The Lesser-Known X-Men We Want to See in the MCU

Ever since the post-credits sequence of Ms. Marvel revealed that Kamala Khan is a mutant, we’ve known the X-Men are coming to the MCU. Heck, Disney bought a whole studio to get the rights to Marvel’s Merry Mutants. What we don’t know, however, is who will be in the X-Men line-up, and that’s a very important question.

To be clear, this list isn’t about the X-Men we know we’ll see in the MCU. Jean Grey will likely appear, because that’s almost certainly who Sadie Sink is playing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Cyclops is almost always on the X-Men, so he’ll be there. And Wolverine will be there because he’s Wolverine.

But this list is for the characters we want to see, the deep cuts who would make the MCU X-Men as weird and wonderful as the franchise in the comics.

Destiny

Thanks to portrayals by Rebecca Romijn and Jennifer Lawrence, the shapeshifter Mystique has become one of the most recognizable mutants. However, outside of her blue skin and power set, the Mystique of the movies has little to do with the complex character from the comics. Given that Mystique is almost certainly going to be in the next movie line-up, the MCU can better enrich her by also introducing her wife, Destiny.

Initially introduced as a blind member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Destiny’s precognitive abilities and concern for the mutant race brought her into alignment with the X-Men several times. Moreover, Destiny has a long lifespan and is, in fact, canonically the Sherlock Holmes character Irene Adler. Between her unique history and power set, Destiny can not only add a compelling new character to the team, but can also improve another X-Man audiences think they know.

Frenzy

The X-Men are a long-running soap opera, which means that there’s a lot of time and space for characters to change. More specifically, it’s not uncommon for mutants to turn from villains to heroes and vice versa, few in a manner more satisfying than Joanna Cargill, the mutant known as Frenzy.

When she first appeared in 1986’s X-Factor #4, Frenzy was a fairly generic supervillain. She possessed super strength and durability and fought the good guys because she was in the Alliance of Evil and they did evil, but had nothing else going on. Over the years, Frenzy has been revealed to be a woman working through a tragic childhood, a person who initially took acceptance wherever she could find it, but eventually learned to adhere to her own principles. Those principles sometimes still put her at odds with Xavier’s students, but Frenzy never fails to fight for what she believes in.

Doop

The X-Men may consist entirely of mutants whose attributes set them aside from the rest of society, but most of whom share basic commonalities with the rest of humanity. There is absolutely nothing common about Doop, a floating green potato man who speaks in his own idiosyncratic language and might just be the most powerful mutant of all time.

First introduced as part of the off-beat 2001 version ofX-Force, later renamed X-Statix, Doop is still a mystery. The nature of his origin and powers is still unclear, and only Wolverine seems to understand him. Yet, Doop stands as an essential part of any proper X-Men adaptation, if only to prove that mutations aren’t always pretty.

Thunderbird

In most cases, the X-Men movies adapt characters from the comics by streamlining their stories, reducing them to the most basic elements. With Thunderbird, the movies can do the opposite, developing a character who received little attention on the page. Born John Proudstar of the Apache tribe, Thunderbird was one of the new additions to the team in 1974’s Giant-Size X-Men #1. However, between his generic ability of enhanced athleticism and the fact that his one defining personality trait was a bad attitude—a quality shared by fellow new recruits Wolverine and Sunfire—Thunderbird died just a few issues later, and was only resurrected recently.

In short, Thunderbird offers the MCU more of a blank canvas, an opportunity to say something new with a character, rather than feel beholden to beats well-established in the comics. The television series The Gifted got to flesh out Thunderbird, where he was played by Blair Redford, but the movies could take it even further.

Armor

Most mutants come to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters shortly after their powers manifest at puberty, which means that most of the people around the X-Men are teens and not adults. Every so often, a young teen, usually a female character, becomes a focal point for the story. First it was Kitty Pryde, then Jubilee in X-Men: The Animated Series, Rogue serves that role in the movies, and most recently, that part was played by the Japanese mutant Hisako Ichiki, a.k.a. Armor.

