost successful but Emma intervenes by telepathically launching a dagger into Selene’s back.
- Kitty regains consciousness and sprints away back to the ballroom. She interrupts Dazzler’s singing to warn the gala’s guests to leave immediately or Shaw will kill them all.
- Jason casts an illusion in the guest’s heads, making them mindlessly stand in place.
- In the meeting room, Shaw puts on the thermal absorber and begins gaining more power by the second.
- The device begins making a handful of guests drop like flies, none of them trying to run away.
- Dazzler catches onto this and shoots a colorful beam of energy at Jason, revealing that she is a mutant. The beam breaks Jason’s control on the guests and they begin to leave in hoards.
- In the meeting room as Selene is regaining her strength, Shaw begins to feel weaker due to the guests leaving. He grabs Emma by the throat and demands to get the guests back by any means necessary. Emma reluctantly obeys.
- As Kitty and Dazzler lead the guests out of the ballroom, Emma leads a group of Hellfire soldiers to their location. They begin shooting up the place, quickly prompting the two to run out of the room. Emma and the soldiers follow them…
- Soon after this, the Blackbird lands outside the HQ.
- CUE COOL SLOW MOTION WALK SCENE.
- They enter the HQ to find total panic. The team splits up into two groups, one leading crowds of people to different exits and one set on locating Kitty. (The first are Ororo, John, and Hank and the second group is Scott, Jean, Sonya, and Art.)
- The first group leads a massive crowd down a narrow hallway where they are confronted by Selene and Harry. Hank and John take on Harry using all of their combined strength while Ororo and Selene battle.
- John severely cripples Harry, putting him out of commission. Hank’s animalistic tendencies take over and he almost tries to eat Harry until his life force begins to be stolen by Selene. She also begins to steal John’s as well…
- Ororo, on her last straw, summons a swift lightning bolt to slash Selene’s throat, killing her on the spot and breaking her control on Ororo’s teammates.
- Another group of Hellfire soldiers appear in front of them shortly after. Ororo creates a massive wind storm to blow them out of her way and the three lead the crowd outside.
CUT TO:
- Scott, Jean, Sonya, and Art enter the ballroom to find Kitty standing idly on the dance floor. Scott tries to wake her up but she vanishes without a trace…
- This is revealed to be an illusion created by Jason. He creates another illusion, several 18th century zombies surrounding the team in a perfect circle, they begin to dance?!
- Seeing no other option, the team has a dance battle with them! Jason, standing on the celing’s high beams, prepares to cut down a massive chandelier on them.
- Jean, being able to see through the illusion, telepathically throws a table at Jason. It breaks the wooden high beam and Jason, as well as the chandelier, falls to the floor.
- BOOM! The chandelier violently impacts the floor! Jean manages to move her teammates out of the way before it hits them but they are still blasted back by sheer force.
- The team gets back up and all glance at the destroyed chandelier, Jason’s bloodied corpse hanging over the rim.
CUT TO:
- Kitty and Dazzler continue to wander the halls and eventually hide in the room that she and Emma played chess in.
- As they hide, Kitty notices the Black King piece on the chessboard glowing a bright red.
- She tries to pick it up but it burns her fingers, Kitty quickly puts together that the piece is being absorbed by Shaw and that it’s nuclear powered!
CUT TO:
- Back in the ballroom, Ororo, Hank, and John meet back up with Scott, Jean, Sonya and Art just in time for Shaw to walk out to confront the team. A MASSIVE BATTLE ENSUES!
- After a bit, Shaw begins to be stealing their energy and becoming more powerful than ever before, nothing might stop him.
CUT TO:
- Back in the chess room, Kitty tells Dazzler to meet her in the ballroom. She leaves.
- Kitty grabs the chess piece but her dress has no pockets to put it in. She hears a noise behind the couch. Glancing over, she finds a couple in BDSM gear making out. They quickly scurry out of the room, leaving their other clothes on the floor…
- She walks over to the pile of clothes and finds a jean jacket and blue sweatpants (a variation of her Excalibur costume)...
- Outside the room, Emma and the Hellfire soldiers prepare to barge in until Kitty phases out, dressed in the jacket and sweatpants.
- Kitty asks Emma what the chess piece is for. She explains that the piece was a failsafe in case the club was ever found out by the authorities…
K: It’s nuclear, right?
E: Yes, why? (quickly connects the dots) Katherine, no.
K: Yes, Emma! If he absorbs all that energy, he can and WILL kill everyone in that room and then the rest of the world.
E: Only the humans, he would never slaughter his own.
K: YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!
E: He has a plan for us, Katherine. He wants us to thrive. Now give me the piece, please.
K: No.
E: I am the White Queen, you are the Red Queen. Therefore, I have authority over you and you will do as I say!
E: YOUR NAME IS EMMA! MY NAME IS KITTY! (beat) WHY DON’T YOU GET IT, GOD DAMN IT! YOU! HAVE! FREE! WILL!
E: (holding back tears) I really don’t want to hurt you, Kitty. I really, really don’t want to but you leave me no other option. The Black King will have his vengeance on the human race and I will not let a plucky child get in the way of that. (to the Hellfire soldiers) FIRE!
