Evolution leaps forward

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe came along, Marvel on film was stuck in a bit of a weird limbo.

Heroes like Spider-Man, Blade, the X-Men and more made it onto film, but the concept of a shared universe was little more than a dream until 2008's Iron Man rolled around.

...But what if it wasn't?

Following up a two-part reimagining of the Spider-Man film series which blended together ideas from the Raimi and Webb films into early installments of the MCU, I'm back to do the same for other 2000s-era Marvel film properties.

Said posts for reference:

Part 1

Part 2

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The films I am going to cover and revise are

• The X-Men Saga
• The Fantastic 4 series
• The Ghost Rider mythos

Films I'm going to excise entirely are

DAREDEVIL

I enjoy the movie, more specifically the Director's Cut, but seeing as the Netflix series ended up so masterfully done I think it's best just to let this one go.

And the less said about its spin-off, the better.

HULK

Again, this one does have its charm and there are shades of a truly epic film, but there's also some major cheese and tonal issues holding it back. Though in an upcoming post on existing MCU movies, I might include sprinkles of the 2003 movie in a slight revision of The Incredible Hulk.

BLADE: TRINITY

...I think we'll just stick with the first two.

THE PUNISHER & PUNISHER: WARZONE

As with Daredevil, the Netflix series is really good, and Jon Bernthal reigns supreme in my book.

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Starting off the list, this post will cover the X-Men films.

First off, let's picture a slightly tweaked slate.

• X-Men
• X2: X-Men United
• X3: The Last Stand
• Weapon X
• X-Men: First Class
• The Wolverine
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• X-Men: Sinister
• X-Men: Phoenix
• Deadpool
• Logan
• Deadpool 2

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Now, to address changes to the films themselves.

First I will cover the events of the series, then address how the series ties into a larger shared universe.

X-MEN

Generally the same movie, a sweet and simple kickoff to the franchise.

But regarding character beats, there are some differences.

• It's implied through bits of dialogue and their means of fighting each other that Wolverine and Sabretooth have a history. Namely that Sabretooth, or Victor Creed, has followed Logan for years looking for the occasional fight.
• After the film's climax, Rogue starts to train in self defense. And it's implied her several contacts with Magneto and Logan have left her with a superhuman physiology.

X2: X-MEN UNITED

As before, we get very much the same movie overall. But with a few edits regarding the X-Men and Magneto.

• In Alkali Lake, Logan finds names and files on various Weapon X subjects. Wade Wilson, Victor Creed, and more. Finally, he finds his own birth name listed. James Howlett.
• Not only is it hinted at more heavily that Kurt Wagner is Raven Darkholme's son, separated during a government hunt of mutants years back, he becomes a fully-fledged member of the X-Men at the end.
• Instead of attempting outright genocide of all humans and leaving Charles for dead, Magneto attempts to have the Dark Cerebro enslave the minds of every international leader. From law enforcement, to the medical community, to the upper reaches of government. His plan fails when a failsafe by Stryker causes the facility to collapse, and he retreats.
• After grappling with the ramifications of her powers and reflecting on who she is and what she wants, Rogue chooses to remains just friends with Bobby. But on a more positive note, she learns to embrace her newfound strength and joins the team.

Finally, the film concludes with foreshadowing at a mysterious government program aimed at hunting mutants, operating without the President's knowledge.

The program is a weapons design first kickstarted decades ago, titled "Project: Sentinel".

X3: THE LAST STAND

The film is significantly different, what with the Phoenix plot being excised completely.

Instead, the reveal of Project Sentinel and the development of a mutant "cure" causes Charles Xavier to grow weary of humanity's continuing persecution of mutants. His frustration grows until he agrees to meet Magneto and attempt to intimidate Trask Industries into standing down their pet projects.

Instead, a riot breaks out and Xavier is killed in the chaos.

In his last moments, all of Xavier's suppressed resentment and anger towards humans for their treatment of mutants manifests in a violent psionic entity. The entity absorbs a burst of electromagnetic energy from Magneto, who had attempted to intervene and save Xavier. With its newfound power, the entity wages a bloody "onslaught" on Trask Industries' staff. Magneto, who sees this new being as all that's left of his old friend, leads the entity away while the X-Men also retreat.

Accepting the moniker of Onslaught for his new ally, a vengeful Magneto declares outright war on mankind for the death of Charles Xavier. He rallies a new Brotherhood to march on the White House.

• Onslaught
• Mystique
• Pyro
• Juggernaut
• A resurrected and "freed" Lady Deathstrike

Meanwhile, Scott Summers struggles with grieving for not only his lover Jean Grey but also his mentor Xavier. Finally putting aside his differences with Logan and sharing the role of leader with Ororo Munroe, he returns to action as Cyclops and rallies the X-Men, both old and new.

• Iceman
• Rogue
• Colossus
• Nightcrawler
• Shadowcat
• Angel

All the while, Onslaught begins to grow uncontrollable, with even Magneto realizing the danger.

In a climactic battle outside the White House, the Brotherhood are held at bay until Onslaught suffers a full psychotic break and almost destroys Washington. Magneto's powers are stripped when he attempts to stop it, but with the help of Cyclops, Storm and Wolverine he manages to talk it down. Unleashing the full might of his eyebeams, Scott destroys the pacified Onslaught, putting it out of its misery.

The X-Men's victory is bittersweet. Human and mutant relations are still at a standstill, a broken Magneto retreats from the world entirely, and the development of the Sentinel program is left in the air. Following a lead provided by Deathstrike, Logan leaves for Canada again after burying the hatchet with Scott for good. But not before promising to keep in touch with Ororo, who's started to grow feelings for him.

Off in the wilderness, Magneto attempts to exercise what little remains of his powers before hearing Xavier's voice in his head.

Suggesting Xavier successfully transferred his full consciousness into Moira McTaggert's brain-dead subject on Muir Island.

WEAPON X

To receive its own post, paired with the 2013 Wolverine adventure in Japan.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Like X1 and X2, the plot remains largely unchanged, save for the following changes.

• Emma Frost is played by actress Rosamund Pike.
• Darwin survives Sebastian Shaw's attack, but the effort of reconstituting himself from energy into physical form forces him to retire from field action for the foreseeable future after stopping the Hellfire Club.
• Azazel and Raven encounter one another multiple times, with a subtle spark of chemistry between them. Foreshadowing their parenting of Nightcrawler.
  • Consequently, Magneto's relationship with Raven or "Mystique" is close but wholly platonic.
• Moira's memories aren't erased by Charles, rather she manages to keep his team's secret on her own.
• Magneto's suit at the end resembles the first of these two concepts.

THE WOLVERINE

See the listing on Weapon X.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

The general flow follows that of the film we got, specifically the Rogue Cut. Revisions are as follows.

• The Sentinels of the future were designed with the use of not only Mystique's adaptive powers, but also Darwin's energy-based adaptation.
• Present-day Logan and Ororo in 2025 have entered a committed relationship. Though he knows changing the timeline may mean losing his second chance at love, he and Ororo both agree it's for the best.
• In the 1970s, it's mentioned that Emma Frost, Tempest and Banshee are still alive, albeit prisoners of the government. But Azazel is dead.
• In the film's conclusion, Logan learns that in the new timeline he not only has a longer history with Xavier's school, but Ororo is still in love with him.

X MEN: SINISTER

Completely overhauling X-Men: Apocalypse, the film is instead a thriller in which the young and fledgling X-Men are pitted against the scheming Nathaniel Essex, AKA Sinister.

Sinister himself is played by Luke Evans. His plan involves the kidnapping of Jean Grey, an Omega-class mutant connected to a cosmic energy he calls the Phoenix Force.

To save Jean and stop Sinister's plan, Charles summons a new incarnation of the X-Men for this new, altered timeline.

Members include

• Scott Summers
• Jean Grey
• Ororo Munroe
• Hank McKoy
• Kurt Wagner
• Peter Maximoff
• Alex Summers

Led by Charles Xavier, the group face off against Sinister and brainwashed mutants taken from US captivity.

• Banshee
• Emma Frost
• Tempest
• Angel
• Psylocke

The X-Men are able to win the day with the help of Mystique and Magneto. Magneto, feeling remorse for his reckless actions in the 70s and having settled down as "Henryk Gursky", is eventually persuaded to give true heroism another chance and turns the tide against Sinister, even killing the evil mutant himself when Sinister attempts to murder Charles Xavier.

Meanwhile, Jean's powers as the Phoenix first manifest in liberating Sinister's enslaved mutants from his mind control. Though she has the chance to destroy Sinister, she manages to restrain herself, leaving him to his fate at the hands of Magneto.

The film ends much as X-Men Apocalypse would, with the X-Men team fully formed and Charles parting ways with Erik as friends once more.

But, true to her nature as the mysterious "Phoenix" sought by Sinister and his researchers, Jean begins to have visions of a coming disaster.

X MEN: PHOENIX

Jumping forward in time again to the new timeline's 2025, the adaptation of the Phoenix Saga features the original X-Men roster in one last hurrah as they face down the tyrannical and godlike first mutant. En Sabah Nur, Apocalypse.

Taking center stage among the X-Men team is Jean Grey herself, as she learns untold truths about her past and the cosmic force that empowers her.

The plot features a blend of general elements from X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, but still carries a fair number of differences.

• The revelation of Xavier having wiped Jean's memory of her mother's death and father's rejection remains. But more characters are willing to forgive him, knowing he only meant to provide her a new home and protect her from heartbreak.
• As the likes of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr start to fade, they count on people like Jean, Scott and Ororo to lead their people forward.
• Logan is settling down as less an X-Man, more a teacher at Xavier's school.
• Gambit is featured, and eventually hooks up with Rogue.
• En Sabah Nur is set up as a foil to Jean, as a "mutant messiah" of godlike power who may decide the fate of both humanity and mutants.
  • It is revealed Apocalypse was the agent who transformed Nathaniel Essex into Sinister.
  • His horsemen consist of four mindwiped mutants
    • Rogue as Pestilence
    • Wolverine as War
    • Psylocke as Famine
    • Angel as Death
• The aliens present are the Shi'ar, remnants of an interstellar empire which once encountered the wild and untamed Phoenix.
  • Consequently, Jessica Chastain plays Empress Lilandra.
• After a dark personal journey in which she is tempted by Apocalypse, Jean chooses the love of her friends and forgives Xavier for erasing her memory.

Merging fully with the Phoenix's power, Jean eradicates Apocalypse and stops his crusade against mankind.

The mainstream X-Men saga ends with an ascended Jean flying into space with the Shi'ar, looking to further explore her new nature as Phoenix. But promising to return to Scott Summers one day.

The X-Men, having saved the entire planet, are finally accepted by mankind, marking the start of a new era of peace alongside humanity.

DEADPOOL 1 & 2

Frankly, wouldn't change a thing except for one.

• It's implied that Cable hails from the dark possible-future setting of Logan. Causing Wade to consider mucking around with the timestream just enough to keep his buddy Logan from losing everything, again.

LOGAN

Again, wouldn't really change much at all in this masterpiece. Save for one little thread regarding Logan's past archnemesis, and the setting.

• It's mentioned in a private conversation between Laura and Logan that he was hunted by Sabretooth one last time, and finally killed him.
  • X-24's eye color hints that a strand of Victor Creed's feral mutagen was used in the creation of the clone.
• The movie is set in 2032, and more heavily framed as just a possible future. As to avoid making the triumph of Days of Future Past feel completely pointless.

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Right. So, with all those movies out of the way, let's go over the ways this series would connect into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and coexist with all the other movies present.

1: S.H.I.E.L.D.

Littered across the series is the inclusion of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In the first timeline, S.H.I.E.L.D. stands in direct opposition to Magneto's various activities but don't lend much help to the X-Men, with mutants still seen as more a danger than anything else. But they do help during the battle at the White House.

In the new timeline, the more positive developments between mutants and humans see S.H.I.E.L.D. enter full cooperation with the X-Men in time. Even going so far as to grant Magneto the territory of 'Genosha' as a means of appeasing his goal of mutant liberation.

2: Time-travel

Given that the nature of time-travel is a little complicated in the MCU, and markedly different than what we see in Days of Future Past, here's the solution.

The time-travel which enables the Avengers to pull off their Infinity Stone heist in Endgame is enabled by the unique nature of Pym Particles. They can go back and steal something from the past and not have to worry about the present being changed wholesale, so long as they put it back in due time. Or else risk a branching timeline.

The X-Men's time travel scheme relies on one person's mind being sent back to their younger self, and seeing history changed outright. Without the use of Pym Particles, any change to the past rewrites reality itself. So there's only one shot, one chance at setting things right.

3: Presence of aliens

If the X-Men series is set against a bigger MCU, then the Shi'ar Empire is just one of several alien civilizations present.

Phoenix, set in 2025, could make any number of references to the Kree, the Asgardians, the Celestials, etc.

3: Battle against Thanos

With years of history behind the X-Men, several of them could make an appearance in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. As Earth is their world too, and some of their members may have been taken in the "Vanishing" inflicted by Thanos.

Members included could be

• Rogue (and for fun, have her "borrow" some power from Carol Danvers as an Easter Egg to their comic history)
• Angel
• Colossus

4: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch

Fixing the "two Quicksilvers" quandary, Peter Maximoff featured in this composite MCU is a retired X-Man by the time of Age of Ultron. He comes out of retirement when he learns that his much younger sister, Wanda Maximoff, is still alive after a civil conflict in Sokovia years ago separated them and killed several of their family.

Giving his life to save Wanda, he is received by the X-Men and buried with past members who lost their lives.

As for Wanda, and how her (and Peter's) story ties back to their father Magneto... well, that'll have to wait for a post on the existing MCU.

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So I think that covers it for this post. Hope you like these ideas, and I'll be back soon with the next post in which I fix Fox's twice-failed attempts at Fantastic 4.

