10 Things The X-Men Franchise Wishes It Could've Done Differently

9. Established A Thanos-Like Antagonist

Though the X-Men franchise predates the existence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by almost a decade, the MCU perfected the art of slow-burn universe-building, by slowly establishing a core cast of superheroes and spending years ramping up to their eventual collision with antagonist Thanos (Josh Brolin).

The X-Men movies have never had anything close to that titanic, overarching villain - unless you count Magneto - and it became abundantly clear with the introduction of Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) at the end of Days of Future Past that Fox was trying to rush their way to that same level of audience hype.

Even ignoring the utter lack of build-up, X-Men: Apocalypse served up an unconvincing destroyer-of-worlds with its titular villain, who lacked the statuesque villainy of the source material and was defeated all-too-easily.

The end of the movie did imply the imminent arrival of Mister Sinister, however, yet the character's intended appearance in Logan was eventually scrapped, and though Jon Hamm reportedly filmed a cameo as the character for the upcoming The New Mutants, that was also deleted for reasons unknown.

Despite having a great cast of heroes, X-Men really dropped the ball when it came to slowly establishing a villain capable of annihilating the world and paying it off with a suitably epic showdown.

Granted, every movie universe in existence is going to start seeking out their own equivalent of Thanos now, but given how easily a shadowy, ultra-powerful villain can unite heroes together, it makes sense.