The Terrible X-Men Costumes We Dare Avengers: Doomsday to Adapt

The latest teaser for Avengers: Doomsday doesn’t tell us anything about Doctor Doom’s evil plan to deal with the incursions destroying the multiverse. Nor does it even involve the Avengers at all. Instead, the minute-long teaser just catches up with three of the X-Men, bringing back Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen as Magneto, and James Marsden as Cyclops.

The sight of these old favorites is enough to appease those hoping for more Doomsday details, especially because of their costumes. Instead of the black leather the actors wore in their first appearances throughout the 2000s, Stewart, McKellen, and Marsden are outfitted in comic book accurate uniforms. Leaked images of their co-stars Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), Channing Tatum (Gambit), and Kelsey Grammer (Beast) also show the characters in comic book suits.

But, of course, a true comic book fan knows that these costumes are just one of many sartorial choices the characters have worn over the year. If Avengers: Doomsday really wants to impress us, then they’d give their stars one of these get-ups straight from the pages of Marvel Comics.

Professor X in Action Gear

In the public imagination, Professor Charles Xavier is a kindly paraplegic who wears a smart suit while delivering advice and instruction to his young charges. One doesn’t have to read too far in the comics to find that Xavier doesn’t always have those qualities. Not only is Professor X famously a jerk, but he often takes a more active role with the X-Men. If he’s still bound to his wheelchair, then Xavier tends to wear the jumpsuit that Stewart has in the teaser. But when he regains the use of his legs, which happens on a regular basis, then Xavier makes some stronger choices.

Easily the worst of the bunch is the costume he wears when he first decides to be a field member of the X-Men. With his ability to walk returned by his girlfriend’s alien people, Xavier chooses a hideous yellow get-up with blue gloves and boots, and a pair of belts making an “X” across his chest. Xavier already feels out of place going on adventures with his students, but putting him in that costume makes Professor X seem like the teacher who goes to his student’s parties and gets a look to friendly with some of the girls.

Magneto as Erik the Red

To be clear, Magneto hasn’t really ever had a bad costume. The sleeveless, long-gloved get-up he wore during his trial isn’t for everyone, and some may take exception to the flowing blouse he donned while serving as headmaster of Xaver’s school, but for the most part, Erik Lehnsherr knows how to make purple work for him.

So to ding the Master of Magnetism, we need to look at an identity he briefly donned when everyone thought he had been de-aged turned into a hot, young good guy called Joseph (spoiler: Joseph was a clone). Happy to let Joseph divert attention, Magneto took the identity of Erik the Red, which also was an identity that Cyclops used while outside the X-Men and that an alien named Davan Shakari once used.

None of that convoluted backstory explains why the Erik the Red costume is so hideous. It looks like a slightly more armored version of Sean Connery‘s Zardoz get-up with a horned helmet. Ugly as it is, I bet the always game McKellen would make it look amazing.

Cyclops the Mutant Buster

As mentioned above, Cyclops also wore the Erik the Red costume, but we had to give that one to Magneto, so we’re actually talking about the second worst outfit Scott Summers wore. And because this is the X-Men, a convoluted story comes with it. Well, actually, Scott’s worst costume is his original X-Factor getup.

X-Factor was the name of the team that the original five X-Men formed in 1986, when they reunited after Jean Grey’s resurrection. Not only did Marvel editorial want the original five on their own team, but the publisher wanted to ride the wave of Ghostbusters mania sweeping the nation. So instead of making X-Factor just another superhero team, Marvel decided that the team would pose as mutant hunters. When they found a mutant, X-Factor would actually help the poor kid they found.

Fortunately, Marvel dropped the conceit, but not before forcing us to see Scott in his mutant buster gear, a horrible blue sweat suit that seems designed for a light aerobic workout or doing nice breakdancing moves.

The Amazing Nightcrawler

The legendary artist Dave Cockrum originally designed Nighcrawler for a Legion of Superheroes spinoff comic. When Cockrum jumped from DC to Marvel to help relaunch the X-Men, he and writer Len Wien remade Nightcrawler into Kurt Wagner, the German swashbuckler we know and love. For that reason, few of Nightcrawler’s redesigns stray too far from what Cockrum did.

That said, the one time that Nightcrawler had a very different costume, it also had a fantastic design… because it’s Spider-Man’s. Yes, in the mini-series Uncanny Spider-Man, Nightcrawler took Peter Parker’s place for a while. Crazy as it sounds, Uncanny Spider-Man is pretty fun and it only lasted a few issues, so we can’t be too mad at it. Still, it would be bold for Marvel to make Nightcrawler into Spider-Man in Doomsday.

Mystique Embraces the ’90s

In the comics, shapeshifter Mystique has an incredible design, a cool sleek white dress to match her blue skin and red hair. For some reason, the movies decided she should be just naked and scaly, a design they kept when Jennifer Lawrence stepped in to replace Romjin in the role. The comics did sometimes adapt the naked scaley version of Mystique, but most of her looks stick to the white and blue look.

Strangely, the worst variation isn’t black sports bra that she briefly wore in the 2000s. Rather, it’s the ’90s nonsense that Mystique had while serving in X-Factor. The costume has the usual white base, but it’s covered with extraneous red belts and pouches. Now, to be clear, lots of superheroes had extra belts and pouches in the ’90s. But it really makes no sense of Mystique, a shapeshifting spy. The belts and buckles make the otherwise lithe character seem clunky and clumsy.

Gambit Goes Yellow

Unlike the other characters on this list, Gambit has rarely had a good costume. He’s so defined by his famous pink head sock and leather coat look that even attempts to update him retained those ’90s qualities.

But even by those standards, the yellow and red duds he wore as part of a later incarnation of, you guessed it, X-Factor. This incarnation of X-Factor was a corporate espionage outfit, and Gambit needed a fashionable new costume to match. Yet, for some reason Gambit’s corporate overlords put him in the most hideous yellow and red suit, made all the worse for the dumb red lenses over his eyes.

The outfit works a bit better when paired with his signature duster, but Gambit’s X-Factor look has us longing for the headsock.

Beast Clashes Colors

Honestly, the boldest thing for the MCU to do would be putting 70-year-old Kelsey Grammer in Beast’s usual costume, which is just underwear. If The Marvels is any indication, however, Grammer will just be a vocal performance for a CGI Beast. And that means if we want to find a weird costume for Beast’s next MCU appearance, we’ll have to turn, of course, to X-Factor.

Even movie fans probably know that Hank McCoy has two looks as the Beast. In one, he’s mostly humanoid, albeit with large hands and feet. In that mode, Beast wears superhero tights, including a brown and yellow suit that he can’t quite work as well as Wolverine. Hank’s other mode came after he performed experiments on himself, which first gave him grey fur and later blue fur. He sometimes gets a stylish coat when he’s blue and furry, which Grammer had in X-Men: The Last Stand.

But then, there was that one time in X-Factor that Hank decided to combine the two. Still blue and furry, Beast put on a variation of his brown and yellow duds. The clash of colors did not work, reminding us that Dr. McCoy is a great scientist, but not a great fashion designer.

Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on December 18, 2026.