The X-Men saga started in 2000, with the first movie being a great success that gave studios the confidence to risk investing in the superhero genre. One can argue that the success of superhero movies is attributed to the success of the first X-Men movie, and others will say that that is in fact owed to the success of Blade, which was released in 1998. Whatever the case may be, there is no doubt that the X-Men movies have had a great influence on the world of cinema. Like most other superhero movies, X-Men came from a comic which was first published in 1963. This article aims to address 10 ways in which the movies deviated from the comics, in no particular order.
1. The movies focused too much on Wolverine
Ask any casual viewer of the movies which characters they can name from the X-Men movies, and the first one will most likely be Wolverine. Increasingly over time, the movies focused on Wolverine and sidelined most of the other characters, and it became apparent that there was no such thing as X-Men without Wolverine, whereas in the comics, the opposite is true. Wolverine adds to the team, which, before him, already had survived numerous perilous missions. The prequel movies tried to establish that that was the case, but the audience had already been shown that the X-Men can only barely get things done without Wolverine. To add to that, not only was Wolverine the main character in the original trilogy, but he was also the only one in the original trilogy to have a spin-off movie, which turned into its own trilogy. The greatest example of unbalanced focus on Wolverine came in X-Men: The Last Stand, where the main character of the story (according to the comics) should have been Cyclops, with the secondary character being Jean Grey, and the movie would be focused on the love they have for each other, finally allowing the leader of the X-Men to have character development. What happened instead was that Cyclops was killed off in his second scene in the movie, not even half an hour into it, and instead, the movie showcased how far Wolverine was willing to go for Jean. Cyclops was not the only one who got the short end of the stick. Storm was said to be the new leader of the X-Men, since Cyclops wasn’t doing anything in the role (according to Charles Xavier in X3), but in that same movie, we never see Storm lead the X-Men. The one who gives the team members their much-needed pep-talk was Wolverine. The one who went out in search for answers was Wolverine. The one who gave orders in the final battle was Wolverine, but, according to the comics, and the script of the movie, Storm was the one to take over after Cyclops, and we didn’t see that come to life. X-Men: Days of Future Past came the closest to telling the casual viewer that there is more to the X-Men than Wolverine, but that was undone in Logan, where Wolverine is the only one who survived Charles Xavier’s psychic attack, and Wolverine would protect the future of mutantkind, with him being the only one out of the original trilogy X-Men who has children.
2. Charles Xavier is British
This may come as a surprise to many people…even fans of the comics themselves, but this is true. Charles Xavier isn’t British, as presented in the movies. He is, in fact, American, born in New-York City to Brian and Sharon Xavier in the comics. In the movies, the closest we get to seeing his parents is when Mystique disguises herself as Charles’ mother in X-Men: First Class. Cyclops also states that the X-Mansion used to be British. It may have been a joke on his side, but it is shown to belong to a British family. It is not only Charles’ nationality that is different in the movie, but his hair colour. Charles Xavier is a blond in the comics!
3. The Way the X-Men Operate
In the comics, the X-Men first acted as traditional superheroes. They would operate by going out into the world and fighting everyday crime like bank robberies and the like. Over time, the X-Men became more symbolic, and people started to liken them to real life minority groups. The X-Men became a platform for writers to showcase the discrimination that minority groups suffer from. This made the X-Men comics the biggest thing in Marvel for a long time, other than Spider-Man. People would refer to X-Men comics in order to relate to the real world’s views on different races, genders, sexual orientations and even religions. The X-Men in the movie weren’t very involved in superheroics. Most of the time, they would react to problems that were thrust upon them rather than go out and fight crime. This was to keep in line with Bryan Singer’s grounded, realistic take on the mutant phenomenon. This was changed a bit, though, in Dark Phoenix, where the X-Men have been established as a special task force that the United States president contacts whenever things are out of control.
