RUMOR: MCU X-Men Movie Will Focus on Female Team Members

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That obnoxious Jennifer Lawrence scene from Dark Phoenix may become a reality in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Scooper Daniel Richtman recently claimed that the MCU’s first X-Men movie will focus on the female members of the mutant superteam. He also says that Mr. Sinister will be the villain and that Magneto will not be involved. According to Richtman, the point of these decisions is to make the MCU’s films as different from the Fox version of the X-Men as possible, although he stresses that the script has not been written yet, and things may change as the film develops further. Sites from ComicBookMovie.com to Bounding Into Comics have picked up on the rumor, as Richtman is considered mostly reliable.

If this happens, get ready for a lot of “Finally!” and “It’s about time!” proclamations from the usual suspects as they pretend that there has never been a woman in an X-Men movie, a superhero movie, or a piece of celluloid in the history of moving images. It’s, of course, true that the X-Men have always had women on the team; it’s also true that the Fox X-Men films featured Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue, and Kitty Pride in prominent roles, not to mention the villain Mystique (who was turned into a hero in the prequel era because Hollywood was pushing Jennifer Lawrence at the time). Those characters all had more prominent roles than founding X-Men members Cyclops, Angel, and Beast, with “The Dark Phoenix Saga” – which focuses on Jean – adapted twice. The only X-Men members who had more screen time than Jean, Storm, and Rogue were Wolverine, and maybe Professor Xavier. And while this is not an established fact yet and could change, it gels with the rumblings of Fantastic Four turning Sue Storm into the lead role. This move to “focus on the females” is window dressing, just another socio-political messaging push from a studio that no longer knows how to do anything else, least of all tell a halfway-coherent story. I’m fine with the other stuff; Magneto doesn’t have to be in every movie (although he should turn up down the line), and Mr. Sinister is as good a villain as anyone for an X-Men film. But it’s time to prepare yourself for another in-your-face Marvel lecture.

(I know the X-Men are a metaphor for people who are outsiders, be it due to racism or other forms of bigotry or simply people who feel different for whatever reason. Do you notice how the entire team in the other films or the comics is not black or gay or female or anything too on the nose? That’s called subtext; it’s what actual writers do, and the MCU has grown allergic to it.)