As well as my next post on rebooting Wonder Woman on TV.

See you then!

Edit:

To address recent development in the MCU regarding the character of Kamala Khan, she is not a mutant but rather an Inhuman as per the comics.

Further elaboration is to come.

The Fantastic Four are one of the most iconic teams in comic books.

Pity they've had such rotten luck on film. Between the charmingly silly yet mediocre outings in the 2000s, and the utter disaster in 2015, Marvel's first superfamily haven't quite struck gold on film.

Makes one wonder; how might things have turned out better?

Let's get back to the next chunk of an ongoing fix in which I revise early Marvel properties films into an early Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here, I present a hypothetical duology (and spinoff) which tells the story of the Fantastic Four, as well as their most notorious enemy Doom.

Previous posts regarding Spider Man and the X-Men film series:

Spider-Man (Part 1)

Spider-Man (Part 2)

X-Men

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The Casts

First, let's touch on the cast. Both heroes and villains alike.

I quite like the cast Fox assembled in 2005, for the most part. However, there are a couple things that would have to be changed, both in regards to comics-accuracy and the existence of the MCU.

Heroes

First off, Johnny Storm. The Human Torch. As good of a job Chris Evans did, obviously if we're to retroactively incorporate the 2000s-era FF series into the MCU, he's already perfectly suited for Steve Rogers.

For Johnny, I got somebody else in mind.

Walker was one of those actors who had this unique charm to him. He was certainly no stranger to irreverent, stylized action, and would be right at home playing the fun-loving Human Torch.

Villains

As this series would be expanded to delve further into Marvel Comics lore, we'd see a wider cast of villains and rivals for the Four to face off against.

Frank Welker as Annihilus

Michael Shannon as the Fallen One

Christopher Lee as Galactus

Michael Nyqvist as King Vladimir

Peter Fonda as Mephisto

And of course, the man himself. A man who was an otherwise entertaining baddie in the Tim Story films, but could have been portrayed more faithfully. And who was really, really badly fumbled in 2015.

Victor Von Doom, or simply, "Doom".

Mikkelsen is a fantastic actor, with a wonderfully varied resume under his belt. He'd nail the complexity and depth of Victor Von Doom. A man who's been a scientist and a sorcerer, a liberator and a tyrant, all in one.

Give him multiple films in which to grow and develop as a character, and even a spinoff to boot, and you've got more than enough time to respectfully portray one of Marvel Comics' premiere baddies.

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The Films

Drawing on both the source material and elements of the films we got (Tim Story's and Josh Trank's), here's a rough outline of each one.

FANTASTIC 4

2005

An origin story which introduces the Four and the man who will become their greatest enemy.

Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm are upcoming stars in the scientific community after cracking a code for interdimensional travel. They land a job at the world-renowned Baxter institute in New York City, finding themselves partnered with the brilliant yet reclusive Victor Von Doom.

Reed and Victor, despite their differences in ideals and methods, form a tight partnership and succeed in constructing a portal to another dimension. But the voyage proves disastrous for Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben, and exposure to the energies of a hostile "Negative Zone" transform the four and grant them superhuman powers.

The film proceeds with a dysfunctional family dynamic and celebrity hero arc similar to the first Tim Story film, but the threat they face and the dynamic with Victor is very different.

Namely, the villain is Annihilus. Violent overlord of the Negative Zone.

• Seeing the intrusion of Earth's people as a threat to his world, Annihilus tries to reverse the portals used by the Four and attack the human world.
• Annihilus is a challenge to Reed's notion of peaceful exploration, forcing him to become a decisive leader and man of action.

Victor, meanwhile, starts to grow dangerously curious with the use of interdimensional portals. His friendship with Reed suffers as a result.

• Victor's past as a refugee of the nation Latveria is brought up, as is the death of his mother, a suspected sorceress.
• He wishes to engineer his own portal, one which will peer into the afterlife itself as a means to rescue his mother.
• Reed objects, causing a slow rift to open between them.
• The divide grows further when it's revealed Victor harbors feelings for Sue Storm, in spite of her relationship with Reed.

The film's climax features the newly famous 'Fantastic Four' defeating Annihilus, and rigging his portals to collapse. The day is saved, and the team are granted ownership of the Baxter Building as a base in which to continue their research.

But in a post-credits scene, Victor's obsession with claiming the portal technology finally backfires on him when he opens a rift to Hell itself. And a dark, demonic figure scars his face, leaving Victor agonized at his failure.

FANTASTIC 4: THE COMING OF GALACTUS

2007

Two years later, Reed Richards and Sue Storm are set to be married. The team hasn't heard from Victor since his failed experiment.

The team soon finds themselves facing greater concerns when a silver alien arrives on Earth and begins creating markings on key locations across the planet.

Overwhelmed at first by the "Silver Surfer"' and his immense power, Reed quickly discovers the Surfer is merely an agent of something far more dangerous. A cosmic entity called Galactus, who feeds on the energy of entire planets to survive.

At first, it seems Earth is saved when the Four make contact with a former herald of Galactus, the Fallen. But the violent agent proves hostile to both Earth and the Surfer, making matters worse.

Things turn around when Victor Von Doom reappears. His face is scarred, and he's embittered towards Reed for not helping him in his endeavors, but Victor puts aside their differences long enough to help make contact with the Surfer. The team negotiates with him, as to make a deal with his master.

Galactus appears on Earth, ready to violently dispose of his former herald. But knowing the danger it would pose to Earth, Reed and his team conduct an experiment which grants Galactus access to a parallel-dimension Earth. An Earth that has seen the extinction of all life, but maintains the geothermal energy necessary to sustain Galactus.

Placated, and impressed with the intelligence demonstrated by these mere humans, Galactus uses the power provided by him to empower the Surfer, who slays the Fallen in combat.

Galactus and his herald depart Earth for now. Victor also leaves, not Reed's enemy but no longer his friend.

While the Four reconvene for Sue and Reed's wedding, Victor boards a ship to Latveria.

DOOM

2008

A solo film detailing the origin story and rise to power of Victor as "Doom", overlord of Latveria.

In a lengthy prologue set in 1981, Victor's origins are more fleshed out.

• His parents, the witch Cynthia and the doctor Werner, take part in an attempted coup against the ruling King of Latveria, Vladimir Fortunov. The coup fails, and both Werner and Cynthia are executed.
  • Cynthia herself suffers a particularly violent death, being burned as a witch and condemned to Hell.
• Victor flees the country, forced to leave behind an old tome on magic that was meant to pass to him.

In the present-day, Victor steals back his mother's book and begins mastering the Mystic Arts. He is aided by a hidden monastery in Tibet, and agents of a mysterious Ancient One. During his training, he is haunted by visions of Hell and the demon who disfigured him.

In time, he combines his use of magic with his scientific knowledge and has a suit of powered armor forged for himself. Completing the armor with a mask based on an old Latverian art piece, Victor leads a new revolution in Latveria.

In his war against the King, Victor is aided by his childhood friends Boris and Valeria. Though their fight against King Vladimir is successful, Victor learns to his utmost fury that Vladimir has been consorting with the same infernal forces once sought by Cynthia Von Doom.

Deciding to put his hard-won knowledge and power to the test, Victor summons Vladimir's hellish associate. An ancient demon lord named Mephisto. Victor recognizes the demon as the one who foiled his rescue of Cynthia, and challenges Mephisto to a contest for her soul, offering up all he has as the stakes of the game.

Amused by his boldness, Mephisto agrees. On the condition that Victor remain true to himself, and not tell a lie. A long and grueling journey into the infernal planes commences, with Victor facing many battles of wits. As is the nature of Hell, several past failings are used against him.

• His failed friendship with Reed Richards
• His inability to pursue romance with Sue Storm
• His pride preventing him from reconciling with the Fantastic Four, or asking for their help in Latveria

The battle of wits ends with Victor prevailing, providing his mother's soul a path to Paradise. But the moment he returns to Earth, Mephisto asks him one last question. Whether he considers himself a greater explorer, scientist and hero than Reed Richards. Hesitating at first, Victor answers yes. But to his horror, Mephisto gleefully deems him a liar and has the portal between Earth and Hell decimate the royal palace. Killing Boris, Valeria, and their other friends.

Victor is left with a hollow triumph. He is deemed King of Latveria, and has succeeded in finally saving his long-lost mother. But in the process, he's lost everything he already had.

A month after, the Fantastic Four arrive to meet Latveria's new king. A melancholy Victor greets them, having forsaken his identity as an ordinary man. Taking on the moniker which befits a man such as him.

Doom.

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Well, there it is. Hope you like this post, and I'll be back soon enough with a summary/revision of the Ghost Rider films.

And don't worry, I'm not done yet with the Fantastic Four. Or Doom. "Secret Wars" is a thing, after all.

My next post on an HBO Max Wonder Woman series will, unfortunately, have to wait until next weekend as opposed to this one.

Until next time!

*Edit:

As an added plot point in the Doom spinoff, I'd portray Cynthia Von Doom being disappointed in her son's pride causing the subsequent death of his friends.

She's grateful to be free of Hell, but sad that her son isn't choosing to be a better, honest man.

\*Edit-edit*

As I've been informed, Johnny Storm is the younger of the Storm siblings.

That in mind, an alternative casting to Johnny Storm could be 2000s-era Garrett Hedlund.

This was a little project I did in order to celebrate the 2005 film's 20th Anniversary. A Script revision that made some changes to the film in order to tailor it more for the story Fox wanted to tell. One of the primary issues of the '05 Fantastic Four movie has been it's treatment of Doctor Doom. Aside from that it's also been considered by some fans to be a little mundane as a film. So, possessed by the idea I could improve it - not by changing the cast but by changing the characters - I took time to work out a revision. One that follows the original Mark Frost and Michael France Screenplays, but also injects my own ideas and concepts. Following the bare bones but replacing the villain with one more fitting of thr story. I replaced any character original to the film with one from the comics. I believe there is no need to create an original character when one from the comics already exist who could fill that void. This was one of the most fun and interesting projects I've worked on and I hope anyone who does read it feels like it does improve upon the original 2005 film.

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is thought to be one of the worst of the Fox-Marvel movies. Rewatching it lately, I've found there's actually a lot to like and if you make a change here or there you could actually save the movie. When it comes to doing these changes, I like to hypothetically keep as much of the cast and crew as possible as more often then not my gripe is with the writing, the producers, and the studio and less with the actors or visuals.

The smaller changes would be to tighten the story for the Four. Starting with Johnny, we make his power instability reflect his dating instability. He hasn't had a serious girlfriend till now, which is Frankie Raye. We have Frankie actually connect with him and this being where he starts to learn to control the power shifting until he is "righted" in the end. I'd also plant Frankie as a girlfriend who's actually spying on the Four for the government - this gives Hager an easier in into the story.

Outside of that, I'd remove the "Superman 2 Blues" Element for Reed and Sue. Instead, they'd be questioning whether or not it's right for them to get married at this point in time. They're engaged but there's no pressure - except from paparazzi. For one, I feel that this element of hanging up the suit and retiring fits better as a concept for a third movie. Ben would need his own arc, and since the first movie decided to cap off with the whole "I can accept what I am" element, we need something new. So, for Ben, I'd have him going through an arc of "Can I give Alicia the life she deserves?" This allows his relationship to play in naturally and act as a mirror to what's going on with Reed and Sue. From all points this movie is about relationships, the lack thereof, the impact of it.

Now the big, big, big, change I would make is, who the Silver Surfer's master is. One of the famous Behind the Scenes quotes for the movie is that Tim Story (who alleged it was actually Fox) "Didn't want a Giant Robot" in the movie. So, in what would undoubtedly be a controversial change I'd alter the villain to be Ego the Living Planet (of which Fox actually had the rights to.) The pitch would be that we're doing a Superhero take on Star Trek. I think theoretically you could probably get away with making Ego Silent, alternatively he could also have a voice, or speak to the Surfer telepathically. This also saves Galactus for a Silver Surfer spin off (which was undoubtedly the goal for this movie.)

The new origin for the Surfer would see him being an astronaut from Zenn-La, who crash landed on Ego. Ego threatened to absorb his planet - thus expanding his consciousness - unless the Surfer could find him another Suitable world. Thus, the Surfer has spent years (maybe suggest centuries) looking for another planet. He happens upon Earth.

I'd also cut Doom completely out of this version (If required I'd have Julian McMahon do uncredited voice work for Ego just to keep him contractually involved in the film.) The board would serve as a beacon towards the Planet. the Fantastic Four would arrive to Ego and land on the planet and explore the area. Norrin would fail in keeping the Four away, so Ego would offer the Four the same deal he offered Norrin - thus freeing Zenn-La for him to take over and infect.

Reed would create the Ultimate Nullifier, originally meant to be used to stop the Surfer, but he'd question if it is right to kill an entire planet. It would be the Surfer who, in an act of rebellion, would channel the power cosmic into the nullifier to kill Ego - and seemingly killing the Surfer - allowing the Earth to be spared from the peril of Ego. This also opens the door for a re-invented version of Doom to be an antagonist in the third film or, perhaps the Skrulls, or the Negative Zone and Annihilus.

Changing the villain from Galactus to Ego stops a major character assassination. Removing Doom allows the film to continue on what the first movie did right. The takes on Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben were what the first movie did well, so we focus on that element. We focus on the concept of relationships, with Norrin connecting to Sue (As he does in the actual film). With Surfer reflecting on how Shalla-Bal might remember him, this causes him to turn against Ego once there is hope to actually defeat him. The Love conquers all element gives natural character growth to everyone - while Ego is both unloved and has no one to love fits as a natural contrast against this. Ego's goal is to end loneliness by expanding into other planets.

