In the next few years, the X-Men will be integrated into the MCU, and with that will come solo movies. There is a school of thought that the X-Men don’t need solo movies, because they were conceived to be a team and the foundations of their storylines are their relationships with each other.
And that’s fine when there’s a new comic book coming out every week featuring these characters, but with a movie, it’s hard to give everyone in an ensemble the chance to shine. Solo stories can have team-ups and cameos from other X-Men, so it will still feel like a group dynamic. Here are 10 Solo Movies The MCU Should Make With The X-Men Characters.
Deadpool 3
This one is a no-brainer. Deadpool 2 set up a bright future for the Merc with a Mouth and his supporting cast. Having assembled the X-Force with Cable, Domino, and Firefist, and maybe even saved Vanessa from being killed, there are still plenty of places to go with Deadpool’s standalone adventures.
It’s been reported that Deadpool is the only X-Men character that Disney doesn’t plan to reboot, so they should just accept his solo movies as canon, get around the narrative issues by breaking the fourth wall, and charge ahead with Deadpool 3, because Ryan Reynolds has just scratched the surface of what this character can do.
Channing Tatum as Gambit
For years now, a Channing Tatum-starring Gambit solo movie has been in development at Fox. Tatum was on board to both produce and star in the movie, but sadly, it never came to fruition.
Directors came and went and the studio flip-flopped between a greenlight and a redlight, but if all of that behind-the-scenes turmoil wasn’t enough to put Tatum off playing Gambit altogether, he’d make a great choice for the character. Marvel Studios can give Tatum a chance to finally make it. A Gambit movie would be a fun heist movie, like Ant-Man, but with a more serious take on the genre.
X-23 after the events of Logan
Since the MCU will have its own version of Wolverine and its own Wolverine story, it’s unclear what Marvel will do about movies like Logan that introduced exciting new characters. At the end of Logan, the titular antihero gave his life so that the next generation of mutants could live on.
X-23, Logan’s cloned daughter, was among them, and Dafne Keen’s portrayal of the character was very promising. Director James Mangold mentioned the prospect of a spin-off movie focusing on X-23. Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox leaves that potential spin-off up in the air, but they should definitely still make it.
Magik teaming up with Doctor Strange
As long as Marvel Studios is going to bring the X-Men into the same universe as the Avengers, then they should pair up the X-Man who has magical powers with the Avenger who has magical powers. Doctor Strange and Magik would make a terrific on-screen pairing, each using their own brand of mystical sorcery to battle paranormal forces.
Strange is about to team up with Scarlet Witch in his next standalone adventure, showing that the MCU is eager to give the Sorcerer Supreme a roster of magical allies. A team-up with Doctor Strange would go a long way towards establishing the little-known Magik, too.
Psylocke facing a villain alone
Although Psylocke didn’t initially grip fans to begin with, she became one of the most popular mutants in the Marvel universe following her late-‘80s redesign. With telepathy to match Emma Frost’s and psychical brawn to match Wolverine’s, Psylocke is certainly powerful and interesting enough to carry her own movie.
Psylocke can easily hold her own in an X-Men team-up when she has other mutants to back her up. An interesting challenge would be to face her with a perfectly matched villain alone. For whatever reason, the other mutants aren’t able to show up and help, so she’s on her own.
Storm teaming up with Black Panther
T’Challa and Storm have long been one of the Marvel Comics universe’s most beloved power couples. Storm married T’Challa and became the Queen of Wakanda a while ago, and they’ve been ruling the African nation together ever since. If the MCU is integrating the X-Men into a world where Black Panther and Wakanda are well-known, then realizing this marriage on the big screen is a no-brainer.
In his 2018 solo outing, T’Challa had something of a romance with Nakia, but they’d previously dated and it didn’t work out, so that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. If anything, they’ll be the Jerry and Elaine of the MCU. There’s still room for Storm to swoop in and steal T’Challa’s heart.
Cyclops and Havok’s coming-of-age story
Cyclops and Havok are brothers who got separated at a young age, raised by different families, and reunited when their mutant powers started to show and they were shipped off to Charles Xavier’s school. That’s a powerful emotional basis for a heartfelt coming-of-age story told within the confines of the comic book blockbuster genre.
As these characters discover their powers and decide what to do with them, their families would react differently and have different opinions, and this “parallel storylines” approach would be an interesting spin on the familiar superhero origin story. This could also set up Cyclops’ role as the X-Men’s leader.
Kitty Pryde/Nightcrawler team-up
In the comics, Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler have one of the sweetest friendships among the X-Men. It’s one of the rare cases where a male character and a female character have been able to drum up a shared dynamic without it leading to flirtation or romance.
The MCU has done a great job of depicting friendships before by casting actors who have palpable on-screen chemistry – Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (“Science Bros.”), Peter Quill and Rocket, and many more pairs – so there’s no doubt that they’d give us a great portrayal of Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler’s relationship. And what better way to do that than by giving them a team-up movie?
Magneto’s origin story
Fox had been developing a movie called X-Men Origins: Magneto (the second in what was planned to be a long line of X-Men Origins spin-offs) before the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. When that movie bombed with critics and audiences, Magneto’s movie was called off. But the script did sound interesting.
It was described as “The Pianist meets X-Men.” Magneto is a tragic hero. Even before mutants were ostracized from society, Magneto knew what it felt like, because he’s a Holocaust survivor. It’s a sensitive topic, especially for a superhero movie, but in the right hands, this could be a powerful movie.
Wolverine fighting in the Vietnam War
Although it was skimmed over in a montage at the beginning of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and a couple of flashbacks peppered about the other movies, Wolverine has a long history of fighting in wars. The perfect war to match his gruff personality and cynical outlook is the Vietnam War.
Rogue One and Kong: Skull Island have both proved that the aesthetic of the Vietnam War, with helicopters and exotic jungle landscapes and napalm, makes for breathtaking blockbuster fodder. A movie following Wolverine in the Vietnam War could be like a comic book version of Apocalypse Now, or Rambo with superpowers.