With so much news swirling around the arrival of the X-Men in the MCU, it’s time to look back at the Fox movies and celebrate their most ambitious and gutsy feature. Despite being one of the publisher’s most lucrative franchises, the mutants of the Marvel universe have been largely absent from the MCU. With legal hurdles out of the way, the X-Men era is just beginning.
However, the MCU’s latest take on the characters comes decades after the debut of Fox’s X-Men movie series. The blockbuster 2000 release helped kick off a new wave of superhero flicks at the beginning of the new millennium, and it’s safe to say the MCU wouldn’t be here today without X-Men. Looking back on those movies years later, there are some glaring differences between then and now.
The superhero movie was nothing new by 2000, but quality varied and there was almost no consistent structure to how the films were made. Many embraced the camp of the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, which made them feel woefully behind the times. Comics had taken a more mature turn way back in the ’80s, but the movies failed to keep up with the trends. That wasn’t the case for X-Men.
While embracing all the fun of its comic origins, the movie had a gritty edge and pseudo-realistic approach to the mutant action. In an era of homogenized superhero flicks coming from both of the major publishers, Fox’s X-Men films are like a relic of a time when comic book movies were on the cutting edge.
Fox’s X-Men Movies Featured Body Horror Elements
Revisiting X-Men more than 25 years after its debut, one glaring element practically leaps off the screen. The superhero flick is pretty darn scary. From the very first scene, X-Men features frightening elements that could be considered body horror. Rogue’s introduction graphically depicts what happens when she touches someone, and the film is quick to reveal the gruesomeness of Wolverine’s claws.
Though the Fox films certainly toned things down as the series progressed, it’s clear that the vision for the X-Men was to show just how scary, painful, and often gross it was to be a mutant. The one scene that really takes the cake is when Senator Kelly is transformed into a mutant. He eventually degenerates into a blob before dying in a burst of water. It’s arguably the most gruesome moment in any superhero film, and is especially frightening because of its body horror implications.
The Fox movies really focus in on what being a mutant means at a physical level as well as on an emotional level. The character designs of the villains often highlight their inhumanity, with characters like Toad and Sabertooth looking more like monsters than people. Even if the series took things a bit too far at times, it’s one of the rare instances of a superhero movie franchise trying to translate heady ideas into dynamic visuals.
The MCU’s X-Men Will Be A Lot More Sanitized
It goes without saying that the MCU’s approach to the X-Men will be a lot more sanitized than the classic Fox movies. Not only has the cinematic universe never really gone as far as the Fox films in terms of scares, it’s unclear if audiences would even want such a grim take on the mutants. The MCU has always had a gloss that is part of its worldwide appeal.
As for comic accuracy, there are plenty of examples of both sides to consider. The decades of X-Men stories have produced light and exciting fare like the First Class arc from the 2000s, and terrifying alien horror like the beloved Brood Saga in Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men. No matter the tone or theme, there’s a corresponding comic the MCU movies could pull from.
It remains to be seen how the mutants will be fully integrated into the larger MCU. Hopefully, the impending X-Men movies try to do something interesting and original with the characters, and avoid the homogenized approach. If even a small fraction of the originality of the Fox movies rubs off on the MCU, it could finally kick off the new era that many longtime fans have been hoping to see.
- Movie(s)
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X-Men (2000), X2, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Wolverine (2013), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Deadpool (2016), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Logan (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018), Dark Phoenix (2019), The New Mutants, Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
- TV Show(s)
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X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men, X-Men (1992), X-Men: Evolution (2000), Wolverine and the X-Men (2008), Marvel Anime: Wolverine, Marvel Anime: X-Men, Legion (2017), The Gifted (2017), X-Men ’97 (2024)
- Video Game(s)
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X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), Marvel Super Heroes (1995), X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996), Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), Marvel vs. Capcom (1998), X-Men: Mutant Academy (2000), Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 (2001), X-Men: Next Dimension (2002), Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (2011), Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011), X-Men Legends (2005), X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (2005), X2: Wolverine’s Revenge (2003), X-Men (1993), X-Men 2: Clone Wars (1995), X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse (1994)
- First Film
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X-Men (2000)
- Character(s)
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Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, Phoenix, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Jubilee, Morph, Nightcrawler, Havok, Banshee, Colossus, Magneto, Psylocke, Juggernaut, Cable, X-23
- Comic Release Date
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213035,212968