5. Magneto’s Powers
The movies showed us one of the X-Men’s most enduring enemies: Magneto. Magneto is a mutant freedom fighter modelled after the ideology of Malcolm X, in the sense that he wanted the mutants to rise up and take arms against humanity. He has employed several mutants under his cause and came very close to triggering an all-out war between mutants and humans in X-Men: The Last Stand and in X-Men: Days of Future Past. All of this was possible due to his charisma as a leader, as well as his vast magnetic powers. In the comics, his powers have granted him extra abilities such as using magnetism to generate heat, radio waves, control gravity, cause earthquakes, create force fields, create volcanoes, and even fly. In the movies, his powers are limited to being able to control metallic objects. We never see the true extent of the powers of magnetism that the character has displayed in the comics.
5. The Maximoff Twins
This is a very tricky part to explain, because the people behind the movies are only partially to blame. The Maximoff twins were first introduced as members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and fought against the X-Men, eventually leaving Magneto because they didn’t quite share his views. They were then found out to be Magneto’s children, whom he did not know about until later on. The characters were considered to appear in X-Men: The Last Stand, with Bradley Cooper being considered for the role of Quicksilver, but the idea was dropped due to the complicated contract agreement between Marvel and Fox regarding the twins. In the comics, the twins join the Avengers, and have more adventures with them, but were mutants, meaning that Fox had the rights to them, but so did Marvel. Eventually, Quicksilver made his debut in 2014’s Days of Future Past, played by Evan Peters, but his twin sister Wanda was not in the movie, and only vaguely alluded to in a deleted scene, meaning that canonically, she does not exist in the X-Men movies. The story becomes even more complicated, as the comics revealed in early 2015 that the Maximoffs were no longer Magneto’s children or mutants, just a few months before the twins made their debut in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Quicksilver still remained Magneto’s son in the X-Men movies.
6. Banshee’s Family Tree
Banshee is a very interesting character in the comics. He is a mutant with the ability to produce a powerful sonic scream. Though he only served briefly as a member of the X-Men both in the comics and the movies, he carries some baggage in the comics which is left out in the movies. Banshee ends up marrying Moira McTaggart in the comics, who is Charles Xavier’s love interest in the movies. In the movies, he and Moira have absolutely no relationship with each other at all, apart from being professional associates who are working to stop Sebastian Shaw, and have no interaction with each other. In the comics, Banshee has a daughter called Siryn, who inherited her father’s powers. She was hidden from her father by her uncle Black Tom Cassidy, and it led to a very personal fight between Banshee and Black Tom once Banshee found out about this. Black Tom would continue to haunt Banshee’s life after that, but Banshee did manage to bond with his daughter afterward. Siryn appeared in X2: X-Men United, and The Last Stand, played by Shauna Kain, and by the looks of it, has no relationship with Banshee, who appeared in X-Men: First Class, played by Caleb Landry Jones. This is because Banshee is shown to have died prior to 1973 in Days of Future Past, whereas Siryn appears as a teenager in the X-Mansion in 2003. To add to that, Black Tom Cassidy appears in 2018’s Deadpool 2, played by Jack Kesy. The character doesn’t seem to be related to Siryn at all, and is killed in comedic fashion during a fight against Cable.
7. Mystique
There are very few characters who have had as much screentime as Mystique has, where they are not portrayed in a comic accurate manner. In the comics, Mystique is hinted at being almost as old as Wolverine himself, and they met long before the mutant phenomenon was taken notice of in the world. Not only is Mystique shown to be roughly Charles Xavier’s age in the movies, but she doesn’t meet Wolverine until 2000, when mutants are already known all over the world. Mystique has also shown to be a leader in her own right; something which the movies did explore eventually. But the team she led was not the X-Men. It was quite the opposite. In the comics, after a defeat, Magneto was not seen or heard of for a long time, and Mystique started up her own Brotherhood of mutants to challenge the X-Men in the name of mutant supremacy and other criminal acts. In the movies, she leads the X-Men. It is a very big departure from her comic counterpart. The differences don’t end there. In the comics, Mystique has a son with Victor Creed, who is also known as Sabertooth. Their son, Graydon, is not a mutant. He is a normal human, and has a deep hatred of mutants. In the movies, Mystique and Sabertooth barely share any scenes together if at all, and their romantic relationship is not explored or even hinted at, at all in the movies. Graydon Creed has never made an appearance in the movies either.
