MCU's X-Men Sounds A LOT Like This (& That's A Good Thing)
Why The MCU's X-Men Can't Avoid Jonathan Hickman
But do you want to know another method of making Cyclops look cool? (Or even just the rest of the X-Men in general, to be honest.) Taking inspiration from Jonathan Hickman.
In the same interview with Good Morning America (via IGN) where he name-dropped Chris Claremont, Schreier mentioned that Jonathan Hickman was another whose work could inform this new incarnation of the X-Men:
"One of the great things about the comics is there is such a rich and broad history... That was one of the first things that Kevin and I talked about when I came in; they made many great movies in this world, and they've made so many great things. Let's find the things that haven't recently been done well. All these other corners of the universe… Digging back into those comics like 20 years, the whole Chris Claremont run, the newer Jonathan Hickman stuff. There are so many stories that are still untold, to honor and to reach into, and then to meet this cast and try to do something new, I think you always want to see something that reveres where it came from and then is still taking a new spin on where we want to go."
Reading into this quote, it's obviously more than just Claremont and Hickman that's being put into this reboot. There are so many talented X-Men writers and artists who've contributed to that world as we know it today, from Walt and Louise Simonson to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, John Cassaday, Bill Sienkiewicz, and beyond, and no doubt there'll be at least small pieces of their footprint reflected in the new film. But it is interesting that Hickman specifically has been namedropped, not just for the fact that his work has already proven a favourite of Marvel Studios, having inspired much of the Infinity Saga as well as the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, but also because his X-Men reboot had a galvanising effect on the team after a near-decade spent in the Marvel wilderness.
Together with Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia, Hickman's House of X/Powers of X brought Marvel's mutants kicking and screaming into a whole new world - one where the old dividing lines of mutant alliances where shattered, and where the stakes for mutant survival were never higher. It showed a version of mutantkind working in tandem to resist humanity and strive for liberation, all in the name of averting the inevitable - the complete destruction of mutantkind. The run also served as something of a cultural reset, recalibrating much of the X-Men's visual flavour by combining past, present, and future, with the aforementioned Larraz and Russell Dauterman taking fresh designs to new heights of popularity with the beloved Hellfire Gala comics, as well as in titles like Marauders, both of which were written by Gerry Duggan.
Hickman's work on X-Men was equal parts harrowing and empowering, and while it eventually crumbled under the weight of its initial successes, it provides a perfect platform for the MCU to showcase a version of the comics audiences have never encountered. It might present too fanciful a swing to begin with, but as the MCU builds for the future, a House of X/Powers of X-style event could have the juice to rival the Avengers.
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