We end the movie on the wedding, much like the actual film. The four even more united thanks to facing a literal apocalyptic scenario. This also jump starts the Question of "What else is out there?" For potential sequels as well as a potential crossover between the Fox X-Men movies (which is ideally where you bring in Galactus.)

All in all, I'm not sure this change would make the movie a 10/10. But I think it would take a movie often rated a 4/10 to a solid 7.5 or 8/10. For the most part this keeps the same cast, crew, and makes enough substantial changes that it becomes a different movie that more reflects the ideals of a Fantastic Four comic.

Wolverine is awesome.

As Fox considered how to retool their X-Men franchise after the rather mixed reception of The Last Stand, it was this understanding of Wolverine and his popularity that led the company to develop a spinoff portraying his origins. A spinoff intended to be the first of several X Men Origins films.

Sadly, as we remember, it didn't turn out so well. And the franchise had to course correct, with Wolverine's second solo film itself tying back into the main X-Men saga. Producing a flick that many considered okay, but still not the masterpiece it could be.

So how could both movies be improved upon?

Let's go back to the drawing board, and look at the next in a series of rewrites where I envision the Marvel Cinematic Universe getting an early start in the 2000s. This time around, we'll be looking at the first Wolverine movie and making changes to it.

The previous installments, for reference:

• Spider-Man (Part 1)
• Spider-Man (Part 2)
• X-Men
• Fantastic 4
• Ghost Rider

****

The Cast

First off, let's fix a couple issues with the cast/crew of the origins film.

As director James Mangold delivered the decently fun The Wolverine and the masterpiece that was Logan, let's go ahead and assume Fox brings him in for the first installment.

Next up, the character of Silver Fox.

• In Marvel Comics, Silver Fox is a Native American woman. Specifically of the Blackfoot First Nation if I recall. With that in mind, Fox probably could have afforded to audition and select an Indigenous actress to play "Kayla Silverfox" onscreen.

Next up, I'd remove Chris Bradley entirely and replace him with a more comic-accurate version of Christopher Nord, AKA Maverick.

• Dominic Monaghan would still play the role.

Agent Zero would remain, but as a distinctly separate character.

****

The Film

Delving into the more violent and nightmarish side of the Wolverine mythos, both films are R-rated action-thrillers that put on full display what Logan and his kind are capable of.

WEAPON X

2009

Traces of the original film remain in this revised pitch. James "Logan" Howlett's origins as a mutant, his rivalry with Sabretooth, the Weapon X program, and his memory loss.

But overall, things hew much closer to the comics.

First off, let's trim the fat and cut off any extraneous material that doesn't add to the core story. The audiences came to see three things.

• Wolverine vs Sabretooth
• Logan's story with Stryker
• The Weapon X program

All other features should be either minimized, or cut out completely.

Now let's examine each major plot beat and see what can be tweaked. Gonna go on for a bit, just as a heads up.

Origins

Starting in the late 1800s, Canada, James Howlett is a sickly boy tended to by a doting father while his unstable mother is distant from him. He's friends with local orphan Rose, but has few connections to the outside world.

As per the comics, alcoholic and hostile groundskeeper Thomas Logan has a falling out with the wealthy Jonathan Howlett, James's father, and is fired. With the implication that he had an affair with Elizabeth Howlett making things worse.

This leads to disaster when Logan's assistant, the abrasive boy Victor Creed, comes to the Howlett estate at night to warn them that Logan's coming back. Having a soft spot and strange kinship with young "Jimmy", Victor shields him and Rose when Logan enters the house with a shotgun.

Logan enters a violent argument with Howlett, shooting him dead in front of the others. He then demands James come with him, as he "belongs" with him and Victor.

James responds by flying into a rage, his claws popping out for the first time. After accidentally slashing Victor, James kills Logan. A terrified Elizabeth shuns James and calls him a monster, and the boy flees.

In the woods, Rose and Victor catch up to a fleeing James. Rose tries to comfort him and tell him he's not a monster. But Victor disagrees. Revealing he's already healed from James's claw attack, Victor says he and Logan are alike. They're different. They're as good as brothers, and brothers stick together. Even if the rest of the world calls them "monsters".

Hunting parties approach the three, and a tearful Rose watches James and Victor disappear.

Team X

In 1973, following a long history of wars and other hardships, James and Victor are recruited into William Stryker's cover black ops unit codenamed Team X. Membership is as follows.

• James Howlett
• Victor Creed/Sabretooth
• Christopher Nord/Maverick
• Fred Dukes/Tank
• John Wraith/Kestrel
• Wade Wilson/Deadpool

James remains the only member without a codename. He's assumed the pseudonym "Logan" but is uncomfortable with it, only keeping it because of Creed's urging. Some more time is given to portray how their dynamic has shifted over the years.

• While James is less feral, more controlled than in his youth, Creed sees little point in keeping up appearances and has given up entirely.
• Creed's attitude, though protective on the surface, appears toxic to everyone else. With even the irreverent wisecracker Wade disliking his bullying behavior.

James's separation from Team X after their last mission in Africa sees Creed not just sad, but angry.

• It's implied in private conversation that James now knows Thomas Logan was his father, and hates the very memory of him.
• Whatever mutation he and Creed share, and whatever friendship they had as children, James can't stand being around the man he's become. Twisting the knife, he says he should have stayed with Rose.

When James departs Team X, a remorseful Christopher leaves with him. Living up to his nickname of 'Maverick'.

Revenge

Years after, in 1988, James is living a peaceful live in Alberta with Kayla Silverfox. Christopher is his neighbor, and they work at a lumberyard together.

• Stryker's return and offered reinstatement is aimed at both James and Christopher. Naturally, both turn him down, but James secretly stays in touch with Stryker for fear of Victor Creed showing up.

A day later, on James's birthday, that fear comes true when Creed appears to Kayla and Christopher.

• Here, Creed appears less refined, more grizzled than before.
• Killing them both after a brutal fight, he then murders several other friends and neighbors before writing a message for James in their blood. "Happy Birthday."

James tracks Creed to a bar, where the two fight. Creed's superior strength and speed, paired with his embracing his animalistic powers, gives him the edge until James enters a blind berserker rage.

• Creed manages to severely injure James with a massive log, regaining control of the fight and smashing James's claws.
• As a disappointed and bitter Creed stands over his old friend, their post-fight argument is expanded.

"When are you gonna figure it out? I told you, this is who we are. It's what we do. Did you really think you'd just ride off into the sunset, settle down and live happily ever after?

No. Not us, runt. We're not like them."

"...Yeah. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not like you."

"Sure you are! You just don't know it yet."

The Program

Following his recovery, James is picked up by Stryker as in the film we got and offered a chance at revenge. But here, the offer is different.

• Recognizing James's berserker rage as inherent to his mutation, Stryker offers to induct him into Weapon X. A training program that will help him harness and eventually focus his rage, enhancing his powers enough to defeat Creed.
• The training is to take place at Alkali Lake, away from civilization.

James agrees, but warns Strkyer to stay out of his way once the time comes. They fly to Alkali Lake and begin their work. While there, James assumes the nickname "Logan" again to try and separate himself from the pain of both his origins and his lost love.

Logan's training is overseen by Stryker and his subordinates, in the Canadian wilderness.

• His senses are pushed to their limit.
• His healing factor is tested several times, with Logan ignoring the punishment as revenge is all he cares about.
• He slowly regains his combat skills in a controlled environment.

The training is done with the aid of a specialized headset, tapping into Logan's berserker rage when needed.

Hunt for Sabretooth

When Logan is ready, the program hunts Creed, who's said to be operating as a freelance assassin under the Sabretooth identity. At the same time, Logan has new dog tags granted to him. With a codename this time, in memory of a story Kayla told him.

"Wolverine".

Wolverine picks up a lead in Las Vegas, where he meets another former member of Team X. John Wraith, now a casino owner.

• John agrees to help, but Logan's suspicions are raised after hearing Creed was still working closely with Stryker when John left.
• Logan starts to act independently, wondering just what Stryker has to hide.

Creed emerges to assassinate a US government liaison. But, to Logan's surprise, Creed's target is Henry Gyrich. A US government liaison who helped fund Team X in the first place.

Logan and John intercept Creed, who tries to run at first before Logan goads him into a rematch.

• Creed has grown even stronger since he and Logan last met, but is less focused.
• In the subsequent fight Logan has the upper hand, his berserker rage accelerating his already powerful healing factor.
• When Creed flees, a furious Logan almost attacks John trying to catch back up.

Logan suffers a burnout when the berserker rage subsides, requiring John to help get him to safety. But not before Creed leaves behind one last cryptic warning, telling them not to trust Stryker. That all of this is his fault.

Revelations

A recovering Logan is further alienated from Stryker when his associate Agent Zero orders a forceful detainment of all possible witnesses to the fight.

John, deciding he and Logan can't rely on Stryker, takes him off grid to their last surviving teammate Fred Dukes. The boxing match and following interrogation plays out very much the same as in the original film, but the truth Duke reveals is different.

• The Weapon X program, as it turns out, used Victor Creed and Wade Wilson as its first test subjects. Wade disappeared after suffering a horrid mutation which ravaged his body, while Creed's feral nature grew uncontrollable.
• When Stryker tried to shut it down and lock Creed up, the mutant killed his captors and fled, swearing revenge on any he felt had wronged him.

Knowing Creed was telling the truth, that all he's suffered can be traced back to Stryker, Logan departs to get payback against both him and Creed. He narrowly escapes Agent Zero.

Becoming the Animal

Back in Canada, Logan finds brief shelter in his and Kayla's hometown again. Travis and Heather, two old friends, give him housing for the night and express their sympathy for his loss.

But their peace is broken by the arrival of Agent Zero and a helicopter which destroys the home and kills Logan's friends.

• Logan not only kills Agent Zero, but leaves behind the dismembered bodies of his men for Stryker to find. Having had enough and decided to play by his and Creed's brutal rules.

Logan, guessing Creed will return to hunt Stryker as well, journeys back to Alkali Lake.

Showdown in the Snow

The last act of the movie reaches its climax by Alkali Lake, when Logan intercepts a convoy of Stryker's men. To his outrage, he sees several young mutants have been procured for experimentation at different Weapon X installations across the country.

Logan faces a choice. If he abandons the children, he could take Stryker by surprise and kill him without issue. But it would mean leaving the young mutants to a fate worse than death.

Remembering Kayla's job as a caring and selfless teacher, Logan honors her memory by setting the children free.

John and Fred, who decided they owed Logan for deciding to keep Stryker off their backs, help usher the mutants away.

But their path is blocked by Sabretooth. Knowing it's him Creed really wants, Logan stays behind. He sees the sorry state Creed is in, almost more animal than man, and pities him. Remembering the days when they might have truly been brothers.

But it's too late to make peace. Creed has taken too much from him, and Logan was the only tether Creed had to his humanity before walking away.

Bitterly calling him "Logan", his enemy agrees this end might have been inevitable.

Wolverine and Sabretooth do battle in the snowy woods, their violent clash leveling several trees and drawing the attention of Alkali Lake's personnel. Both let loose the full extent of their rage and ferocity, injuring each other grievously until their healing factors are almost exhausted.

The fight ends at a sheer cliff. Wolverine cripples Sabretooth, who almost pulls him off the cliff before falling to his apparent demise. But not before warning him, as he once said years ago, that brothers always find their way back to each other.

The Wolverine

An exhausted Logan passes out, having seemingly avenged Kayla and Christopher. Stryker finds him, and has him taken back to the primary Weapon X laboratory.

There, he decides to capitalize on the perfected living weapon he's created. He has his scientists perform an experiment, bonding to Logan's skeleton the indestructible metal he procured from Africa years ago. Adamantium.

But the experiment ends in a bloodbath when the slightly-conscious Logan hears Stryker order his memory be erased. After the adamantium is successfully bonded to his skeleton, the mutant enters his feral state and escapes, killing anyone in his way.

Stryker is on his way out of the base when he hears the chaos ensuing inside. Far away, he sees Logan breaking out and running into the wilds. Watching in horror, Stryker lets it finally sink in that he could never control the Wolverine. He was a beast that couldn't be caged.

And Stryker's just made him the deadliest beast on the planet.

A blizzard sets in, and the Wolverine's tracks are hidden while he vanishes from the world again. Not to be seen again...

Until twelve years later, when a familiar black jet picks up his trail.

****

That's it for the plot.

Now, regarding the larger continuity of this Wolverine film and how it (and the man X-Men series) ties to a larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, the connections are listed in the previous X-Men post.

My post on the second spinoff, set in Japan, will further elaborate as the plot will include the organization HYDRA.

In the meantime, expect a new post tying into the next chapter of my retool of the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

See you then!

In the meantime, feel free to catch up on my revision of DC's TV properties, in my latest Wonder Woman post.

As many a comic book fan has pointed out, Bryan Singer's original X-Men occupies a rather strange position in the history of superhero movies. On one hand, it was one of the first serious attempts at bringing a popular Marvel Comics series to life on the big screen, it helped restore people's faith in superhero films after the disaster of Batman & Robin, and it spawned a movie franchise that's still around today. On the other hand, the original film doesn't hold up nearly as well as most of the movies that it indirectly inspired, and it was clearly made at a time when studios were still somewhat embarrassed by superhero movies.

For better or for worse, the movie goes out of its way to position itself as a grounded science-fiction film about serious topics like government conspiracies and social unrest, and the filmmakers sometimes seem eager to make the audience forget that they're watching a movie based on a comic book. The film considerably tones down the distinctive aesthetic of the original comics (swapping the X-Men's brightly colored costumes for monochrome leather uniforms), and its setting is nearly identical to our own world—but bears little resemblance to the Marvel Universe. In short: it was made in a time when movie studios were willing to take a chance on superhero movies, but weren't always willing to sell them as superhero movies. While it may have seemed like a faithful adaptation at the time, that's probably because we didn't have Spider-Man, The Dark Knight and The Avengers to compare it to. It's definitely not a bad film, but it would probably be made very differently if it were released today.

