Top Ten Things I Want To See In X-Men Second Class
Now that X-Men First Class has opened to great reviews and solid box office, giving new life to a franchise that was floundering badly, the inevitable question turns to “what will X-Men: Second Class” look like? (hopefully “Second Class” won’t be the actual title, as that is just asking for mean headlines when the inevitable bad reviews come in, but for the purposes of this article we’ll stick with Second Class) I can only hope Fox sticks with the Bryan Singer/ Matthew Vaughn team for this proposed trilogy, so I should get that out of the way first…what I want most of all for this series is for the creative team to stick around. As for what characters, situations from the comics I would like to see brought into future sequels, among the following are the ones I want the most.
#1. Cyclops
Although I am a lifelong X-Men fan, I’ve never been the stickler for the exact continuity of the comics being displayed on the big screen, especially about things like when “Character A” appeared as a member of the team as opposed to “Character B.” I don’t care about who joined the team when, as long as the characters are made interesting and done justice. In my opinion, characters like Nightcrawler, Rogue, and even Iceman were given more character development than the actual leader of the team and arguably most important member of the X-Men, Scott Summers AKA Cyclops (I said most important, not most popular, I realize that’s Wolverine) This is a crime I really hope this new series of films rectifies.
While I never had a problem with James Marsden as Scott Summers, (in fact I think his casting is spot on) his role in the first two X movies was to essentially cock block our protagonist Wolverine from getting with his girl Jean Grey. He is given one moment to shine at the end of the first movie as he leads the team in their wire-fu brawl in the Statue of Liberty gift shop, and pretty much vanishes from the next movie and is killed off like a red shirt from Star Trek in the third movie.
Cyclops needs to be given more to do, and a sequel to First Class is the best place to do it, seeing as he doesn’t need to compete with Wolverine for screen time. A possible angle may be playing on the notion of Xavier trying to make up for past mistakes with Erik by taking on another tortured young mutant with great potential for destruction. Where Charles failed with Erik, he succeeds with Scott. Lots of room for story here.
#2.Storm
Another mutant given the short end of the stick character wise in the original X-Men trilogy, mostly due to being played by the totally miscast Halle Berry. Despite being in all the posters and advertising for the movies, and aside from hogging way too much screen time all of a sudden in X3, Storm had very little to do in the original trilogy. All her lines in the first movie are just exposition, and she spends much of the final battle getting her ass kicked. In X2, Bryan Singer at least shows off Storm’s powers as being much more formidable and uses her abilities in interesting and cool ways, but her character still has next to no development. Again, just like with Cyclops, characters like Nightcrawler, Rogue, even Iceman get more character development in that movie than Storm, one of the supposed “stars” of the movie.
And this just plain sucks, because after Cyclops, Storm was the X-Men’s field leader for many years. During Chris Claremont’s legendary 16 year run on the title, Ororo Munroe was possibly his most well developed character. A character we see almost nothing of in the movies aside from her powers. Storm’s African upbringing, her years as a street child in Cairo, being worshipped as a Goddess in Kenya, all of these things make for interesting story potential. Again, without Wolverine hogging screen time it is time to let Storm shine. And cast her right this time.
#3.Keep The Movies In Period
One of the coolest things about First Class was the use of the early 60’s Atomic Age era as a backdrop for the story. Producer Bryan Singer has suggested that this new trilogy might extend into the 1970’s and 80’s. I think this is a far better idea than another movie set in the 60’s. Too much of this could veer into Austin Powers territory, and just be too much of a good thing. Besides, the different time periods might make for a good excuse as to use some of the more outlandish looks for the team. I could totally see Storm wearing her signature head-piece in the 70’s, or her Mohawk in the 80’s, and the audience just letting it go due to the time period.
#4. The Sentinels
One of the most prominent foes of the X-Men for almost all of their nearly 50 year publishing history are the mutant hunting robots the Sentinels. Once could argue after Magneto, they are the team’s biggest threat, as the Sentinels are literal representations of mankind’s hate and fear of mutants. Not to mention giant robots are cool as Hell. And yet we have never seen them properly on film (the cameo of the Sentinel head in the danger room in X-Men 3 does NOT count) Sentinels almost made it into X2 during the government raid on the school scene, but Fox forced budget cuts that kept the Sentinels from showing up in that movie, although designs were made. Now that Bryan Singer is back as a producer on this series, maybe he can bring back those Sentinel designs for a First Class sequel.
#5. Introduce Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver
First off, I’d like to point out that I’d much rather have both of these characters in an Avengers movie than any X-Men flick. They have a much greater and deeper history with that particular Marvel team than the X-Men. Alas, since they are both mutants, not to mention that Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are the offspring of Magneto, they are considered X-Men characters first and foremost and are therefore property of Twentieth Century Fox. Since this new series seems to be focusing on the rise of Magneto as America’s Most Wanted mutant terrorist, the notion that he has two children that he more or less abandoned (from a human mother no less) is ripe for drama, especially when both of his children turn on him and join the good guy side.
#6. The Danger Room
I mean the REAL Danger Room…the old school one, the one where it throws knives and fire balls and all kinds of weird shit to attack a bunch of teenagers. Not the rip off of the Holodeck from Star Trek: The Next Generation that we saw in X3 for all of 2 minutes. This is an essential X-Men staple that goes back to the first issue of the comics in 1963, and yet we’ve never seen it done correctly on film. This is bullshit and needs to be rectified.
#7.No Shiar Aliens. No Brood. No Multiple Alternate Timelines.
Confession: I kinda hate space based X-Men stories. Yes, there are some exceptions (The Dark Phoenix Saga, Astonishing X-Men, both of which only partially take place in space) but I think that outer space is the Fantastic Four’s turf. I understand the need for long running monthly comics to get away from the series’ basic core premise of “Man Vs. Mutant,” and prejudice, civil rights, etc, because you need to shake things up. However for a movie series that only comes out once every few years, each movie needs to be a spin on that core idea. Which is not mutants helping out in galactic civil wars with people who have weird bird hair.
Another sci-fi trope the X-Men comics have flogged to death is time travelers from alternate timelines, in the X-verse more future visitors from dysotopian futures have shown up in Westchester New York than you can imagine…Rachel Summers, Cable, Bishop…I really don’t want to see any of these stories in an X-Men movie. And to be honest, the whole “I’m gonna travel back in time to stop my horrible future from happening” is gonna seem like a huge Terminator knock off to most (even though I am fully aware that Days of Future Past pre-dates the Terminator movie by like four years) Speaking of knock-offs, don’t use the Brood either, since those ARE rip offs of the xenomorphs from the Alien film series.
#8. Mr. Sinister
In a way, First Class combined the characters of Mr. Sinister with Sebastian Shaw (in the comics it has been hinted, if not explicitly stated, that Nathaniel Essex AKA Mr. Sinister was Joseph Mengele type in the Nazi death camps) but there is still a lot of Sinister traits that Shaw didn’t share, like his obsession with creating perfect mutant bloodlines and other forms of genetic manipulation. Along with Apocalypse (who would be really tough to pull off in live action without changing a lot) Sinister is next to Magneto in terms of classic X-Villains, and has yet to be used in any of the five X-Men movies. Time to bring him out.
#9. Asteroid M
Ok, I know I said no outer space, but this is just in orbit of Earth so I’m making an exception here. The idea of Magneto having a base inside a giant iron asteroid is sooo comic booky, so I could see them never doing this, but I would love the visual of Mags pointing a death ray or something like that from his evil lair in the sky.
#10. Dazzler!
And yes, I’m serious. If they set the next movie in the 1970’s, and there isn’t a cameo from disco Dazzler, I’m gonna be pissed. And I would like to nominate Lady GaGa for this, since she is pretty much the real life Dazzler anyway.
