The initial shock hit us so hard, we didn’t really pay attention to what exactly was being said. At the end of the recent Marvel Studios movie The Marvels, Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) sacrificed herself to close a rift between universes. She left herself on the other side, and when she woke up, she ran into someone she believed to be her mother, Maria (Lashana Lynch)... and The Beast, a core member of the mutant team The X-Men! The excitement at seeing Beast on screen again was a lot. And, it was the Kelsey Grammer version of the mutant, an iteration we hadn’t seen since the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand. That was many moons ago, and in a continuity that occurred long before the MCU even existed. Now that we know Grammer is willing to return to the X-Men universe, I have a question about something that he said… and I think it can be answered in the upcoming Marvel Studios movie Deadpool & Wolverine.
Let’s play out the scene. Monica wakes up in a hospital bed that’s in a lab. She sees her mom sitting by her bedside, only it becomes clear that this is not her mom. This is Binary, a hero in what clearly is another universe. And she’s a colleague (or teammate) of The Beast. We appear to be in the X-Mansion – hence, the X-Door spotted in the background.
And on his way out of the lab, Beast says to Binary and Monica:
Charles asked for an update. I’ll come by and check on you later.
Which begs the question, “Which Charles is he talking about?” Back when Kelsey Grammer was playing Beast as a member of an X-Men series, he had Sir Patrick Stewart as his Charles Xavier. And yes, Stewart returned to the role in the most recent Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, though he was killed off by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in that movie, and has been dodgy about his future in the part. Then again, Binary was not a member of that team… at least, not when we were watching in 2006.
The other option for a possible Charles in the universe that now contains Monica Rambeau is James McAvoy, the actor who played a younger Charles Xavier in multiple X-Men movies beginning with X-Men: First Class. Going with the younger McAvoy would allow Marvel Studios to maintain a consistent Xavier in what’s expected to be a live-action reboot of the franchise, capitalizing on the popularity of the team thanks to the return of the animated series X-Men ‘97.
The line from Beast is very intentional. He didn’t have to mention Charles. As has been proven in the X-Men ‘97 series, Magneto also served as the team leader in the wake of Xavier’s death. Beast also could have mentioned “Scott,” implying that Cyclops had taken over as team leader of the X-Men, something that’s also common in the X-stories.
Which leads me to conclude that since the character was mentioned, and we’re eventually going to have to find out where Monica was stranded, we’re going to get the answer in Deadpool & Wolverine. Though we don’t have an in-depth synopsis of the movie, the first trailer for the upcoming sequel made it clear that Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) was being recruited by the TVA for a mission. And there have been rumors about Deadpool encountering variants of all sorts of major characters in the movie, from the original Sabertooth (Tyler Mane) to a potential cameo by Henry Cavill (or even Daniel Radcliffe) as a Wolverine variant.
Which takes me to the third – and in my opinion, best – option. The “Charles” that Kelsey Grammer’s Beast refers to might be the NEW Charles Xavier that Marvel Studios plans to introduce to audience members. Given the fact that the MCU likely plans to introduce a new X-Men team and lean on these characters for the next 10 years at least, then relying on former Xavier actors isn’t wise. The name drop might be the seed that is planted for Marvel Studios to roll out the next iteration of Charles Xavier. Even though I do believe that legacy versions of these beloved characters will be a part of Avengers: Secret Wars… if and when that movie finally happens.
We’ll know this answer soon enough, as Deadpool & Wolverine is arriving in theaters in July, and if we don’t get it then, I’m not sure the next time that we’ll be able to catch up with Monica, as the pending slate for the MCU involves street level stories (Daredevil: Born Again) or cosmic origin stories (The Fantastic Four) set in the 1960s. Things are getting interesting in the MCU. Let’s find out which Charles the new/old Beast was referencing!