Armor can create red psionic suit around her body, an interesting twist on defensive-based heroes. Since her introduction in Joss Whedon and John Cassidy’s Astonishing X-Men, Armor has been one of the more popular new mutants, even serving as the lead of Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men.

Kate Pryde

Before Armor, there was Kitty Pryde, the 13-year-old who joined the team early in Chris Claremont’s run. An earnest girl with terrible fashion sense and a willingness to say what others won’t (sometimes with terrible results), Kitty quickly won over fans, whether she was calling herself Sprite, Ariel, or Shadowcat. Fittingly, Kitty did appear in the X-Men movies, played by Elliot Page in X-Men: The Last Stand and in Days of Future Past.

Those appearances dealt with Kitty as a teen, but the character has long since grown up and is now one of the leaders of the team. Kitty should absolutely appear in a new X-Men film, but we should finally get the adult Kate Pryde instead of the young teen. That means we should see her as a principled leader, someone who knows how to temper her passions with a little patience. And she should definitely have a female love interest, as in the current comics, not her original boyfriend, Colossus, or her one-time betrothed, Peter Quill.

Dazzler

All the X-Men are weird, but few are weirder than Dazzler, at least in terms of her origin. Dazzler was created as part of a collaboration between Marvel Comics and Casablanca Records, who would debut with a disco album along with her comics. Even though the album never materialized, Dazzler eventually made her way onto the X-Men, serving as a key member during the fan-favorite Outback era and appearing in the 1989 animated special “Pryde of the X-Men” and the brawler arcade game it inspired.

Since then, Dazzler has been a consistent C-tier mutant, but rarely appeared outside of the comics. Which is a shame, because her civilian identity as a pop-star and her ability to convert sound into light seems ready-made for the big screen. Rumors that Taylor Swift would appear as Dazzler in Deadpool & Wolverine have proved unfounded, which means the time is right for the character to join the MCU X-Men.

Glob Herman

Given that they’re played by Hollywood actors, most of the X-Men in movies are incredibly attractive. Yet, mutation does not always result in supple curves and hard abs. Case in point, Glob Herman, whose flesh has mutated into translucent, pink jelly. That’s right, he doesn’t get cool powers (although his jelly is flammable, giving him some offensive capabilities) and he looks weird.

Yet, Glob Herman retains a good attitude, at least after his first appearances as a rebel in Xavier’s school. Even better, Herman has become the X-Men’s chef and farmer (think Neelix from Star Trek: Voyager, but from season four on). Glob Herman may not make for the most spectacular fight scenes in an MCU X-Men movie, but he would flesh out the world and provide some welcome humanity, albeit in a mutated form.

Kid Omega

If Glob Herman’s around, then Quentin Quire can’t be far away. One of the most popular, and most controversial, new mutants of the last few decades, Quentin Quire a.k.a. Kid Omega was introduced during Grant Morrison‘s run in the early 2000s. A powerful telepath with a punk streak, Quire originally let his contrarian attitude drive him to attempt a coup in the Xavier School. Morrison set up Quire to be a new villain for the mutants, but he resonated so well with readers that he quickly became an ally, albeit one with a bad attitude.

It’s not hard to see why Quentin Quire would resonate so well with younger readers. Beyond his distinctive look, marked by his dyed pink hair and his ironic t-shirts, Quire captures the adolescent desire to change the world, and he might have the power to do it.

Multiple Man

One must always take Stan Lee‘s declarations about his creative process with several pounds of salt, but one that rings true is that he came up with the concept of mutation because he was tired of inventing origins for his superheroes. The conceit meant that he didn’t need to say how Angel got his wings or why Beast has such very large hands and feet, but it also made it possible for Marvel to feature superheroes with very unlikely powers.

One of the best examples of a hero with weird powers is Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man. Madrox was a Z-level character for the first two decades or so after his debut in 1975’s Giant Size Fantastic Four #4. But since he was added to Peter David’s revamped X-Factor in the 1990s, Madrox has been a fan favorite. Multiple Man’s ability to make endless copies of himself doesn’t have the same immediate appeal as, say, Cyclops’s optic blasts. But if even the dismal X-Men: The Last Stand can have a few great Madrox scenes (helped, of course, by the late Eric Dane), then an MCU movie could do even better.