Mystique didn’t just get busy with Sabertooth. She also had a son with Azazel, who appeared in X-Men: First Class, played by Jason Flemyng. Their son was none other than the blue teleporting mutant: Nightcrawler, who appeared in X2, played by Alan Cumming. Mystique’s romantic history with Azazel is not explored or hinted at in the movies, yet their son (according to the comics) made an appearance and was one of the main characters in X2. Nightcrawler also made an appearance in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, as one of the main characters.
The differences from the comics don’t end there. Mystique didn’t just have biological children. She had an adopted child as well, and this was Rogue, who was played by Anna Paquin in the movies. Their relationship isn’t explored, and Anna forms a close bond with Wolverine instead. Rogue and Mystique barely interact with each other if at all in the movies, and this is a big blow, because they have such a layered history in the comics that could have made the movies much more interesting than they already were. Despite most of her lovers appearing in the movies, and sharing screentime with her, the only character who was hinted to have had a romantic relationship with her was Magneto. Yikes.
It is also worth noting that although the movies show that they have worked together for decades, Mystique and Magneto have only met roughly a handful of times in the comics and barely interacted with each other.
Mystique, in the comics, hates the way she looks. She avoids looking at mirrors, and if she does, she breaks them. This is most likely due to the traumatic experience she has of living in the 19th century and being blue-skinned. The movies have a different take on this. She is often preaching about how proud mutants should be of what they look like, even though she keeps her Caucasian skin tone most of the time.
8. The X-Uniforms
The X-Men are a group of dynamic individuals, each with their own unique personalities and rich history. There is barely an X-Men member who doesn’t have enough history in the comics to make a movie or series out of. Even the most obscure mutants that cameoed in the original trilogy and were never namedropped have extensive history. This often leads to them having a different taste in clothes. Despite being a team, the different characters were very different costumes, and the movies did not showcase this. In the movies, everyone wore the same black leather suits. X-Men: First Class changed it up a bit and made everyone wear matching yellow suits instead. It was not until X-Men: Apocalypse’s closing scene where we got to see them wearing somewhat comic-accurate costumes. The most upsetting part of all of this was that everyone wanted to see Wolverine’s yellow spandex in live action. It was teased in a deleted scene in The Wolverine, but that was never expanded upon, leaving many fans disappointed.
9. Cable
Cable is a character with a very complicated comic book origin which involves time travel and alternate futures. His story can best be started with elaborating on Jean Grey’s ‘death’. After she died, Scott Summers met a woman called Madelyne Pryor, who looked exactly like Jean. Little did they both know, Madelyne was a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister, who wanted them to produce a child. Mister Sinister theorized that any child between Scott and Summers would be the most powerful mutant ever, and would be able to destroy Apocalypse (whom he wanted to be rid of) forever. When the child was born, Apocalypse took notice of this, and tried to kill the child with his techno-organic virus. He infected the child with it, and warriors from the future came to the present to save baby Nathan Summers. They offered to take the child to the future, but there was no return trip. Scott, seeing that there was no way around it, gave his son up to save his life. Eventually, Jean came back and Scott married her. During their honeymoon, they were taken to the future and raised Nathan. They taught him to fight, to defend himself, and how to control his powers. They stayed in the future for decades, raising Nathan, and they didn’t know that it was him. Nathan didn’t know that he was being raised by his father either. This future was ruled by Apocalypse, and the person who brought the couple there was their daughter from an alternate future, called Rachel Grey. The couple was eventually taken back to the present and they continued living their lives there. Eventually, Nathan comes back to the past under his new guise: Cable. Cable is a fan-favourite mutant, and finally made his live action debut in Deadpool 2, played by Josh Brolin. The live action Cable is not a mutant. He is a highly trained soldier who is part machine. He does not showcase any powers and uses only advanced technology in his quest to kill a teenage Firefist, because in his timeline, Firefist killed his family: his wife and daughter, who is called Hope. There is no hint at all that Cable is related to Cyclops in any way. There is nothing mentioned about his history with Apocalypse or the interference of Mister Sinister (who never made it into the Fox X-Men movies). Cable’s extensive, complex and layered origin is cut down to him simply being a cyborg from the future who wants to kill a teenager who will end up killing his family. In the comics, he is the humanity’s last hope for survival against Apocalypse, and has a son called Tyler Dayspring. In the movie, his son is replaced by a daughter; Hope Summers, who in the comics was the first mutant born after a spell cast by Wanda Maximoff decimated the mutant population.