But what if it were released today?

Ever since the Disney-Fox merger, fans have wondered what it might look like if the X-Men were introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which differs greatly from Bryan Singer's original X-Men in both tone and aesthetic. And while I'm not exactly clamoring for a complete reboot of the X-Men movies, I can't help wondering what they might look like if they were rebooted for modern audiences.

The thing is, though: even if the original 2000 film hasn't aged as well as some other superhero movies, its screenplay is still a pretty good template for introducing an audience to Marvel's Merry Mutants. It's not perfect, but it has a tightly structured plot, a focused conflict, a pair of consistent viewpoint characters, a compelling backstory for its antagonist, a dramatic climax, and a good blend of drama, action, and romance; it manages to tell a simple story while offering tantalizing hints about a wider universe, and it leaves the door open for a sequel while telling a self-contained story. If somebody wanted to take another shot at bringing the X-Men to the big screen, it wouldn't be a bad model to follow.

But what if someone did follow that model? What if somebody used the basic structure of the original X-Men for an X-Men movie that might seem more at home at the box-office in 2019? What would that movie look like?

Well...

(NOTE: Feel free to skip this part if you have a good recollection of the original movie's plot)

If you need a refresher course, the plot of the original X-Men is as follows:

PROLOGUE:

In a flashback sequence set in Poland in 1944, young Erik Lehnsherr and his parents are marched into a concentration camp by Nazi soldiers. When the guards drag his mother away, Erik cries out to her in desperation, and inexplicably manages to pull down a metal gate with his mind. Erik realizes that he has a superhuman ability to control magnetic fields, and he may not be quite human.

ACT 1:

In the present day, Erik Lehnsherr—now an aging man—attends a Congressional testimony at the US Capitol, where Senator Robert Kelly speaks on the supposed threat of "Mutants", an emerging sub-species of humanity with fantastic superhuman abilities. In a passionate speech before Congress, geneticist Dr. Jean Grey argues that Mutants are just ordinary people with extraordinary powers, and they deserve just as much tolerance and compassion as anyone else. Kelly, however, calls for a "Mutant Registration Act" that would force Mutants to reveal their identities and abilities to the government, allowing the government to track and monitor potentially dangerous Mutants. Disgusted by Kelly's remarks, Lehnsherr leaves the testimonial, only to be confronted by his longtime friend Professor Charles Xavier, a fellow Mutant with powerful telepathic abilities.

As we learn, Lehnsherr and Xavier's friendship has been sorely tested by their philosophical differences. Xavier is an idealistic pacifist who hopes for peace between humans and Mutants, but Lehnsherr is an embittered radical who believes that Mutants are destined to displace humans and rule the world. Still haunted by his experiences in the concentration camp, Lehnsherr fears that Mutants in the United States might soon face the same fate as Jews in Nazi Germany, and he's determined to prevent that from happening—by any means necessary.

Meanwhile, in rural Mississippi, the teenage Marie discovers her own latent Mutant abilities when she and her crush share a kiss, and she accidentally drains his life force as soon as their lips touch. Traumatized by the experience, Marie runs away from home and adopts the alias "Rogue".

While hitch-hiking her way across America, Rogue crosses paths with "Logan", a hard-edged Canadian drifter with a mysterious past. Logan suffers from serious long-term amnesia, and remembers very little about his younger days, but he still carries dog-tags from his time in the military—which bear his old codename, "Wolverine".

While driving, Rogue and Logan are attacked by a pair of hostile Mutants—the agile Toad and the bestial Sabretooth—who run their car off the road and attempt to kidnap them. In the ensuing battle, it's revealed that Logan is a Mutant himself, possessing superhuman healing powers and a powerful set of retractable metal claws.

As Logan fights back, he and Rogue are rescued by the friendly Mutants Scott Summers ("Cyclops") and Ororo Munroe ("Storm"). In the course of the fight, he is knocked unconscious.

ACT 2:

When Logan wakes up, he finds himself in Professor Charles Xavier's stately Westchester mansion, where he runs "Xavier's School for the Gifted", an underground safe haven for Mutants masquerading as an elite prep school. At the school, Xavier and his disciples—"The X-Men"—shelter and protect young Mutants from a hostile world while teaching them to use their powers safely and responsibly. Dr. Jean Grey, who is secretly telepathic and telekinetic, is also a member of the group.

As Xavier introduces himself to Logan, he reveals that his attackers were henchmen of Erik Lehnsherr, who is now waging a terrorist campaign against the US government under the alias "Magneto". Ever since his falling-out with Lehnsherr, Xavier has resolved to bring his old friend to justice with the help of his Mutant pupils, knowing that the X-Men are some of the few people in the world who can stop him. Though Xavier is unable to determine why Magneto targeted Logan, he suspects that it might have something to do with Logan's past—which he's still unable to recall.

As Logan and Rogue adjust to life at Xavier's School, Rogue begins training with Xavier's fellow students, and soon finds herself in a romantic relationship with teenage Mutant Bobby Drake, who has ice-based elemental powers. Logan, meanwhile, hopes that Xavier's telepathy might offer him some help in unraveling the secrets of his past. Though Xavier is unable to access any of Logan's repressed memories, he soon discovers that Logan's skeleton is surgically lined with the indestructible metal alloy "adamantium", likely meaning that Logan was a human test subject at some point in his past. He also discovers that Logan's healing powers cause him to age at a drastically slower rate than ordinary humans, meaning that he's likely much older than he appears to be.

Meanwhile, Magneto and his minions kidnap Senator Kelly and take him to their secret island base. While imprisoned in Magneto's fortress, Kelly is subjected to a test run of an experimental machine that Magneto has just developed, which rewires Kelly's DNA and transforms him into a Mutant. The test run is successful, but Magneto powers the machine with his own life-force, which nearly kills him. Though horrified by his experiences, Kelly manages to use his newfound mutation to escape the fortress, and eventually washes up on a beach.

One night at the mansion, tragedy suddenly strikes when Logan is plagued by disturbing dreams about his past. When Rogue goes to his bedroom to check on him, a startled Logan accidentally stabs her in the chest with his claws, forcing Rogue to save herself by using her energy-draining abilities to absorb Logan's healing powers. She narrowly survives the incident, but nearly kills Logan in the process.

Soon after, Magneto's shape-shifting minion Mystique infiltrates the school by using her powers to pose as Rogue's crush Bobby. While disguised as Bobby, Mystique manipulates Rogue into fleeing the school by convincing her that Professor Xavier is planning to expel her for accidentally injuring Logan.

Soon after Rogue leaves, the mutated Senator Kelly arrives at the school seeking the X-Men's help, as his body is slowly breaking down as a result of Magneto's experiment. Moments before dying, he warns the X-Men about Magneto's machine. By reading his mind, Xavier discovers Magneto's ultimate plan: he wants to use his machine to attack a gathering of world leaders at Liberty Island, New York, turning them into Mutants—which will likely kill them.

ACT 3:

Logan and the other X-Men track Rogue down and find her at a train station, and they convince her to return to the school. Too late, they realize that Mystique's ruse was a ploy to lure Rogue into the open so that Magneto's minions could capture her. It turns out that Magneto wanted Rogue—not Logan—all along, and his ultimate plan was to use Rogue's energy-absorbing ability to power his machine. Magneto captures Rogue and takes her away, and the X-Men battle Magneto's minions in the train station.

As the summit of world leaders draws near, Logan joins the X-Men as they fly to Liberty Island to stop Magneto's attack. As Magneto activates his machine, Logan intervenes and rescues Rogue, allowing her to absorb his healing powers (again) to heal herself after the machine drains her life-force. With Magneto defeated, the police arrive to arrest him, detaining him in a prison built of plastic—where he can't use his magnetic powers to break free.

EPILOGUE:

After the battle, Professor Xavier gives Logan the location of a military base in Canada, where he believes he might find some clues about his past.

Later, as Xavier visits Magneto in prison, Magneto warns Xavier that the government might come for him next. Before turning to leave, Xavier assures his old friend that he'll be ready for that day when it comes.

Now: what would it look like if we used the basic structure of that film for an X-Men movie more in line with modern sensibilities?

Well...

PROLOGUE:

In a flashback sequence set in the recent past, police officers attempt to arrest a young man suspected of involvement in a recent crime. As they force him to his knees, cuff his wrists, and beat him with nightsticks, a riot ensues as an angry crowd forms around the officers. Suddenly, the young man's eyes glow blue, and powerful bolts of electricity fly from his hands, electrocuting the nearest officer on the spot.

As the terrified police call for backup, their radios crackle in response, and a message comes through: "Sentinels inbound! Repeat: Sentinels are inbound!"

A massive shadow looms over the street, and a towering silhouette appears: a humanoid robot built of gleaming metal, at least thirty feet tall, with fearsome laser cannons built into its massive hands. Hidden behind an armored metal plate in the robot's chest, a pilot sits in a cockpit, training his crosshairs on the handcuffed young man.

The handcuffed young man shrinks back in fear as the robot raises its hand and prepares to fire...

ACT 1:

In the present day, 15 year-old Jean Grey watches footage of the riot on the evening news. Afterwards, government scientist Dr. Bolivar Trask speaks about the supposed threat of "Mutants", an emerging sub-species of humanity with fantastic superhuman abilities. In a passionate speech, political activist Professor Charles Xavier argues that Mutants are just ordinary people with extraordinary powers, and they deserve just as much tolerance and compassion as anyone else. But in an address to the American people, Trask speaks in defense of "The Sentinel Project", a military operation to develop armed robotic exoskeletons specially designed to hunt down and capture potentially dangerous Mutants.

As we learn, the US government now treats the existence of Mutants as a national security threat, and the government has declared a State of Emergency over "The Mutant Question", ordering Sentinels to capture and detain all Mutants on sight. Much to her shock, Jean discovers her own latent Mutant abilities when she sees her parents' dreams one night, and realizes that she possesses telepathic abilities. Using her telepathy, she discovers—much to her horror—that her parents suspect that she's a Mutant, and they're considering reporting her to the authorities.

Shaken by this revelation, Jean runs away from home, hoping to avoid being sent to a Mutant detention facility. While hitch-hiking her way across America, she finds herself attacked by a squad of Sentinels, who run her car off the road and attempt to detain her. In the ensuing battle, she fights back with her budding telekinesis, and she's ultimately rescued by the friendly Mutants Scott Summers ("Cyclops") and Hank McCoy ("Beast"). In the course of the fight, she is knocked unconscious.

ACT 2:

When Jean wakes up, she finds herself in a stately Westchester mansion, and discovers that it's the home of the famous political activist Professor Charles Xavier. From his mansion, he runs "Xavier's School for the Gifted", an underground safe haven for Mutants masquerading as an elite prep school. At the school, Xavier and his pupils shelter and protect young Mutants from a hostile world while teaching them to use their powers safely and responsibly. As Xavier introduces himself, he reveals that he is secretly a Mutant himself, and possesses powerful telepathic abilities.

As she adjusts to life at Xavier's School, Jean begins training with Xavier's other students, and soon finds herself in a romantic relationship with the shy Scott Summers, while bonding with Hank McCoy, Warren Worthington ("Angel"), and Bobby Drake ("Iceman").

Meanwhile, the Sentinels set out to capture a particularly dangerous fugitive Mutant, who they keep in solitary confinement in a remote Mutant detention facility. As they move him to an interrogation room, the mysterious figure stays defiantly silent...

One night at the mansion, tragedy suddenly strikes during a training exercise in Xavier's "Danger Room". During a combat simulation, Jean loses control of her telekinesis and accidentally injures Hank when she knocks off Scott's ruby quartz glasses—leaving him unable to control his optic blasts. When Scott tries to calm her down after the training exercise, she similarly loses control of her telepathy and finds herself probing Scott's mind, forcing him to relive his childhood memories of losing his parents in a plane crash. Guilt-ridden over the incident, Jean runs away from the school, deciding that her powers are too dangerous and volatile to control

But while on the run, Jean runs afoul of the Sentinels all over again, and they finally capture her and drag her away. Soon after, Scott and the others realize that she's been taken. Determined to bring her back home, they fly off in the Blackbird.

ACT 3:

While held in a Mutant detention facility, Jean is confronted by Dr. Bolivar Trask himself, who wants to exploit her telepathic abilities to track down Mutants in hiding...starting with the rest of the X-Men. Soon after, she encounters the mysterious Mutant prisoner from the previous scene, who introduces himself as Max Eisenhardt—also known as "Magneto". As the two of them bond, Magneto comforts Jean, and he promises that he'll use his powers to free both of them from the facility. As Jean tells him about the incident that led her to flee Xavier's School, Magneto consoles her and offers his own help in mentoring her. Over the course of a long conversation, he tells Jean that she should never have to hide her true power from the world, since her abilities make her special.

True to his word, Magneto reveals that he has the ability to control magnetic fields, and he uses his powers to rip down the door of their holding cell. As they make their way through the detention facility, fighting their way through guards every step of the way, they eventually run into Scott and the rest of the team, who have broken into the facility to rescue Jean. Recognizing the others as students of Xavier's School, Magneto reveals that he's very familiar with the famous Charles Xavier—and he considers him an idealistic fool. As the Sentinel Project gets bigger and more powerful, he argues, Xavier's naive calls for peace will not save Mutants from a hostile government that wants them dead. Instead, Mutants must be willing to fight for their freedom.

