Another contribution of Singer's auteur approach: the X-Men movies are more personal, heartfelt visions than the Marvel movies. It's not that MCU movies aren't about anything - the MCU is often more thematically rich than most blockbusters out there - it's just that they have pockets of individuality, whereas the X-Men movies are infused with Bryan Singer's concerns, even when he's not the director. For Singer, the mutants of X-Men are society's outcasts, serving as representatives of everything from the LGBT community and awkward teens, to AIDS sufferers and Jewish people subjugated by institutional anti-Semitism. X-Men may be a multi-million dollar franchise, but it still feels deeply personal, with the films' concerns shifting as the real world evolves. For example, the latest film in the X-Men series, Days Of Future Past, took a look at the attitude of the law towards minorities in America and became an allegory about the consequences of an increasingly right-wing police state. In the MCU, you have flashes of heartfelt emotion shoehorned in - think the running sideplot of Cap missing his dance with Agent Carter - but the X-Men movies are for Singer built on a foundation of personal concerns.