- The Hellfire soldiers FIRE at her. The bullets just pass through her and she runs through the group. A CHASE BEGINS!
- The soldiers follow her through the halls of the HQ.
- Kitty decides to stop running and fight back (coming full circle from the bully scene at the beginning). In short terms, she beats their asses with nothing but a mace and her fists.
- While this is happening, the X-Men are single-handedly getting their ass beat by Shaw.
- Art is thrown through the ballroom wall just as Dazzler arrives…
D: Woah! Who the hell are-
A: (swiftly gets up, then) I’m Longshot. Aren’t you one of the guests? Why aren’t you outside? You could die here.
D: (a pause, confidently) No, I’m a mutant. I can help.
A: Okay good, we could use it. C’mon.
- Dazzler enters the battlefield and tries her best to help out…
- Meanwhile, Kitty begins to get overwhelmed by the soldiers. Emma senses she’s in danger and begins to reconsider her alliance…
- Suddenly, Emma appears out of nowhere and slaughters the soldiers. Kitty gets back up, relieved…
K: I knew you’d come around.
E: (teasing) You couldn’t have. I’m the psychic in this relationship.
K: (chuckles, begins to tear up) I’m just happy you did.
E: Me too, now c’mon. You’re uptight friends are probably waiting for us.
- In the ballroom, Shaw looks to be on the verge of killing the team.
- Kitty and Emma arrive, Kitty being held at knifepoint and Emma having the chess piece in her hand.
- Emma acts like she’s still on Shaw’s side (it’s all part of a plan)…
SS: Maybe I took you for granted. I’ll remember you when this planet is under my thumb, my White Queen.
- Suddenly, Emma stabs Shaw in the gut with the chess piece, activating it.
E: (whispering) My name is Emma.
- THE PIECE EXPLODES! SHAW IS DISCENTIGRATED! IN SLOW MOTION, WE SEE THE X-MEN, KITTY, DAZZLER, AND EMMA RUNNING OUT OF THE ROOM BEFORE BLAST CATCHES UP TO THEM.
SLAM TO BLACK.
EPILOGUE
- Three weeks later, Xavier watches a news broadcast on the events of the third act.
NEWS ANCHOR: Still no word has been given by the local authorities but this very much looks to be the work of mutants. Whether they caused the attack or not remains to be seen but many witnesses have said they would have been dead if it weren't for a mysterious group of costumed persons.
WITNESS #1: I can’t remember all that happened but I swear to god, a blue werewolf saved my life. It sounds crazy but it’s true.
WITNESS #2: …..The Dazzler chick started blasting rainbows out of her fingertips and this little girl ran through a shit ton of walls like she was a ghost or something.
- Scott walks into Xavier’s office and asks if he’s going to join them for dinner. Xavier accepts the offer and follows him outside..
- It’s a mutant backyard BBQ. Dazzler (now officially part of the team) plays for the crowd, John cooks on the grill, and all of them are just having a great time.
- Moments later, they all chow down on a massive homemade feast. Scott suggests Kitty to give a toast, she in fact does…
K: The past few weeks have been the most insane, depraved, and grueling past few weeks of my entire life. But to be honest, it was… fun. Not because I enjoy catching a middle aged couple in bondage gear trying to get it on but because I knew that I had people that would support me in those awkward times. I promise you all, as mutants, you will never be alone.”
- After the dinner, Dazzler plays “Ziggy Stardust” as the X-Men dance the night away…
- We ZOOM OUT to reveal that the dance is being watched on a massive screen with a shadowy figure watching the footage. The figure turns to the camera, his glowing red eyes staring right at us. We all know who this is.
MS: What a happy ending, am I right?
We FADE OUT as we hear a maniacal laugh…
POST-CREDIT SCENES
Mid-Credit Scene:
- A black site prison in the desert of Colorado. A silver haired prisoner sits alone, playing with a paperclip in between his fingers.
- Two prison guards throw, suprise suprise, Jason Wyngarde (yes he faked his death but he was really not that good at it) into the man’s cell and they begin chatting…
M: What’s your belief, my brother?
JW: That humans don’t deserve to overpower us. They deserve to be our playthings, we deserve to watch them break and bleed as they beg us for mercy.
M: Now you’re speaking like an agent of change.
- The mystery prisoner drops the paperclip but with the flick of his wrist, it floats in mid air. He snaps his fingers, causing the paperclip to fly across the cell and right into the wall, crushing it on impact.
M: How would you like to join me in putting the humans in their place?
JW: Sure, what would we be? (chuckles) A revolution…
M: No, a brotherhood.
SLAM TO BLACK
End Credit Scene:
- After the party, Kitty, holding a keytar, walks into Dazzler’s room only to catch her and Art in bed together. Kitty immediately runs out of the room…
K: (traumatized) I will never sleep again.
The End.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I poured my literal heart and soul into this thing, 3 days of writing and I finally did it. I know it's suuuuuuupppppppeeeeerrrrrrr long but I really, truly hope all of you got some form of amusment reading this. Thank all of you for sticking around with me on this journey and I'll see you all in the comments!