THIS MUTANT LIFE #23: The All-New X-Women
You won't be surprised by this, but there's an ebb and flow to the pre-movie hype cycle. For every trailer and press photo released, there's a week or two of dead air in which nothing more is massaged out of a project -- especially one like "X-Men: Days of Future Past," which is at least a year and a half away from being released and hasn't started filming.
But, there was some burn in the regular X-Men comics world, which announced the launch of a new title simply titled "X-Men" that will solely feature the adventures of an all-female X-team, of which there are plenty. It got me thinking about the roster of the team -- Storm, Psylocke, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey and Jubilee -- and whether they would function if introduced into the X-filmverse, and whether we might be able to expect their eventual coming. If you’ll indulge me in a little thought exercise...
Storm: Obviously. I mean, we’ve already seen her once before in the X-films, where Halle Berry portrayed her as a strong, stable linchpin of the Xavier Institute. Introducing her in the new timeline as one of Xavier’s freshmen recruits would seem like an obvious move, given the dearth of women and people of color on the team. (Angel and Mystique both left to go with Magneto at the end of "X-Men: First Class.") She’s also got a set of visually entertaining powers -- a few comfortable levels above Darwin, at least -- and would give the movie’s CGI artists something to chew on. She’d probably be one of the first comic characters I’d peg to bring back into the film world.
Kitty Pryde: As I’ve gone over in these pages before, the original "Days of Future Past" story greatly features Pryde, who’s sent back in time from the future to make sure things don’t go wrong for the mutant race. But she was played in "X-Men: The Last Stand" by the very capable Ellen Page, which means the headache of resolving the timeline continuity probably wouldn’t be worth it for the producers, who continue to insist that all of these movies take place in the same universe. (Which means it’s going to eventually build to a head if they’re allowed to get that far.) It’s too bad, as basically every piece of fiction could use a spark plug girl who’s trained as a ninja and has a pet dragon. Maybe not "Crime and Punishment," but everything else.
Rachel Grey: Probably not in any meaningful way, as Rachel Grey is the... future daughter of Jean Grey and Scott Summers (Yeah, I had to look that up on Wikipedia; these details get blurry after a while) and it would require soooooooo much mucking about to put her in the present day. There’s just no way. But she was originally introduced in the "Days of Future Past" comic as one of the mutants who helps send Kitty back to the past -- in fact, she’s the one who specifically does it -- which means there could be a cameo or brief role for the fiery, ass-kicking redhead psychic before she’s doomed to get blown up by Sentinels. (Or whatever will happen; my only money is that a Sentinel will probably disintegrate Wolverine, leaving just his skeleton.) It would be a nice nod to comic fans in the "know," too.
Psylocke: Psychic British ninja who stabs stuff with a purple mind sword and also knows kung-fu? Sure, I think we could use one of those. She was technically in "X-Men: The Last Stand," but I don’t even think they named her, and there was certainly nothing memorable about her role besides the name. Just ignore it and move on, and everyone would be happy.
Jubilee: Unfortunately, Jubilee is probably way, way too ‘90s to appear in any kind of ‘70s form, the decade when I’d bet "Days of Future Past" will primarily take place. You couldn’t whip out her pink shades and yellow trenchcoat without a billion Internet fans screaming heresy, either, because everything about her announces goofiness. I wish they’d find a way, but there needs to be a will, too.
This Mutant Life explores all corners of the cinematic X-verse, from the kids of "First Class" to the berserker rage of "The Wolverine." Suggest topics for future columns in the comments or on Twitter!
Previously on This Mutant Life:
