Yesterday afternoon, the trades broke the news that Karate Kid: Legends star Ben Wang has been cast as Bobby Drake/Iceman in Marvel Studios' upcoming X-Men reboot.
The decision to cast an Asian actor as a character who is portrayed as white on the page has generated the expected online discourse. However, Wang's star is on the rise, and he'll be front and centre in this month's The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.
Now, some intriguing new details about Iceman's role in X-Men have been revealed. According to Knight Edge Media, Iceman will already be at the X-Mansion when Jean Grey arrives and is set to be the first mutant she meets there.
This suggests that Professor X has already recruited mutants to his team before Jean. This may be a sign that, following her appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Jean will be our entry point into the team and perhaps even one of Charles Xavier's final recruits.
The image of Jean Grey walking through the doors of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and being met with Iceman shooting into frame on one of his iconic ice slides is pretty exciting (if that's the plan). For now, we'll just have to wait and see.
"I’ve just been digging into so many of the old comics and the entire Claremont run, and just going through stuff and really trying to think about what can we do well that feels new and feels different, and that hasn’t been done well before?" X-Men director Jake Schreier previously said. "Obviously, there’s such an incredible cinematic tradition of these comics, but what can we do? And how can we put our own spin on what that is?"
The prevailing theory is that X-Men will start with the original five mutants, with the likes of Rogue and Storm added to the team as the story progresses.
Directed by Jake Schreier (Thunderbolts*), the untitled X-Men movie stars Kit Connor (Heartstopper) as Scott Summers, Sadie Sink (Spider-Man: Brand New Day) as Jean Grey, Inde Navarrette (Obsession) as Rogue, Asa Germann (Gen V) as Angel, Ben Wang (The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping), Maya Boyd (& Juliet) as Storm, and Christopher Abbott (Catch-22) as Professor Charles Xavier.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) also stars as Emma Frost, alongside Adam Driver (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), who plays Nathaniel Milbury, an alias of Mister Sinister in the comics. There are also rumours that Marvel Studios will introduce Apocalypse as the next Saga's big bad.
X-Men will be released exclusively in theaters May 5, 2028.