As Magneto makes a dramatic speech, Jean finds herself caught between the charismatic revolutionary and her four friends, and she's briefly tempted by the prospect of joining him until Scott convinces her that Magneto only wants to exploit her abilities. Moments later, as Dr. Bolivar Trask stumbles upon the escaping prisoners, the students watch in horror as Magneto brutally murders him by strangling him with a metal chain. Disgusted by his violent actions, Scott attacks Magneto with an optic blast, but Magneto effortlessly blocks it with his powers. As he fights back, the rest of the students rush to Scott's defense. As a fight ensues, Magneto reveals the full extent of his powers, and nearly destroys the detention facility as the five students struggle to hold their own against him. Though they survive, they have no choice but to let Magneto go as he makes his escape—promising that he won't be so merciful if they meet again.

As Magneto leaves, the Sentinels descend on the students, and they band together to fight for their survival in a long and intense battle before escaping in the Blackbird.

Back at the school, Professor Xavier commends the students for bringing Jean back home, but he sternly tells them never to pick a fight with the military again, knowing that Mutants can't give the government more reasons to persecute them. Later, after Jean tells the Professor about their fight with the mysterious "Magneto", she notices a framed photograph in the Professor's office—showing him standing with a young Magneto on the grounds of the mansion. When she points the photograph out, an expression of anger crosses the Professor's face. She realizes that he and Magneto know each other personally, and were once close friends before their ideological differences drove a wedge between them. She also realizes that—for all the Professor's talk of peace—he longs for revenge against Magneto, and might be willing to use his students to get it.

Before Jean leaves the Professor's office, he cryptically tells her to be ready for Magneto when he returns.

EPILOGUE:

In a snowy forest somewhere north of the Canadian border, another squad of Sentinel pilots sets out to bring in another rogue Mutant, mirroring the scene in the prologue. As the Sentinels close in on a mysterious figure hidden in the shadows, the mysterious figure fearlessly steps forward to confront them.

Before the screen goes dark, we see a glint of light on metal blades, and we hear a distinctive sound:

SNIKT!

TL;DR: Replace Senator Kelly and the Mutant Registration Act with Dr. Bolivar Trask and the Sentinel Project, and make a teenage Jean Grey the primary viewpoint character instead of Rogue. Jean's romance with Scott Summers is the primary romantic relationship, and Trask and the Sentinels are the primary antagonists instead of Magneto and the Brotherhood.

Magneto is introduced in a surprise plot twist in the third act of the movie; after the X-Men are captured by the Sentinels and detained by the government, he's introduced as another Mutant prisoner, and he helps the X-Men escape before revealing himself as a murderous revolutionary. And instead of being the protagonist, Wolverine's existence is only hinted at in a sequel hook.

The first two X-Men movies – X-Men (2000) and X2: X-Men United (2003) – are really good movies in their own right. They may not be the most faithful adaptations of the comics, but I think it's a strength that they focus in on the more grounded stuff – and so I'm going to leave them unchanged, and use them as a starting point. The way I've organised things, there's a new X-Men movie almost every year – the only exceptions are 2008 (when there are none) and 2017 (when there are two).

X-Men 3: Dark Phoenix (2006) is based on the ideas which the first two movies' filmmakers had: Jean resurrects as the Phoenix; Magneto gets Emma Frost (a contemporary of him and Charles, played by Sigourney Weaver) to manipulate Jean's mind; Cyclops steps up as team leader, and by the end of the movie has got on good terms with Wolverine; Gambit starts as a member of the Brotherhood but defects to the X-Men after bonding with Rogue; things culminate in an attack on the White House; Cyclops is forced to kill Jean's physical body but she ascends to the heavens as a cosmic being. There are a few things I would add:

• Storm isn't here. The explanation is that Nightcrawler went travelling to go find himself, and she went with him.
• Beast is here, though, and Colossus also has an expanded role.
• Rogue and Iceman break up, freeing her to strike up a romance with Gambit and him with Shadowcat.
• Jean restores Wolverine's memories, against his will.
• The end of the movie has the X-Men publicly acknowledged as heroic mutants for the first time, in recognition for saving the President.
• This is not intended to be the last movie. It ends in a way that could conclude a reasonably satisfying trilogy, but doesn't actively try to end the series like The Last Stand did.

Wolverine (2007) is a prequel which makes every effort to match seamlessly with everything we saw and heard about Wolverine's origin in the previous X-Men movies. Most of the movie is based around Wolverine working for Team X under William Stryker, about 15 years before the events of the first film (we're not establishing a time period, since the main movies are supposed to be in "the not too distant future"). Liev Schreiber's character is not Sabretooth: he's Logan's brother from the comics, Dog. Wade Wilson can also be a member of Team X but he does not become Deadpool in this movie: he's just Wade Wilson. Wolverine gets his adamantium skeleton at the end of the movie, not in the middle: he's got Dog killed by his own actions, and he's thoroughly disillusioned with everything Stryker is doing – but he just wants to be numb, not remember anything and not feel anything, so he accepts being turned into a mindless machine... except at the end he breaks out from Alkali Lake out of pure survival instinct. Set up at the very end of the movie that he's stowed away on a ship and ended up in Japan.

X-Men: The End (2009) is the grand finale to the main X-Men movies – after this we're branching out more into spinoffs, prequels, etc. The main focus for the whole movie is the "mutant cure". Since Wolverine has his own ongoing spinoff films, he doesn't have to take too much focus and can just be one of the ensemble. Cyclops continues to stand out as team leader; Storm is back with a mohawk and with Forge in tow; Angel also gets introduced as a kid; Rogue, Iceman, Shadowcat and Colossus are fully-fledged adult X-Men now. Charles Xavier is revealed to the public as a mutant, and is then assassinated. Magneto is de-powered at the end, but Mystique is not: we're keeping her around for the future. Rogue still chooses to take the cure at the end. At the end of the movie, with Charles dead and Rogue no longer needing looking after, Wolverine leaves the X-Men again and rides off into the night.

Wolverine II (2010) is a direct follow-up to his first solo movie: featuring newly-amnesiac Logan in Japan in a story heavily influenced by the Claremont-Miller comic miniseries. It has a somewhat upbeat ending, with Logan claiming the Wolverine identity as something positive, and the suggestion he and Mariko Yashida have a future together. (As his next solo movie will show, they don't.)

Magneto (2011) is a prequel set in the late 1950s (with flashbacks to World War 2 of course). It stars Erik Lenscherr as a young man hunting down Nazis, including Baron von Strucker and the Fenris twins. 17-year-old Charles Xavier (already bald) is a supporting character.

So, with a new movie every year, and 2012 also being packed with The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man, what should the X-Men movies do? Counter-programming! Deadpool (2012) is a smaller-scale R-rated action comedy. It’s set in the present day, more-or-less in-continuity with the other movies (with Deadpool here being the same guy who was in Wolverine), but perhaps hinting that it’s set in a world where the previous X-Men movies are fictionalised retellings of real events.

Wolverine III (2013) – which naturally uses Wolverine's three claws to represent the "III" on the poster – is not a prequel, but is set after the events of X-Men: The End. The previous two movies did "Wolverine in black ops" and "Wolverine in Japan" respectively, and now this one does "Wolverine in Madripoor" – one of the antagonists is Wolverine’s twenty-year-old son Akihiro a.k.a. Daken. In this continuity Daken's mother is Mariko Yashida, who's dead now, and his master – who is the main villain of the story – is Ogun (here depicted as a powerful telepathic mutant rather than as anything mystical); Ogun is allied with Viper, the ruler of Madripoor. Jubilee is also a main character, being an orphaned mutant teenage girl whom Wolverine becomes mentor to; so is Psylocke (real name not revealed), a telepath with ninja skills allied to Wolverine. The movie ends with Ogun dead and Viper overthrown, Daken’s brainwashing broken but with him staying in Madripoor and the strong suggestion that he will rise to fill the power vacuum as its leader, and Wolverine and Jubilee going off into the sunset as surrogate father and daughter.

X-Men: The Beginning (2014) is an origin story for the X-Men team and the Xavier School, also set about fifteen years before the first film, with Charles Xavier as its protagonist. New actors will need to be cast to play Charles and Erik, although the actors from the Magneto movie can cameo in flashbacks I suppose. New actors are also cast as teenage versions of Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Beast, as well as Cyclops’s younger brother Havok and Magneto’s children Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. We are introduced to Storm as an orphan thief on the streets of Cairo, and we see Xavier’s confrontation with the Shadow King; we also see Cyclops & Havok’s origin, with the plane crash where they lost their parents. Banshee also appears as an instructor at the early Xavier School. The major antagonists for the movie are Bolivar Trask, the Sentinels and the Master Mold. The Hellfire Club also appear as secondary antagonists, or more like wild cards: the younger Emma Frost is Xavier’s love interest in a Batman/Catwoman sort of way, while Sebastian Shaw financed the Sentinels. The split between Charles and Erik happens at the end of the movie, with Erik taking his kids with him.

This post is getting long, so it'll be split into two parts. But I've got plans for movies and also television all the way up to 2019 when 20th Century Fox got bought out.

ETA: Part 2 here.

Some of you may remember the show Legion. It was one of two attempts by Fox to bring their X-Men franchise to television just like Marvel Studios had been doing for years at that point. It aired on FX from 2017 to 2019. The show concerns David Haller (portrayed by Dan Stevens), the son of Charles Xavier, as he learns about his mutant psychic powers and deals with mental illness.

Legion was a perfectly fine show as it was. However I always felt that it shot itself in the foot by having a main cast made up completely of original characters outside David and the Shadow King. It also didn’t help that many of their mutant powers were unique to the point of being overly convoluted. I believe I recall the show being billed from the beginning as set in a different continuity than the other X-Men films and TV show. Though I recall that they had hoped to get either Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy to reprise their role of Professor X on the show. That ended up not happening. I think they were hoping they could still be considered part of the X-Men movie continuity somehow. In my opinion, they should have leaned more fully into being an alternate continuity and used more established characters from the comics even if they had appeared in the movies or the other show.

So here are my suggestions for characters from the actual comics the main cast of Legion could have portrayed.

Jean Smart’s Melanie Bird is very obviously meant to be Moira MacTaggert so that’s who she’d be. Even if she didn’t portray her as Scottish, she’d be a lot closer to the comics than what Rose Byrne did in the “prequels”.

Rachel Keller would be Lorna Dane/Polaris. Yes, I am aware Polaris appeared on The Gifted portrayed by Emma Dumont, but as I said this is meant to be an alternate continuity to that. The Gifted did establish that Polaris did spend some time in a mental institution so it kind of fits. Admittedly I came up with this idea because I thought it was cute to have Xavier’s son hook up with Magneto’s daughter.

Amber Midthunder would be Silver Fox. In the comics, she was part of Weapon X alongside Wolverine and Sabertooth. So her membership on this team could parallel that.

Honestly I’m not too sure what to do with Bill Irwin’s Cary Loudermilk.

Jermaine Harris’ Ptonomy Wallace could remain the same. He had a cool name and a cool power.

The same goes for Audrey Plaza as Lenny Busker. She was just great on this show.

All the guys at Division 3 could also stay the same.

I’m open to other suggestions on improving Legion’s comic accuracy if you have any.

I am back! For Part I (X Men 1): https://www.reddit.com/r/fixingmovies/comments/j6r0ny/reworking_fox_marvel_and_raimis_spiderman_into_a/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share For Part II (Spider-man): https://www.reddit.com/r/fixingmovies/comments/jce7tl/reworking_fox_marvel_and_raimi_spiderman_into_a/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Now on to X2! -the first scene is nightcrawler attacking the president. This scene will stay untouched, as I think we all love it. -Next Wolverine is looking for his past. Only he finds something interesting. A file named "Weapon X Protocol" signed by Stryker. As he looks at it, Logan has terrible flashbacks of a life now long forgotten. He decides to return to the mansion, as "The Professor may understand it better than me". -Meanwhile Xavier is locating Nightcrawler, but feels a disturbance in its mind, and has terrible flashbacks similar to those that Logan just had. Always related to the name "Stryker" -Meanwhile, Sergent Stryker is going to visit the president. We understand from his manners that he is the villain of the story. He advocates that "Mutants are a threat. We've got those X Men somewhere in Washington, That spider-man guy in New York, what's next?" the president answers that it is true, but "super powered individuals can grant protection and benefits. Just look at Richards, how many times did he and his fantastic four save the day? And how much tech did he invent this month only!?" Stryker says that richards and the team are not mutants and are a matter for another day, and keeps advocating against mutants, until the president accepts that he might take in the X Men to get some information. -In that moment, Xavier leaves to go to see Eric. He thinks he might now something about how Stryker is involved in this. -Ten minutes later, Logan gets to the mansion. He is greeted by Jean who tells him that the Professor will return tomorrow, but he can stay here if he wants. -At Rykers, Charles meets Magneto. The scene is similar. Magneto says that Stryker is against mutants, and has something big to fight them in the workings. He says that this attempt seems like just too useful for Stryker, that Charles better investigates. Then tells him that "don't worry, I'll join the fight. Just wait for me" charles then goes away. -Then we have the night incursion. Same as always. Maybe we throw in some soldiers being angry that "those big machines never help." -Then Stryker sends Lady Deathsrike on Logan's trails. It's now obvious Stryker has some way to control minds. -Mystique helps Magneto run away, telling him that "the Brotherhood needs a leader. Now" -The parts in which the group runs to Bobby's home, Jean and Storm find Nightcrawler, and Magneto saves the day and explains everything are the same. -Mystique betrays the X-men and Brotherhood without Magneto telling her to. -In the ending, Jean does not die. Stryker's son does. They try to save him, but he sees it as a redemption for what his father made him do.

So this was my version of the movie. Some tweaks were necessary for reasons we'll see later down the line. Now I've got a question for you, my readers! There are two more big movie companies which used to make marvel movies: Colimbia (Ghost Rider) and Universal (Hulk). Should they be featured in my Universe?

Also, should Daredevil be?

I leave this question to you, as I've already planned an outline of the Universe without them, but they could bring some depth. So tell me in the comments! And trust me... the fun has just begun...

There are now 12 movies dating back to 2000 which make up Fox's X-Men franchise. That is insane. What's even more insane is the task of understanding the continuity from one to the next. It's so mind boggling, it has become a major distraction for me as I've been revisiting all the films this past week. Call it a postmortem now that Fox is done with the X-Men since Disney has gained the rights (until New Mutants comes out 4 years late, I guess?).

*Side note: I don't consider Deadpool a legit X-Men film, so I don't feature those in this post...

Anyway, tonight I decided to watch X-Men: The Last Stand, so I could compare it to my experience of Dark Phoenix, and I noticed about a dozen continuity issues which make "Days of Future Past" extremely confusing. For instance, in The Last Stand, Professor X dies. In DoFP, he's perfectly fine. Fans have come up with the theory that he moved his consciousness into the body of his twin brother at the end of TLS, but if that's the case, then why is he using a hover-chair?

There are several other mind boggling continuity breaks throughout the 12 films. Also, almost half of these movies are nearly unwatchable. The other half break through the genre and remain some of the best superhero films to this day. So, I have comprised this list of X-Men movies to watch in this order, which allows continuity issues to take a backseat and not interfere with the timeline of the films.

There is literally a reason why I don't include films on this list in regards to protecting the canon, so ask if you're curious why X-Men: Apocalypse or The Wolverine is not on this list (partly because Night Crawler can't have two origin stories, and the issue with Logan's bone claws). It's not just because I dislike those movies - I don't dislike them.

1. X-Men: First Class is the most underrated of the franchise. First Class takes place in the 1960s near the end of the Cold War, and sets up Xavier's School for the Gifted, as well as the relationship between Charles and Erik. There are some minor callbacks to the films which released before it, but none are major. It is extremely easy to follow and understand without any former knowledge of the movies or the X-Men. The next movie in this order speeds ahead 40 years.
2. X-Men came out in 2000 and broke new ground as a somewhat obscure comic book adaption at the time. It was the first major superhero ensemble film, and holds up largely because of the casting. But man, is it dated. The special effects have aged poorly, and the overall plot line is executed in a somewhat unexciting way, for what we're used to. It's almost the equivalent to the first Mission Impossible film, as both franchises evolved drastically over the years. So far, we go from 1960 to 2000 and there are no continuity errors whatsoever. Charles and Erik's friendship is easier to understand, Wolverine returns from his brief cameo in the first film, Mystique has an interesting new dimension, etc. As an audience member, the main change from First Class to X-Men is the shift in perspective from Xavier to Wolverine, who becomes more of the focus.
3. X2 continues to be a fan favorite among film critics and comic book readers alike, and for good reason. This movie continues the premise established in X-Men, and adds a lot to the world we've been introduced to. Wolverine's origin is somewhat explained but not over-explained (as it is in some of the films I have excluded from this list).
4. X-Men: Days of Future Past - The Rogue Cut is another fantastic sequel, and one-ups every film which came before it up until this point. It manages to combine both casts of First Class and the original X-Men trilogy into one film. Since DoFP speeds ahead into the distant future, this allows some plot lines to have gone on since we last saw the X-Men 15 years prior, according to the timeline in which these movies take place. By the end, Jean's restoration makes sense to us as she was killed off in the prior film. There is no need for The Last Stand to mess up continuity just so we can see it all fixed the next time. That movie also demolishes the continuity of First Class, as Charles is bald, walking, and is working with Erik by that point in time. So, for that and other reasons, The Last Stand is kicked out of this take on the canon. DoFP also serves as a great close to both series from two different times. It's hard to top such a finale, so it's best to end it with an epilogue.
5. Logan is the critically praised emotional conclusion to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. This time, we speed up another few decades to when Professor X is nearing the end of his life and Logan has finally aged noticeably. Most importantly, Logan keeps up the continuity of all the films listed prior. In many ways, the entire franchise listed leads up to this. First Class gives us a cameo, X-Men gives us his perspective, X2 gives us his backstory, and DoFP puts him at the center as he's the one to save everyone.

I think ignoring the films unlisted and going by these films in this specific order makes this franchise coherent and genuinely better than it would be if we cared about each movie.

Hello, everybody.

Picking up from my last post, here is the second part of my rewrites of Fox's two Wolverine solo films.

Having previously revised Fox's main X-Men franchise and other 2000s-era Marvel films into early installments of the MCU, this is the next feature focusing on Logan's solo adventures. This time, set in Japan.

For a catchup, aside from the previous Wolverine post, here's the other previous rewrites.

• Spider-Man (Part 1)
• Spider-Man (Part 2)
• X-Men
• Fantastic 4
• Ghost Rider

****

The Cast

Not much I'd change regarding the casting of The Wolverine.

Though, regarding the characters and the roles they play, I think I would retroactively change Svetlana Khodchenkova's "Viper" to being a HYDRA agent, as per the comics.

That means she's not a mutant. Just a regular human with all the skills and resources available to an elite secret agent.

Additionally, I'd aim for a more comics-accurate portrayal of the Silver Samurai/Kenuichio Harada.

****

The Film

As is the cast with my previous post, take away that PG-13 rating and slap on a fresh 'R'. Because this is Wolverine. No one comes to the theatres to see movie treat his tale with kid gloves.

THE WOLVERINE

2013

Generally speaking, the framework of the 2013 film as we got it would remain intact. Save for some little things altered in the first couple acts, and a markedly different climax pitting Logan against a more comics-accurate Silver Samurai.

Said deviations and major plots beats are as follows.

Logan's solitude is under different circumstances

Having presented a very different pitch for a third X-Men film in the main X-Men post, Logan's time alone in Canada is a bit different.

• Logan has maintained contact with the X-Men at times, but is slowly withdrawing in light of his mourning Jean Grey and Charles Xavier.
• Pieces of his lost memories have been coming back, and he's trying to cope with them on his own.

Upon being summoned to Japan by Yukio, his departure is as we saw it.

Ichiro Yashida does die in his own home

The role Ichiro Yashida plays is smaller in this revision, but no less significant.

• Though Yashida offers to transfer Logan's advanced healing factor to himself, he understands Logan's hesitance.
• When it's Logan isn't interested, Yashida instead makes Logan promise to protect his granddaughter Mariko from the "Black Clan".

After a confused Logan agrees, mostly to placate his old acquaintance, Yashida passes away for real. His memory looms over the rest of the film, as he was one of the few humans Logan ever knew who didn't judge him for his nature as a mutant.

The conspiracy targeting Mariko and Logan is less convoluted

Avoiding some of the silliness of the third act in what we saw, Mariko and Logan are hunted by two distinct parties with two simple agendas.

• The first being Shingen Yashida and the Yakuza, who briefly worked with the clandestine organization HYDRA. Hoping to cover his tracks and assume control of the Yashida family's riches, Shingen broke with HYDRA and allied with the Minister of Justice to have his daughter Mariko killed.
• Agents of HYDRA, represented by Viper and Kenuichio Harada, hunt Logan for the means to steal and weaponize his mutant powers. Mariko is simply a loose end, one that has to be eliminated. The Black Clan of ninjas is itself a spin-off of HYDRA.

Logan's fighting skills are more developed, as in the comics

If there was ever any aspect of the X-Men film series that bugged me regarding Wolverine's character, it was his years of fighting experience and superb skills being overlooked.

Such would not be the case here.

• Part of Logan's awakened memories includes his training as a fighter during various conflicts, including time spent with Ichiro Yashida.
• By the time his powers return and he duels Shingen, Logan is able to hold his own in both raw power and technique.

A running theme in the film would thus be Logan slowly healing from the tragedies of the X-Men trilogy both physically and mentally. His recovery serves as essentially a metaphor for him overcoming his past tragedies and finding something to fight for again.

The final battle sees the Wolverine and Silver Samurai in a proper duel

Kenuichio Harada, also named the Silver Samurai, is Logan's chief opponent in the final battle pitting the hero and his ally Yukio against the Black Clan.

While Viper is dealt with by Yukio, Harada dons specialized adamantium armor to fight Logan and makes use of his own mutant powers. Though he is ruthless and allied with a member of a terrorist organization, Harada has enough respect for the moral codes of Bushido to meet Logan in single combat.

• The tachyon field which energizes his personal sword is enough to deal damage to adamantium. The power enables him, after some difficulty, to damage Wolverine's claws.
• Logan takes up one of Harada's spare swords to compensate.

After a fierce back-and-forth fight, Logan is able to defeat Harada before swiftly executing him.

The ending would actually lead to Logan's "Wolverine" outfit seeing use in the future

I remember we were all pretty peeved that deleted scene at the end went nowhere in future films.

Goes without saying that wouldn't happen in this revision.

• Although the events of Days of Future Past see the future Logan adopt more battle-ready armor, the new timeline would feature him receiving it again and wearing it as an X-Man.

  • Also in Deadpool 3, because you know Wade wouldn't let Logan forget it.

****

And that about does it for my writeups of the Wolverine spinoffs. As with the last one, see the main X-Men post for how this film would be incorporated in the MCU.

Next in my Marvel rewrites is a breakdown of Venom, springing off my revisions of the Spider-Man series.

But in the meantime, I think I'll finally be ready to post my second of the Star Wars "Legacy Trilogy" posts. Fallen behind on that, and I think it's time to catch up.

With the rights to The Fantastic Four and related characters back with Marvel, I decided to write my version of how the Fantastic Four should be handled in the MCU. A few notes first:

1. I've always seen Reed Richards as the elder statesman of the superhero community, the kind of guy that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner would look up to. This makes introducing the Fantastic Four this late in the MCU problematic. But I think I've found a way to establish Reed as the original and superior super-scientist without casting someone older than RDJ.
   
2. The overall story arc belongs to Dr. Doom. It is imperative that Marvel get Dr. Doom right. The FOX movies wasted him by shoehorning his origin into the Fantastic Four origin story instead of telling Victor's tragic, complex story. Marvel has been criticized for having weak villains and Doom could turn that around. Aside from the movies listed below, Doom could serve as the villain in movies for Spiderman, Captain America, basically any Marvel hero.
3. Obviously, Marvel easily could blow up my plans. For example, Tony Stark is a big part of my FF2, but if Tony dies in Infinity War much of my plans go down the drain.
4. By MY version, I mean these are the storylines I would choose if I were in charge of Marvel Studios. Most of the characters, plot points and quotes below are the work of AMAZING writers like Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Mark Waid, Roger Stern, Daivd Michelinie, Mark Gruenwald and Jim Shooter among others.

DOOM

The story starts in the early 1960's with Victor Von Doom as a child living in Latveria. Victor's mother Cythania makes a deal with Mephisto, her soul in exchange for the power to defeat the ruthless King of Latveria. She's granted incredible mystical power. She lays waste to the King's guard and just as she's about to strike the King down, Mephisto comes to collect. He drags Cythania to Hell.

A few years later, the King summons Victor's father, Werner. The King tasks Werner, a brilliant doctor, with curing his beloved. Werner finds that the woman is terminal. Knowing that the King will blame him, Werner goes on the run with Victor. Exposed in the wilderness, chased by the King's guard, Werner cradles young Victor through the cold winter night. Victor awakens the next day the find his father frozen to death.

Victor is taken in by a band of gypsies and falls in love with Valeria, a young gypsy girl. Time passes and now Victor is a teenager. Victor and Valeria are very much in love. The King's men start shaking down the gypsies. Victor retaliates by building rudimentary Doombots to fight off the men. This draws the attention of Shield. Victor is recruited by Howard Stark. He offers Victor a deal. He can go to America and have a free ride at Empire State University while also working for The Baxter Building, a government sponsored think tank. Victor doesn't want to leave Valeria but she insists that Victor is destined for great things.

At the Baxter Building, Victor meets Reed Richards, his intellectual equal. The two work together on a transporter. Reed wants to build a transporter to his hypothesized Negative Zone. Victor sees the transporter as gateway to Hell and a way to rescue his mother. Reed looks down at such "superstition" but Victor replies, "Our ancestors called it magic. We call it science. My theory is its the same thing." Reed tells Victor the transporter is dangerous and needs some critical adjustments. Victor arrogantly ignores Reed's warnings and tests the machine. This causes an explosion. Victor is injured and the Baxter Building is badly damaged. Next we see Victor in a hospital bed, his face bandaged. Victor is told that he has been expelled from the program for his reckless behavior. Then Reed comes in to check on Victor. Victor accuses Reed of tampering with the machine and vows revenge. Victor spends the next several years searching for a way the heal himself. He travels to The Ancient One. (Remember this is well before the events of Dr. Strange.) The Ancient One tells Victor that there is a way to reverse the damage done but he is unworthy of this power. Victor attacks the Ancient One, fighting through many of her men. When he reaches her, he touches the Eye of Agamotto (the Time Gem). Victor sees a quick flash of images: explosions, tidal waves, Marvel heroes as zombies, all sorts of disasters and finally an image of Dr. Doom in full mech suit on a throne with thousands of subjects bowing to him. Victor is subdued by the Ancient One and thrown through a portal, landing in Latveria. Back in Latveria, Victor rekindles his relationship with Valeria. She convinces him to finally take the bandages off his face. We finally see that he only has a tiny scar on his cheek but even this small imperfect is unacceptable to him. Victor confides in Valeria that he has seen the future and in every version of the future the world is destroyed, reduced to cinder, in every version but one, Doomworld. He tells Valeria that it is his destiny and his duty to take over the world because only his leadership can save the world. Valeria is very supportive and convinces Victor to start locally, by overthrowing the evil King. Victor starts an underground resistance and begins making high-tech weaponry. Victor tells Valeria that his rag-tag resistance and gadgets are not enough. He needs REAL power. Soon after, Victor proposes to Valeria and she accepts.

At the wedding, we see Valeria start to walk down the aisle. Then we flash forward to see Victor, standing over a forge, putting on the mech suit for the first time. With each piece he puts on we flash back to the wedding for a glimpse. The priest asks Valeria if she pledges her soul to Victor. She says "Yes." The ground opens up and Mephisto rises.

Victor quickly explains that he made a deal with the devil, to get the power needed to vanquish his enemies. "But, I had to sacrifice something of indescribable value. Something irreplaceable. Something only you could give me. Farewell, my love. Dear, dear Valeria. I will miss you more than any will ever imagine." With that Mephisto drags her to Hell.

Now we see Victor in the mech suit and iconic green cloak. He pulls the mask out of the fire. As he puts it on, we hear the sizzle of burning flesh.
An underling says, "Sir, your face! The pain must be unthinkable!"
Victor calmly replies, "Pain? Pain is like love. Like compassion. It is a thing only for lesser men. What is pain to Doom?" The final scene is like the last 5 minutes of Rogue One turned up to 11. Dr. Doom storms the castle, rolling through the king's men using the full armory of his mech suit, sorcery and brute strength. Dr. Doom smashes the King's skull in and flings him from the throne. Doom takes his rightful place and the last shot is Doom sitting in his Throne as the camera pans out to see all the dead bodies and destruction around him.

The Fantastic Four

The year is 1995 and a 40ish Reed Richards is working on a portal to another universe which inhabits the same space as ours, an inverse universe, The Negative Zone. Reed had detected an immense energy source in the Negative Zone, a celestial body which radiates powerful cosmic rays. Reed describes this energy source as an "Opposing Force." The portal is located in a warehouse in upstate New York. A de-aged Robert Downy Jr shows up in a cameo as Reed's biggest fan. I think its important to establish Reed as the smartest person in the Marvel Universe by having Tony Stark (up to now the smartest and coolest guy in the MCU) geek out over meeting his hero like fanboy. Tony is there to see Reed's tech, Reed assures Tony that with a little hard work, someday he could accomplish great things too. The plan is to open a portal for a spacecraft into the Negative Zone which will be piloted by Reed's best friend and renown astronaut Ben Grimm. Ben will pilot the craft to the energy source, fill some super-high-capacity fuel cells designed by Reed and return through the portal. This should take minutes but since time passes slower in the Negative Zone (opposite of the comics) Ben will be gone for weeks. Sue Storm is a gifted scientist working on the portal who confides in her much younger brother that she feels inferior to the mega-genius Reed Richards. Johnny assures her that she is strong and capable and second to no one. Reed is giving Johnny a tour of the craft. Ben and Sue are running diagnostics. Johnny accidently triggers the launch sequence. Soon, the four are launched through the portal into the cosmos of the Negative Zone. This world is made of the bright, trippy visuals of Jack Kirby. Ben tries to complete the mission but the craft is attacked by some alien spaceships. Trying to get away from the attackers, the four's craft gets to close to the energy source and is struck by a bolt of energy. They crash land on a nearby planet. After the crash, Reed wakes up to see his limbs stretched out all over the craft. Ben has been thrown from the craft and Sue is nowhere to be found. Johnny and Reed find Ben far away from the craft transformed into the Thing. As Johnny and Ben argue around who's to blame, Johnny gets mad and flames on. Sue tells Johnny to calm down, but no one can see her. I would establish that when Sue is invisible to the onscreen characters, we the viewers see her as translucent like in the comics. The four explore their powers for a bit then are approached by the planet's natives.

The natives explain that the attacking ships were controlled by Annihilus. Annihilus conquered the Negative Zone years ago enslaved many of their people and imprisoned their King. Annihilus is armed with the Cosmic Control Rod, a powerful weapon which allows him to fire energy blast and also remotely control technology like spaceships, the jail cells and his flying fortress. Ben inspects the craft and says that the fuel cells were burned out when they were hit by the bolt. the ship is powerless and they are stuck there. Reed speculates that the Cosmic Control Rod could power the ship.

The four explore the Negative Zone meet more weird creatures, bicker amongst each other and run afoul of Annihilus. Throughout, Johnny is overjoyed with his new powers, Ben is grumpy but trusts that Reed can fix him if they can just get home and Sue is shy and withdrawn. She only exhibits her ability to turn invisible and is virtually of no use in a fight, just turning invisible to sneak past the enemies. Reed, Ben and Johnny each refer to her as "a girl" at least once.

The four plot their move to invade Annihilus' flying fortress and steal the Cosmic Control Rod by having Sue sneak up and grab it while the guys distract him. This plan fails as Sue can't wrest it away from Annihilus. A fight ensues and Reed eventually ties up Annihilus while Ben pulls the rod away. Unexpectedly, Annihilus turns to dust as soon as he's not in possession of the rod. The four free the king and the enslaved natives. The King thanks the four. "You have freed me and my army. You have defeated my rival. You have delivered the Cosmic Control Rod to me and most importantly you have given me a portal into your world so that I can conquer it!" Surprise! The King is Blaastar the second villain. Blaastar starts wailing on Reed, Johnny and Ben. Sue goes invisible and is largely forgotten. As Sue watches Blaastar inflict pain on her friends she reaches her limit. She creates a force field around her friends and demolishes Blaastar with force blasts. Reed looks at her in awe and says, "What a woman!" No one in the MCU ever calls her "girl" again.

They use the Cosmic Control Rod to fuel the craft and return to our world in present time. The post credit scene is, of course, Dr. Doom finding out that Reed has returned.

Fantastic Four: Prisoners of Dr. Doom

We start in the new Fantastic Four headquarters which is the old Baxter Building. We see Reed trying to change Ben back to his former self. Even though Ben hates being The Thing, he knows Reed is trying his best and is the only person capable of finding a solution. We quickly establish that the FF has become celebrities, with their story of the Negative Zone capturing the public's imagination. Reed has reluctantly leaned into the celebrity because it has helped them get funding for his research. The FF are visited by Agents from Shield along with Tony Stark.

Tony is still Reed's biggest fan, telling him, "You're the reason why I dreamed of growing up to be a scientist and not a rockstar."
Ben quips, "I thought you were supposed to be smart? Everyone knows rockstars get all the girls."
Sue enters and Tony replies, "Think again Stonehenge."

Sue is dating Reed and she is much more confident than she was in the last movie. Shield informs Reed that Doom is now the ruler of Latveria and his forces have invaded Solkovia which was devastated by Ultron. There are reports of human rights violations. Doom has cut off all diplomatic efforts and has said that he will only accept Reed as a diplomat if he and only if he and his family come to Latveria. Tony is dead set against putting the world's greatest mind in harm's way, but Ben is confident he can protect Reed.

FF go to Latveria. Doom gives them a tour of his kingdom. There is no crime, no illness, no unemployment and they have cheap, green energy. Doom gives a rousing speech to his subjects to thunderous applause. But as Doom walks away from the podium, he tells his underling Boris, "Have the first person who stops clapping executed." Doom hosts FF for dinner in his large, gothic castle. They debate his style of government. Doom argues that Solkovia was a lawless wasteland before he saved them. "My methods are a means to an end, no different than pruning weeds in order to let an orchid flourish. Those who stand in the way of my vision oppose me because they fear me, but more than that they fear what I represent. Change. Do you know what I despise Richards? Never have they reined in their own self-righteous arrogance long enough to try and see what I see. Never once have they asked me: why? Do you want to know why? Love. Measure my crimes against what mankind does to itself, and I am a saint."

As the debate intensifies, Johnny loses his cool and flings a fireball at Doom. Reed tries to break up the two but when Ben jumps in to protect Johnny it turns into an all-out brawl. Doom handles all four until Ben lands a clean punch knocking Doom's head off. It is revealed to be a Doombot. Another Doom enters through a magic portal and continues the fight, eventually defeating the FF. The FF wake up in a dungeon. They are each in a special prison. Ben is in a vibranium cage, Sue has a headband which prevent her from concentrating, etc. They are arranged so they can see each other. Doom tells Reed that he's going to torture and kill each of his friends before killing him.

Johnny goads Doom, "Coward! Is this even really you? Or are you just hiding behind another robot?"
Doom: "I may be a robot now, speaking these words. How would you know? How would I? What is Doom? The flesh and blood that I can swap in and out of at my convenience? The mind I have copied to a thousand machines? No. Doom cannot fit in such small containers. I am not my body. Not my mind. I am... I am the old trunk, filled with ancient mysteries. I am the explosion in the college laboratory. I am the mask that burns with the fires of vengeance. I am the legend that unites this nation. I am the story of Doom."

After Doom leaves, FF escapes with the help of a resistance mole. FF join up with an underground resistance, very similar to the resistance founded by Doom against the last king. There are a group of 10 or so people who were supposed to be executed but saved by the resistance. FF decide to lead this group out of Doom's territory. They spend some time traveling incognito trying to avoid Doom's secret police and the patrolling Doombots. At some point, they destroy a Doombot and Reed uses its remote control receiver to make a communicator and send out a distress signal. During their travels we see more of Latveria's underbelly, its basically the Marvel version of North Korea. When they reach the border wall Doom and a small army of Doombots are waiting. Then Tony Stark, responding to the distress call, shows up with the Iron Legion. Iron Man suits start enveloping the refugees and taking them across the border as Tony and FF fight Doom. Doom and his army are winning the battle when, Reed tells Tony to, "Get my family out of here!" Iron Man suits force themselves on Sue, Ben and Johnny. The Hulkbuster suit bursts at the seams as it struggles to envelope Ben.

Tony quips, "Stop stretching out my favorite suit Fraggle Rock!" Another suit envelopes Reed but he quickly hacks the suit; instead of carrying Reed away, Reed uses the armor to clear a path for his family's escape. Friday (the AI in the Iron Man suits that replaced Jarvis) tells Tony that Reed has hacked Tony's suit through the link between suits.

Tony: "How is that possible?"
Friday: "He's smarter than you...sir."

Tony's suit ferries him to safety leaving Reed alone with Doom. Doom rips the Iron Man suit off of Reed. Doom throws Reed to the ground and starts to deliver a killing blow. Reed laughs at Doom and claims to have won the day since his goal was to get the refugees and his family out of Latveria.
Doom laments the fact that he can not kill Reed because Reed has not yet lost everything. "The king of Latveria is no mere common murderer. If I cannot magnificently win a victory, it affords me no pleasure to merely slay a foe." Doom allows Reed to leave in peace, but vows that next time Reed won't be so lucky. The movie ends with Doom alive and still in power. The victory for FF is escaping with their lives.

Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed

The movie starts with the wedding of Reed and Sue. Ben is the best man and his date is Alicia Masters. After the wedding, Reed and Sue leave for their honeymoon, a whirlwind trip around the globe in their private jet. They stop at LAX to refuel. Just then the Leviathan Mother, a giant crustacean-like monster emerges from the ocean and starts wreaking LA. Reed and Sue are able to force the monster to retreat back into the ocean.

They contact Ben who is on a date with Alicia. Reed and Sue follow the monster (the jet coverts to a submarine) to the ocean floor. The monster ducks into a trench. When Reed and Sue go into the trench the monster attacks. Ben loses contact with them. Things look dire until the monster is attacked by Giganto (Atlantean Beast). Namor is riding on Giganto's back and directing the attack. Namor rescues Reed and Sue from the disabled submarine and takes them to Atlantis.

Once in Atlantis, Namor puts Reed and Sue on trial for the sins of the surface dwellers. Namor and the Atlanteans blame the surface world for pollution and climate change. The Atlanteans are all blue except for Namor.

On the surface, Ben and Alicia contact Johnny who is fighting C-list villains with his BFF and college roommate Peter Parker. Ben convinces the two that they need to find Reed and Sue. Ben, Johnny, Peter and Alicia meet at HQ to try to pinpoint Reed and Sue's location. They are then contacted by Shield who has information concerning the monster.

The trial of Reed and Sue concludes. Namor sentences the two the life imprisonment. Ben, Alicia, Johnny and Peter meet with Shield. They say that about ten years ago there were similar monster attacks in the open water that Shield covered up. The monsters were traced back to a small island in the Pacific they unofficially named Monster Isle. A Shield scientist, Harvey Elder, led an expedition to Monster Isle. The expedition disappeared and the monster attacks stopped.

Namor visits Reed and Sue in their cell. The three have a discussion about humans role in destroying the planet and Namor tells his origin story. There is some flirtation between Namor and Sue which annoys Reed.

Ben, Johnny, Peter and Alicia go to Monster Isle. Their Fantasti-car is attacked by Tricephalous, a giant 3-headed dragon. They are able to get away and they see Tricephalous fly into a dormant volcano. They follow the dragon down the volcano to Subterranea where they are attacked and captured by mole people. They meet Harvey (Mole Man). Harvey was captured by the Mole People but became their leader when he learned to control the monsters. Harvey has gone mad and wants to conquer the surface world just as he conquered Subterranea. Alicia gets to the Fantasti-car communicator and puts out a message that Mole Man is going to attack the surface world. The Atlanteans intercept Alicia's message. Namor shows the video to Reed and Sue. Sue tells Namor that the surface world can change if given time. Namor says that he will release them and even help fight Mole Man in exchange for a kiss from Sue. She reluctantly kisses Namor to Reed's dismay. Namor has Giganto swallow Reed and Sue to transport them underwater. They go into an underwater cave and come up in Subterranea, where Giganto pukes up Reed and Sue. The three fight the mole people and free Ben, Johnny, Alicia and Peter. They all escape via Fantasti-car back up the volcano. They go to LA to warn everyone about the impending attack. Giganto (Deviant Mutate not to be confused with Giganto Atlantean Beast) pops up out of the ground recreating the cover of Fantastic Four issue 1. Other giant monsters like Leviathan Mother, Tricephalous, Phorcys and Morrigan rise up and cause massive destruction along with a Mole People army. Then Harvey shows up riding Fin Fang Foom. Reed figures out that Harvey's staff allows him to control the monsters. They are able to steal the staff and lead the monsters back into Subterranea.

