X-Men in Marvel movies: All the ways the MCU has hinted at the future

Ever since the Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox, Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have wondered when they would get to see the long-awaited reunification of Marvel Comics’ most famous houses: the Avengers and the X-Men. Although it took more than a decade to make their appearance in the MCU, the mutants finally have.

Piece by piece, Marvel movies and television shows are building a path that leads right to Professor Xavier’s Westchester mansion. Here’s a compilation of everything we know about mutants and the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Kamala Khan is the Marvel movies’ first confirmed mutant

Image: Marvel Studios

In the final moments of her television series, Kamala Khan’s (Iman Vellani) tech-minded BFF Bruno gave her some pretty weird news: There was something in her DNA that none of her immediate family shared. Something “different. Like… like a mutation.” In the soundtrack of the scene, an electric guitar flicked through the first seven notes of the infamous theme song from 1992’s X-Men: The Animated Series — literally underscoring the significance of the word.

Kamala isn’t a mutant in the comics, so the reveal came as quite the surprise to fans, as it was the first time in MCU history that the concept had even been acknowledged.

Wolverine exists, possibly?

Image: Marvel Studios

A slightly lighter hat tip goes to mutantkind for the second episode She-Hulk: An Attorney at Law featured a little Easter egg hidden in a quick shot of Jennifer Walters’ fruitless search for a new career. On the page’s related stories list, a headline reads “Man fights with metal claws in bar brawl.” There aren’t too many people in the real world who get in bar fights with their metal claws, but there are Marvel characters for whom it happens, like, every other Tuesday — most famously, Wolverine.

These are the best couldThis could mean Wolverine’s alive and snikti-ing. You could make fun of it. But we live in hope.

Doctor Strange’s Multiverse of Madness: Professor X as Doctor X

Image: Marvel Studios

2022’s Doctor StrangeWe were given glimpses into a number of parallel universes through the sequel, with Earth-838 being the most prominent. There, we saw mutants and Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who is leading a group of super-powered superheroes known as the Illuminati. But, it’s important to underscore: Earth-838 is a parallel earth of the one we usually see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This Professor X doesn’t belong in “our” world.

Does this mean Patrick Stewart will play Professor Xavier? But not really. One of six Illuminati is in Multiverse of MadnessActually, the actor and character were matched up to one another in the main MCU.

However, it was the first time that a core X-Men member appeared in all of Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history.

Quicksilver existed in WandaVision…sorta

Image: Marvel Studios

However, this is not the case for tertiary X-Men characters. Well, sort of. It was a bit. The Marvel Comics life of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s siblings began with them as mutant characters. After they were reimagined, their Marvel Comics adventures opened up to characters with Infinity Stones powers.

When the Scarlet Witch’s own TV show, WandaVision, premiered, many fans were on the edge of their seats, waiting to see if — now that Marvel Studios had recouped the X-Men — Wanda would get to be a mutant again. The surprise appearance of Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in the 20th Century Fox X-Men movies, as Wanda’s super-speedy brother Pietro (i.e., Quicksilver, who in the MCU had died in Age of UltronThe only thing that drove the speculation mad was

But alas, the show’s conclusion revealed that Peters’ character was actually a normal human bystander who’d been ensorceled into a likeness of Wanda’s brother to drive her to the brink. This was the Marvel Cinematic Universe playing around with the notion of mutants. Yes. It was a mutant character. No.

The future MCU will have mutants

Image: Mark Brooks/Marvel Comics

Marvel’s Merry Mutants haven’t arrived yet — but all signs at Marvel point to it being soon. We now know a lot about the future plans for the X-Men as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Deadpool will appear in the MCU

Image by 20th Century Studios

Marvel Studios has promised to continue 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool franchise with star Ryan Reynolds in the lead — and this time, it’ll be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! A R-rated Deadpool sequel is in the works. One Guy Free’s Shawn Levy set to direct. Considering how many X-Men characters — including the Xavier school and mansion — featured in the first two Deadpool movies, it would be a real departure for none to appear in the third.

There will be an X-Men movie…sometime soon

Kevin Feige of Marvel Studios stated to a throng at San Diego Comic-Con that Marvel Studios was working on an MCU-set X-Men movie. Since then, we haven’t heard a peep. But Feige has said that the MCU’s take on the X-Men will be “quite different” from 20th Century Fox’s. For now, we’ll just have to wait until Marvel finally spills the beans on how it’ll bring some of the most popular Marvel Comics characters of all time to the biggest Marvel movie universe of all time.