With Disney’s fairly recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios is free to introduce the X-Men into the MCU–but some mutants might not make the cut as they proved to be far too disturbing for the family-friendly comic book movie franchise.
The history of the X-Men in Marvel Comics is paved with a plethora of mutant heroes and villains of all shapes and sizes. In the first issue alone, fans are introduced to not only the X-Men–which consisted of Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, and Angel–but also the villainous Master of Magnetism, Magneto–and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, mutants were the next stage of human evolution within the continuity of Marvel Comics, so more and more of them were being born into the world every day. This meant that comic writers and artists could get as creative as they wanted with new characters. However, in one of the most iconic X-Men storylines to date, it might be fair to say that the creative team got a little too carried away with the freedom they were given as they introduced a whole new class of mutant (or mutate) that is just so incredibly twisted.
In Factor X #1 by John Francis Moore and Steve Epting, readers are thrown into the ultra-violent world of the Age of Apocalypse–and this book is told from the villains’ perspectives. Cyclops and his brother, Havoc, are the leaders of a mutant strike force that works for Apocalypse, and their job is to track down and capture rogue mutants who escape from their designated pens, of which there are essentially two: breeding pens and experimentation pens. Both areas are horrific in their own unique ways, and both are designed to create the perfect mutant race with which Apocalypse will use to seed the world with new life. In the meantime, the sadistic scientists behind these experiments–Mr. Sinister and Dark Beast–created a number of other mutant atrocities in the name of strengthening Apocalypse’s empire, including a brand-new subspecies of telepaths designed to be living security systems–though one couldn’t call what they had ‘lives’.
Mr. Sinister’s Age of Apocalypse Mutants Should Not Be Seen By Kids
When Cyclops and his team try to get into Mr. Sinister’s chambers at a later point in this issue (as Sinister abandoned his position as a Horseman of Apocalypse in an earlier comic), they are met with the opposition of Sinister’s security system: a telepathic brain floating in a jar of liquid with a single eye attached to it. This ‘mutant’ was once a telepath who was abducted by Apocalypse’s men (most likely Cyclops’ team) before Sinister had his way with them. It is implied here that Sinister carved out their brain and eyes–the only part of them he deemed valuable–and connected them to Apocalypse’s fortress via a telepathic link. This proved to be a brilliant means of security as the once-mutant psychic brain would scan the minds of anyone trying to enter a specific room and know in an instant and without fail whether they are supposed to be there or not. However, brilliant or not, these ‘mutants’ are a disturbing sight to behold and should not be seen by children who just want to watch a Marvel movie.
It is one thing to see a character (or a collective of characters) like these mutilated, technically-living telepathic brains in a comic book, but if these ‘mutants’ were to be brought into the realm of live action upon the launch of the new X-Men franchise, those films would suddenly become way too intense for younger audiences as the immediate-visual and lingering horror of these characters is far-too twisted for the family-friendly landscape of the MCU.