While there’s still no clear timetable on when the X-Men will be rebooted for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the mutant superheroes aren’t disappearing from the silver screen anytime soon. Various cast members from the original X-Men movies are reprising their roles on the 2026 release schedule for Avengers: Doomsday. However, these actors aren’t playing the exact same versions of the characters who we followed along with in the 2000s and 2010s, and a new rumor for the upcoming Marvel movie supposedly lays out the key difference between this new X-Men universe and the old one.
This started when Alex Perez from The Cosmic Circus posted on X a panel from the Ultimatum comic book event of a tsunami hitting Manhattan in the original Ultimate universe. Magneto was responsible for this, so based off that alone, one could draw a line between that panel and Ian McKellen accidentally revealing that his version of Magneto destroys New Jersey in Avengers: Doomsday. Perez then shared a follow-up X post about how this panel was a tease to reflect the theme of “legacy” in Doomsday, saying:
In Doomsday, the X-Men universe we get to see in the movie is a variant universe where events similar to that of the OG trilogy + DOFP occurred, just to make it simpler for the audience to not do that much homework. What is new, is that this universe exists as a utopia for humans and mutants. But you have to wonder…what exactly happened prior to that that allowed this utopia to exist? What sacrifices had to be made for the greater good? And that question is the general motif of Doomsday.
Alex Perez added that this question will be posed not just to Magneto, but also to “Sam [Wilson], his Avengers, The Thunderbolts*, The Wakandans, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Steve Rogers, Thor, Loki, the TVA, the variants we see in this movie and most of all Doom.” These characters will have to grapple with how far they’ll go in order to save the people they love. What will they sacrifice? Morals? Powers? Belief? Their lives? As Perez laid out, it ties to what Magneto asks in the X-Men-focused Avengers: Doomsday teaser released last month: “The question isn’t, ‘Are you prepared to die?’ The question is, ‘Who will you be when you close your eyes?’”
This is some heavy material, but working off this alleged information, it sounds like in order for this alternate X-Men universe to become a utopia, a great sacrifice had to be made. Remembering the tsunami panel, it can be inferred this sacrifice involved many people being killed. But why? I doubt Ian McKellen’s Magneto was responsible given how chummy he is with Patrick Stewart’s Professor X in the teaser. So then who did it? Was another mutant or perhaps a human? After all, we do see Sentinels wreaking havoc in the teaser as well.
Assuming everything Alex Perez shared is accurate, then I’m curious to see exactly what was the divergence point in this universe after the events of Days of Future Past compared to what we got in the movies. That’s amidst the many other questions bouncing around in my head. I should also note this X-Men universe, which could be the same one Monica Rambeau was transported to at the end of The Marvels, could find itself on the receiving end of sacrifice for the greater good.
A previous Avengers: Doomsday rumor claimed that Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four and the main Avengers will travel to this X-Men universe because they believe it’s the source of the next multiverse incursion. To stop it, perhaps the entire X-Men universe would need to be destroyed. I have no doubt this is all part of Doom’s scheme to manipulate the heroes, but nevertheless, would they be willing to take this course of action in order to save the other universes? Are we about to watch a bunch of X-Men characters die… again?!
We’ll find out for sure when Avengers: Doomsday is released on December 18. In addition to Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, the movie will also be covered on the X-Men front by Rebeca Romijn as Mystique, Kelsey Grammer as Beast, James Marsden as Cyclops, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, and Channing Tatum as Gambit, whom we met in Deadpool & Wolverine.
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