Before we dive head first into our big "End Game" story that will serve to tie up the first trilogy I described in my last article, I thought it would be good to run through our recurring X-Team characters. This should serve to help picture this universe even better as well as understanding how our heroes will be presented. These back stories would be explored to varying degrees throughout the series.
Again, I wanted to thank everyone for the support my first two articles have gotten. The comments sections have been a lot of fun and I really appreciate the great thoughts. And for anyone that missed my first two articles, I would recommend reading them at the links below. This probably won't make a lot of sense without them.
X-Men In The MCU: A Possible World In An Infinite Multiverse Of Worlds (comicbookmovie.com)
X-Men In The MCU - Part 2: "Sinister Implications" - The First Trilogy (comicbookmovie.com)
Professor Charles Xavier
Because mutants are only just now beginning to manifest en masse, Charles Xavier is one of the oldest living mutants in the world. Born into a wealthy family, Charles never had to struggle for anything in his younger life. He is highly educated and is one of the very few people that knows mutants exist before the events of our first trilogy. After mutants are outed to the world Charles becomes the voice of mutantkind, holding press conferences and seminars in an attempt to slow the spread of hate towards mutants by promoting education and understanding.
Xavier's powers manifested relatively late compared to most mutants. He was in his mid 20's when he first started hearing the voices in his head, and it wasn't long after that he realized these voices were not due to a mental illness. They were the thoughts of people around him. With no one to turn to, Charles was forced to learn how to control his power on his own. While this was extremely difficult, it also makes him the world's most experienced teacher when it comes to training people to use their powers.
Soon after discovering his powers he met another mutant, Max Eisenhardt. He and Max became great friends and had many talks about how the two of them would try to shape the world to be a better place with the use of their abilities. The two would meet several times a week to discuss what they thought their powers meant, where they came from, and how many others are out there. But one day Max stopped showing up. Xavier decided to move forward with their plans, despite Max's absence. He created his mutant outreach program and began his search for others like him. He also swore to one day find his missing friend.
Our Xavier is a shining beacon of hope for mutantkind. He is calm, collected, and highly intelligent. Everything he does is in hopes of bringing humans and mutants closer to peaceful co-existence. Gone are the questionable deeds from the comics. This means no faking his death multiple times. No keeping secrets of third brothers from his most trusted student. No creepy sexual infatuations with an underage Jean Grey. And no enslavement of artificial intelligences. Xavier and his dream is everything humans and mutants should be striving for.
Cyclops (Scott Summers)
Scott and his brother Alex were forced to learn how cruel life could be at a very early age. The moment Scott pulled the ripcord on the parachute that he and Alex were sharing as their parents' plane went down into the wilderness, he knew that his life was about to change forever. The plane and his parents were never found, and Scott and Alex were separated. Lost and alone in the wilderness.
Scott was taken to an orphanage secretly operated by Mr. Sinister where he would spend the next few years of his life. His powers would manifest while here, and unbeknownst to him, he would suffer many horrible experiments at the hands of Sinister. In order to keep the orphanage running, it still had to be treated like a legitimate home for orphans, and when news reached Xavier of a child literally destroying the roof of the building, he set out to understand how this could have happened. He met Scott and learned of his Optic Blasts. Xavier did the only thing he could, which was adopt Scott and begin training him to follow in his footsteps as his successor.
Cyclops has gotten the shortest end of the stick when it comes to the movies, and it is for that reason that I chose these three comics as inspiration for his MCU character: The Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Box. In this, the X-Men are seen battling a mutant that could control fire and his henchmen in the 616 comic universe. Wolverine charges the pyromancer and is quickly set on fire and taken out of the fight. But the X-Men still defeated their enemies. Through the Ghost Box, we see this battle take place in another dimension where the pyromancer was given orders to "Take down the most dangerous member of the X-Men first." This time, instead of going for Wolverine, the pyromancer set Cyclops on fire. The team quickly fell apart due to the cramped quarters and lack of leadership, and the X-Men were all killed.
Next is The Civil War X-Men tie in. In it, Tony Stark describes Cyclops' leadership abilities as being on par with Captain America's, only different. Where Captain America may not be perfect, he always finds a way to win through grit and determination. But with Cyclops he has already analyzed the field of battle and determined all of the threats and strategies which he uses to give orders to his team so they can achieve the best possible outcome. Thus, rarely putting his team in a place of needing to resort to last ditch efforts. He also says Cyclops' leadership is so strong that he wonders if it is a secondary mutation.
Finally, we have Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run. Not only did Cyclops save the team several times throughout the entire arc, but he performed some very impressive feats also. Early in the series the X-Men are fighting a sentinel on the Xavier grounds. The fight dragged on for too long and Cyclops had had enough. He removed his visor and completely decimated the sentinel, leaving only a scrapped heap of metal and parts strewn everywhere. Wolverine's reaction to this? "Every now and then, Summers, I remember why you're still in charge."
