Marvel Anime: X-Men, an X-Men anime series, featured what could be the MCU’s perfect X-Men lineup. While Marvel and DC anime series are not so common, there have been two X-Men-related anime – one focused entirely on Wolverine and the other that followed the X-Men team during a mission in Japan. Released in 2011, Marvel Anime: X-Men borrowed from established comic book runs and the aesthetic of the X-Men movies, resulting in a unique combination between realism and fantasy that would fit the MCU.
While the X-Men as a team has yet to arrive in the MCU, mutants were at the center of their own movie franchise for exactly two decades. As part of the X-Men’s pop culture impact in the 2000s, the X-Men anime combined famous comic book arcs with an original story set mainly in Japan. Marvel Anime: X-Men was produced by Madhouse, the studio behind classic anime series like Death Note and that also developed three other anime series for Marvel – Marvel Anime: Wolverine, Marvel Anime: Blade, and Marvel Anime: Iron Man. The X-Men anime sees Professor X’s team of superheroes investigating the deaths and disappearances of young mutants in Japan.
Through the eyes of Hisako, also known as the mutant Armor, audiences got to meet an X-Men lineup formed by Cyclops, Storm, Beast, and Wolverine. Emma Frost, who had previously fought alongside the villains from the Inner Circle, later joined the team. As such, the X-Men anime featured an X-Men lineup that no other X-Men movie or show has so far used. After two decades of X-Men films focused on Wolverine and Jean Grey, the MCU’s X-Men reboot would benefit from an X-Men team similar to that of the Marvel anime. Establishing that Jean Grey is currently dead just like Marvel Anime: X-Men did would help the MCU avoid telling the same stories from the Fox movies, and it would set up a new, darker role for Cyclops. Jean’s death and the arrival of Emma Frost are what shape Cyclops as a leader in the comics, a dynamic that the X-Men anime nailed.
The X-Men Anime Shows The Best X-Men Team The Movies Have Never Used
Inspired by later 2000s’ Astonishing X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, the X-Men anime gave a reformed Emma Frost a significant role in the team, a decision that by itself set the show apart from other X-Men adaptations. The absence of Jean Grey, a tormented Cyclops, the arrival of Hisako as a young member of the team, and highly experienced versions of Beast and Storm echoed some of the X-Men’s best comic book stories from the late 2000s – the only noticeable absence being from Kitty Pride. Still, the main X-Men lineup from Marvel Anime: X-Men brings a character dynamic that was never once used in the X-Men movies, mainly because Cyclops’ presence in the Fox X-Men franchise was very limited and Emma Frost was restricted to a forgettable role in X-Men: First Class.
The late 2000s redefined the X-Men comics, yet those comic book runs have yet to inspire the X-Men films. Still, Marvel Anime: X-Men was ahead of the curve when it comes to telling an X-Men story without Jean Grey and that sees Scott and Emma in key roles. Jean Grey’s death, Emma Frost’s history as a villain in the Inner Circle, and the X-Men lineup itself, all of which Marvel Anime: X-Men masterfully used, would therefore be perfect for the MCU.