10. Cyclops’ Family Tree
Cyclops was one of the many characters who got the short end of the stick when it came to representation in the movies. In the original trilogy, he was portrayed as Wolverine’s rival for Jean’s affection, and that was pretty much all there was to him. What casual movie viewers will never know is that there is so much more to Cyclops than him not getting along with Wolverine because of Jean. In the comics, Cyclops has a richer history than was ever presented or hinted at in the movies, and his family is full of heroes as well. His father, Christopher Summers, was a pilot, who took the family out for a flight one day, and their plane was destroyed by an alien ship that materialized in front of the plane. Scott and his younger brother Alex, who would go on to appear in X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse, were ejected from the plane with only one working parachute which was damaged. The fear caused Cyclops’ powers to manifest, slowing down their descent. During the fall, Cyclops hit his head and suffered a head injury that caused his loss of control over his power, which would become a big part of his character. Christopher Summers and Katherine Summers remained in the plane and were abducted by the aliens. Eventually, Christopher escaped and went on to lead the Starjammers, a crew of space pirates. Katherine died at the hands of the aliens, but not before they discovered that she was pregnant with a third child. They grew the fetus in an artificial gestation chamber and Gabriel Summers, who would go on to be called Vulcan, came to be. Vulcan would become an intergalactic threat at a point in his life, and would go on to take over an alien empire.
Alex Summers lived for a while with Scott in an orphanage until Mister Sinister had them separated. They would eventually reunite when grown up, and Alex would come to be known as Havok, who would lead the mutant team known as X-Factor on occasion. Alex would also go on to marry Polaris, who is Magneto’s daughter.
Cyclops also has more than one child across various timelines. His mainstream timeline child is Nathan Summers, also known as Cable. Cable is Cyclops’ son with Madelyne Pryor; a clone of Jean Grey. Cable has a clone, whom Apocalypse adopted, called Stryfe, who would go on to rape Cable’s wife. She eventually gave birth, but Cable doesn’t know if young Tyler Dayspring is his son or his clone’s son. He raises him as his own, either way. Cyclops’ other child is Rachel Grey, a daughter of his from an alternate future, who eventually gets involved with Franklin Richards, the son of Reed Richards and Susan Storm-Richards. He also has another son; Nate Grey, who is basically Nathan Summers without the techno-organic virus.
In the movies, he only has Alex as a brother, and his parents are shown in non-speaking cameos, alive and well. His brother Alex is also shown to be more than 20 years older than Cyclops despite being younger than him in the comics. Cable is not shown to be Cyclops’ son, and it is doubtful that they will make them related in the movies. Gabriel doesn’t exist in the movies. The whole storyline with the aliens and the plane doesn’t take place in the movies, and neither is there an explanation as to why Cyclops can’t control his powers: even in the movie that shows how they first manifested.
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