The Marvel Cinematic Universe's X-Men should be based on the Second Genesis team, not the more commonly predicted First Class lineup. Last year, Disney successfully completed its $71.3 billion acquisition of the bulk of Fox's film and TV empire. The House of Mouse's primary goal was to acquire more content for the Disney+ streaming service in order to ensure it was as competitive as possible. Superhero fans, however, were far more excited at the fact this meant the film rights for the X-Men and the Fantastic Four have now been passed back to Marvel Studios. It's only a matter of time before mutants appear in the MCU.

Comic book purists argue Marvel should play the X-Men straight, kicking things off with the First Class team from the comics - Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Beast, and Angel. It's easy to see why they take this view; Fox's adaptations were liberal, dropping popular character beats, twisting classic stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga beyond all recognition. If these fans are correct, Marvel would be far wiser to stick faithfully to the comics. They could therefore launch a franchise that becomes breathtaking in scale, perhaps even ultimately dominating the MCU in the way the X-Men became the best-selling comics of the '90s.

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The argument is a simple one, but it's actually rather flawed. Rather than go for the First Class team for inspiration, Marvel Studios would be wiser to look to the Second Genesis group including Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, and Thunderbird.

The Second Genesis Team Were When The X-Men Became A Real Success

X-Men Second Genesis Team

It's easy to forget the first wave of X-Men comic books just didn't sell well. Stan Lee had come up with the idea of mutants as an excuse to avoid having to create convoluted origin stories; he could now hand-wave a superhero or supervillain by simply explaining they were mutants, born with their powers. Under Lee, the stories alternated between occasional conflicts with Magneto and "mutant of the week" stories, and the comics struggled. When Roy Thomas took over, he initially began to focus on conventional superhero stories, later confessing at first he didn't get the whole "mutant thing." "With hindsight it may have been a mistake," Thomas admitted in an interview in Comics Creators on X-Men. "It meant the X-Men didn't have as much of their own distinctive flavor." The book was essentially canceled with X-Men #66, and for several years continued with reprints of old stories. Then, in 1975, Marvel relaunched the X-Men. Marvel comics were now being distributed overseas, and the company wanted a book with an international flair. Roy Thomas, now Marvel's Editor-in-Chief, came up with the idea of using the X-Men to fill that gap.

This was the beginning of the "Second Genesis" era with the First Class largely replaced. Cyclops stuck around, and so did Marvel Girl, although she was soon transformed into Phoenix. A couple of other characters were familiar names from X-Men lore as well; Sunfire was a hot-headed Japanese pyrokinetic, and Banshee was an Irish mutant who had been forced to fight the X-Men once. Readers of The Incredible Hulk would have recognized Wolverine as a Canadian character who had scrapped with the Hulk, although his costume was tweaked for the X-Men. But other than that, these were entirely new characters. Storm was an African goddess who could manipulate the weather, Nightcrawler was a German teleporter, Colossus was a noble Russian mutant who could transform into organic steel, and Thunderbird was a Native American powerhouse. Writer Chris Claremont took over the franchise, and he dove into the themes of equality and tolerance that had occasionally been touched on by Lee and had become more prominent towards the end of Roy Thomas' run. This reinvention of the X-Men was a tremendous success, drawing in readers all over the world and turning the X-Men into one of Marvel's biggest brands.

The Second Genesis Team Fits Better With The MCU

Black Panther Storm

The Second Genesis team fit far more effectively with the MCU. The first wave of MCU heroes were mostly white males, but the post-Avengers: Endgame MCU promises to be far more diverse. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) all seem to be key to the MCU's future; Sam Wilson is destined to become the next Captain America; and new heroes include the likes of Kamala Khan's Ms. Marvel and Shang-Chi.

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The X-Men's First Class, in contrast, were all white Americans; they only had one token female. Rather than fit well with the MCU, this group would actually be counter to the MCU's increasing focus on diversity. That would be particularly ironic given the themes that have become prominent in the franchise. Meanwhile, the Second Genesis team - or a similar group - would allow Marvel to reach out to viewers from across the world. Colossus, for example, could help Marvel appeal to Russian audiences, while Storm would be another key African hero. It's notable that several of the Second Genesis team are also easier to tie in directly to the MCU, given Black Panther and Storm married in the comics, while Wolverine is a long-standing member of the Avengers.

Looking beyond Phase 4, the future of the MCU is likely to move beyond Earth and embrace cosmic stories on an unimaginable scale. According to James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is intended to launch a wave of cosmic scripts, but those films have presumably been pushed back due to Guardians' delay. Again, this would correspond perfectly with the Second Genesis era, which saw Chris Claremont take the X-Men away from Earth. Claremont gave them Phoenix as a Thor analogue so they could go toe-to-toe with alien empires such as the Shi'ar and monstrous extraterrestrial creatures such as the Brood.  Claremont had written Ms. Marvel for a time, so he brought Carol Danvers into his X-Men stories as a non-mutant ally, meaning the X-Men even built a strong relationship with Captain Marvel. Given Brie Larson's Carol Danvers looks to be a key figure in the MCU's future, this relationship could be very useful for helping ensure the shared universe retains a consistent narrative direction.

It's true comic book purists would probably be annoyed if Marvel skipped the First Class, but the sad reality is that era was simply not the X-Men's best. The characters and concepts in play don't really represent what the franchise would become in the comics and indeed should be in the MCU. The international dimension is lacking, the cosmic element only bubbled to the surface every now and again, and the central themes of diversity and tolerance were only dealt with occasionally. All this means Marvel would be far wiser to kick off their X-Men with the Second Genesis team.

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