Jean Grey
When Jean was a teenager she was in a horrible car accident that claimed the life of her best friend, her very own sister. As Jean held her dying sister in her arms her mind uncontrollably entered her sister's consciousness. Jean felt every thought and emotion that was going through her sister's mind, but more importantly, she felt her sister's fear and desire to live. Helpless to do anything to save her, Jean felt death itself through her sister's mind.
Jean Grey is unique in that she actually sought out Xavier. Her sister's death impacted her so strongly that she, like Xavier, began trying to control her powers. She was able to reach out and learned of Xavier's school. She convinced her parents to let her go there and train to control her powers, as she never wanted to feel anything like the death of her sister again.
I think it is important that we stay away from Phoenix for a very long time. The story has been mucked up twice already and I don't think people are ready for a third run at it. At least not for a few phases of movies first. So instead, we will focus on her relationship with Scott, and the birth of their child, Nathaniel Grey-Summers. In our Apocalypse finale of the first phase, Apocalypse himself will have Nathaniel infected with the techno-virus and Jean and Scott will be forced to send him to the future in hopes of being saved.
All of this leads to a more tragic Jean Grey, but also helps to make her even more strong in preparation for the inevitable coming of the Phoenix Force.
Storm (Ororo Munroe)
If Cyclops is the worst example of characters being handled poorly in the past, then Storm is a close second. Which is why we are going to get her right in this series, even if small pieces of her past are a little different. Ororo was born in Brooklyn New York to a white male scientist and a black female who is also originally from Africa. In New York she faced a lot of prejudice due to her mixed race background. She felt as if she did not fit in with any group. Both white and black kids bullied her, and Ororo learned very quickly that if she did not defend herself then it would only get worse.
Ororo became a very capable fighter, but after being in several fights, her mother decided to move them to Africa. Ororo's parents passed away shortly after this and she was forced to live on the streets on her own. Here, she saw all forms of horrible things. People in poverty, crimes on every corner, and acts of racism nearly every day. Its during this period that her powers of weather manipulation manifested. She began using her powers to help small villages keep their crops watered in areas and seasons when rain and water was scarce. She quickly became worshipped as a goddess by the people and began gaining worldwide notariety. Its at this point that Xavier came to bring her into his fold.
Storm is a unique case because she's seen the worst humanity has to offer. She's seen that anyone can be racist and also that anyone can be kind, regardless of skin color. She is more experienced with dealing with racism than any other member of the team, and she's also a very capable fighter. Due to her past experiences she could have easily strayed down the path of villainy, but instead, she turned out to be one of the most level headed and reasonable members of the X-Men.
Beast (Henry "Hank" McCoy)
Mrs. McCoy's Bouncing Baby Boy! This nickname sums up Beast perfectly, both physically and personality-wise. Beast is unlike the rest of his teammates in the sense that he has never faced tragedy. He comes from a good family who love him very much. His family wasn't killed in a horrible accident and did not mistreat him in any way. He is highly intelligent, loves science, and was popular in high school. His life was as good as any of the other core X-Men could have ever hoped for. His parents also know what the school really is and fully supports Xavier and his vision.
Our Beast will begin the series with blue hair. We will always know him as having the fur, but we will know that he did in fact give it to himself through a science experiment mishap. Beast is usually in the lab at Xavier's doing experiments or working on new gadgets. He will be the one that builds the Blackbird as well as image inducers that allow the less "normal" looking members of the school to walk around in society without drawing too much attention to themselves.
While Beast takes his work a little too seriously, he is always willing to help a friend and is one of the most reliable people in the school. He does not always go out on missions unless his intelligence is needed, or if the mission requires all hands on deck.
Wolverine ("Logan")
Wolverine is an interesting case for the main X-Men series. We will not be talking about his past at all in these movies. His past and origin will be a complete mystery and only explored in his inevitable solo series. All we will know is how he met Xavier.
At some point in the past Xavier had been hearing reports about a wolf pack in Canada getting larger and larger. This by itself is not out of the ordinary, except this pack was starting to get particularly large. But even more strange were reports of the pack being led by what witnesses could only describe as a "feral man".
Xavier found this very strange so he went to Canada to investigate. What he found was Logan, in a more animal state than man. When Logan attacked, Xavier used his powers to calm him down. He was able to break his berserker rage and bring his mind back to a more human level of thinking. Xavier then convinced Logan to come back to his school and allow him to help understand his past, as well as help keep his rage under control.
Wolverine has since become a member of the team and considers the X-Men to be his family. As mentioned in my original article, he will be the team's "Hulk", in the sense that we don't focus on his history and he is not the focus of any of these movies. He is there, he has a problem with authority (particularly Cyclops), he has some great lines throughout the movie, and he gets a few scenes "doing what he does best"
Conclusion
Thank you all again for taking the time to read through this. This one may not have been quite as impactful as the first 2 articles, but I feel it was very necessary to give an understanding of what our main players will be like. As I move further into the series I'll periodically do more character driven articles like this to help flesh out other characters that appear as part of the team along the way.
So for now, I hope you all enjoyed this, and if you feel so inclined, please join me soon for our big "End Game" finale of the first trilogy, "X-Men in the MCU - Part 4: The Fittest."