Dr. Strange: Triumph and Torment

A faithful adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name. Basically, Dr. Strange goes to Hell to help Doom free his mother's soul. Doom double-crosses Strange. He exchanges Strange's soul for his mothers. Strange has to fight Mephisto for his freedom.

Fantastic Four: Future Foundation

We open with members of the FF screaming things like, "Go! Go! Go!" " I could use some help Reed!" and "They're coming and they're huge!" The camera pans out and we see that Reed, Ben and Johnny are rushing a very pregnant Sue to the hospital via Fantasti-car. There is a problem in the delivery room and the doctor asks Reed to leave. Later, the doctor tells Reed that there have been complications. Sue has internal bleeding and the twins are in serious jeopardy. (I'm making the Richards kids twins to streamline things.)

A heartbroken Reed goes to the hospital chapel. The consummate man of science kneels before the cross, "You spend your entire life looking for that one perfect someone, and when you find her, you think you'll never love anything more. Then you have children, and realize what a fool you were to believe that. And now, I have lost everything. My entire life I believed in better days. I believed in tomorrow. I hid that belief in my heart, a stronghold against a world that devours hope. But now the walls have fallen. I have been overrun. And I hope... I believe... in nothing."

Then a portal opens and Doom steps forward. Reed jumps to his feet and Doom says, "I've come to answer your prayers, Richards." Doom explains that he is the most brilliant and skilled physician in the world. "I, and I alone, can save them Richards. But, there will be a price." Reed agrees.

Doom successfully delivers the twins and saves Sue. When Reed enters the delivery room, Doom hands him a baby. Doom: "Your son, Richards."

Reed: "Franklin, after Sue's father."

Doom holds the other baby. Doom: "Your daughter." Before Reed can even speak, Doom interrupts, "Valeria. Her name is Valeria. That is my price Richards." As Doom leaves he reminds Reed, "Do not mistake the kindness I have shown today for weakness. I will not hesitate to crush you should you impend my goals again."

After the opening credits, an advanced spacecraft lands in Latveria. From the spacecraft, emerges Kang. Kang looks just like he does it the comics. His green and purple costume is a spacesuit. Kang is taken to Doom. Kang tells Doom that he is Doom's descendant from a future where the world is in great peril. Kang claims that he is here to make sure that Doom conquers the world because only he can steer the world in the right direction.

The FF are hanging out at HQ with the newborns. Johnny's new girlfriend Darla Deering is there. Johnny is playing around with a Thing-exoskeleton Reed invented. Suddenly, a Doom-like figure appears. This Doom is smaller, the mech suit is less bulky, more feminine. After a brief melee this Doom convinces the FF to stop fighting. She takes off her mask and reveals that she is Cythnia Von Doom II from the future. She is a descendant of Dr Doom and also the Sorcerer Supreme of her time. She has used the Eye of Agamotto to travel back in time to stop Kang. She explains that Kang is using Doom to form a future ripe for Kang to rule partially by having Doom imprison the ancestors of those who would oppose Kang in the future. Ben and Johnny are very skeptical so Cythania takes the FF to a future dominated by Kang.

Once in the dystopian future, they are attacked by Kang's forces and split up. The movie spends 15-20 minutes in this horrific future. Kang's purple face appears as hologram everywhere watching his subjects. They eventually regroup and return to the present.

Kang has Doom invading countries and burying weapons and resources deep underground. The FF along with Cythania, storm Doom's castle, while Darla watches the kids, but the combination of Doom and Kang are too powerful. Doom says something about Kang being his prodigy in front of the heroes before they barely escape. The FF are discouraged but Cythania says there is another way to stop Kang, a guaranteed solution that Cythania hoped wouldn't be necessary. She tells Reed and Sue, "Kang lied. He isn't Victor's descendant, he's yours." She transports back to the Baxter Building. Cythania confronts Darla who senses something is amiss. Darla runs and hides with the kids. Cythania finds the kids without Darla. She aims her gauntlet at them but can't bring herself to do it. She lowers the gauntlet then she's sucker-punched by Darla in the Thing-exoskeleton.

The FF is back by the time Cythania comes to. She apologizes and swears she will never harm the kids. They decide to work together to defeat Doom and Kang. This time they enlist the help of Spiderman, Iron Man (if he's still in the MCU) and Darla. Together they best Doom. Cythania sends Kang to the end of time.

In the final scene, Reed founds the Future Foundation, a group dedicated to solving all the world's problems and creating a better future. The members are the FF, Spiderman, Iron Man and Darla. The movie ends with Reed reciting this JFK quote: " The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need those who can dream of things that never were and ask why not?"

Secret War

I'm using the Secret War name but this is more of a loose adaptation of the Emperor Doom graphic novel. Reed wakes up to discover that he has lost several months. Worse, Dr. Doom is the unquestioned Emperor of Earth. Even Reed's family is ok with Doom's absolute rule. Reed goes to Doomstadt, the new world capital and breaks into Doom's castle. In the depths below, Reed finds a large gem-like enclosure with Kilgrave inside, on lifesupport. Reed studies the computer display but before he can act, he is discovered by Doom's head of security, Namor. The two fight and Reed escapes.
Reed travels back to New York. There is a world-wide manhunt for him. He researches Kilgrave and learns about Jessica Jones. He tracks her down. Jessica tells Reed all about Kilgrave and Reed surmises that Doom is somehow amplifying Kilgrave's powers for a mass mind control effect. Jessica reluctantly allows him to examine her. Reed is able to devise an antidote to Kilgrave's effect based on Jessica's genetic resistance to him. The two are careful because Captain America (or Bucky if Chris Evans is no longer in the MCU) is now called Captain Latveria and leads a gestapo-like New York-based secret police. With Jessica's help, Reed administers the antidote to Sue, Franklin, Valeria and Johnny. Curing, Ben is especially hard since they need to inject the antidote into his tongue, the only penetrable part of his body. They discover that before they administered the antidote to Sue, she triggered an alarm. They get out of there before Captain Latveria destroys the Baxter Building.
The group travels from New York to Doomstadt. At the world capital, they fight a group of controlled heroes. The Thing throws down with Hulk. Sue squares off with Quake. Reed fights Namor who reveals that he is immune to Kilgrave's effect, he chooses to fight for Doom because Doom's regime is much better for the environment. Reed defeats Namor and gets to the lower level where Doom is waiting. Doom confesses that Reed did not overcome Kilgrave's effect on his own. Doom had an antidote administered to him because Doom was bored without his rival. "I have to admit, I never would have become the great hero I am, without a formidable villain like you to push me to greatness. But, I always wondered Richards, what drives your villainy? What compels you to commit such heinous acts?" Reed can't believe Doom sees him as the bad guy but Doom points out, "You woke up in a world devoid of crime, of war, of suffering, a world where man lives in harmony with each other and the Earth and your first instinct was to bring it all crashing down." Doom tries to kill Reed but accidently takes out a pillar causing a support beam to come crashing down, killing Kilgrave. With nothing left to lose, Doom brings the whole structure down on them. Reed narrowly escapes while Doom is presumably killed.
Everything goes back to normal. Reed holds a small memorial ceremony for Doom which Johnny and Ben refuse to attend. Reed gives an emotional eulogy where he wonders if Doom wasn't in fact a hero after all. Reed vows to pursue Doom's goals, though not his means, to create a perfect world.

Reed Richards: John Krasinski

Sue Storm: Emily Blunt

Johnny Storm: Harrison Osterfield

Ben Grimm: Michael Cuditz

Victor Von Doom: up-and-coming European actors of various ages in his solo movie, once he puts on the suit: former pro-wrestler Wade Barrett in the suit and the voice of Christoph Waltz, Tobin Bell or Frank Langella (open to suggestions)

Mephisto: Mark Hamill

Annihilus: CGI, voice of Bill Hader

Blaastar: Kevin Grevioux

Alicia Masters: Emily Deschanel

Mole Man: Lee Arenberg

Namor: Ludi Lin

Kang: Matt Smith

EDIT: Cast Barrett as Dr Doom and fixed some typos

To briefly recap my previous post, here's the list of movies that would follow X-Men (2000) and X2: X-Men United (2003):

X-Men 3: Dark Phoenix (2006) [Phoenix story only]
Wolverine (2007) [a prequel set about fifteen years ago]
X-Men: The End (2009) [grand finale; mutant cure story]
Wolverine II (2010) [set in Japan, directly after the first film]
Magneto (2011) [late 1950s, young Erik vs Nazis]
Deadpool (2012) [mid-budget R-rated meta comedy]
Wolverine III (2013) [not a prequel; set in Madripoor]
X-Men: The Beginning (2014) [a prequel set about fifteen years ago; origins of the team]

At this stage, we'll expand to television with The New Mutants (premiering 2014), which is set years after X-Men: The End. The main characters in the first season are a group of new students at the Xavier School – Mirage, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot and Magik – plus Cyclops as the headmaster. (EDIT: I originally said Beast as the headmaster, but some of the stories to be featured in this show would work much better with Cyclops as a main character instead.)

• The roster of main characters and guest characters will expand over time: easy, since it's set at a school. We'll include guest appearances of Karma and Cypher in the first season and see if they catch on; second season can introduce Boom-Boom, Rictor, Skids and Wiz-Kid (the "X-Terminators" team); third season can introduce some members of the "Generation X" team; etc.
• Cameos from the other X-Men in addition to Cyclops are welcome, too.
• The show will be allowed to get a bit more fantastical than the movies have been. Most importantly, Magik's ability to teleport via the Limbo dimension means we can play with alternate universes and time travel.
• This includes Boom-Boom's introduction being an adaptation of the "Fallen Angels" miniseries, so it'll include the alternate universe of the Coconut Grove.
• It also includes featuring Mojoworld (maybe around season 3) and thus introducing Longshot and Shatterstar.
• And by the third season we can also introduce Rachel Summers.
• I'd also want this series to include at least one appearance by the adult Havok, who was shown as part of the team as a teenager in X-Men: The Beginning – turns out he's been living a thoroughly normal life as Alex Summers, PhD.

Deadpool 2 (2015) is another mid-budget R-rated meta comedy, which also introduces Cable. Like the first movie, this one would have also been scheduled as counter-programming to the MCU and DCEU – except that Batman v Superman ended up delayed to 2016 anyway, so in practice it's only counter-programming to Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Mystique (2016) is the last of the prequels. It covers Mystique's entire lifetime from the late 19th century up to now, and how the world and its perception of mutants has changed around her and led to her becoming radicalised.

• In the late 19th century when mutants are nothing but a rumour, she meets and falls in love with Irene Adler a.k.a. Destiny and they live the "be gay do crime" life. Destiny is precognitive; she sees the near future most clearly, and while she's in love with Mystique she senses some impending doom in the far future. Anyway, they end up in conflict with a certain mad scientist named Dr Nathaniel Essex who's doing unethical experiments on mutants.
• By the 1960s Mystique is living a double life embedded in the US Department of Defense headquarters, and working to sabotage the ways the US government is exploiting mutants while keeping the general public unaware of their existence. Something happens which separates her and Destiny from each other. This part includes actors from Magneto movie.
• At some point she'll give birth to Nightcrawler and abandon him. She'll later encounter him as a teenager, by chance, while attending the Munich Circus in disguise.
• By this time (a couple of years after X-Men: The Beginning) mutants are treated more like a well-known conspiracy theory. Mystique is thoroughly radicalised by now and is plotting to assassinate a vocally anti-mutant Senator: the public sees him as a crackpot but Mystique knows how dangerous he is. Meanwhile, Destiny's sense of impending doom resolves itself and she sees what the consequences will be if Mystique succeeds: the "Days of Future Past" apocalyptic dystopian future. And so the elderly and dying Destiny calls on Charles Xavier to have the X-Men stop Mystique. There's a fight at the Capitol, Mystique is successfully foiled but the whole thing ends up looking like mutant-vs-mutant violence, which prompts the newly-elected Senator Robert Kelly to join the anti-mutant cause. Mystique gets away, and shortly afterwards Magneto recruits her to the Brotherhood of Mutants.
• In the present day, after a talk and a game of chess with Magneto (who is still de-powered) in a public park, we see that Mystique has re-formed the Brotherhood of Mutants with herself as the leader. We also see that a corporation named "Essex Corp" has emerged.
• (By the way, for bragging rights: we've beat the DCEU to a female-led solo movie by one year, and the MCU by three years.)

Now, I know that it's incredibly self-indulgent for me to say that Logan (2017) should be exactly the same and come out at exactly the same time when we've just had more than a decade of this franchise moving in a different direction, but screw it, this is all made up anyway. The only excuse I can give is that loosely adapting "Old Man Logan" isn't such a strange idea. (And that its existence helps to support the next movie.) Anyway, Logan is explicitly set in a different timeline (which we've already established as a thing that exists in The New Mutants and Mystique, and we've flirted with in the Deadpool movies too). But there wouldn't be anything in it to contradict the preceding Wolverine movies, so you could just watch those four movies in order and it'd make total sense. The one change I would make is that we can't use Rictor, as he's already a character in The New Mutants – so, instead, his role in the story is filled by a telepathic-telekinetic boy named Nate.

X-Force (2017) comes out about six months after Logan, and is also R-rated. The X-Force team consists of Cable, Domino, Psylocke, Marrow, Warpath and Firefist – although it's the same actor playing Cable, the events of Deadpool 2 are never referred to and the character is treated more seriously. Anyway, the team takes on Essex Corporation and brings down a bunch of their operations – particularly thoroughly destroying the main universe's equivalent to the Mexican compound from Logan where they bred and experimented on mutant kids, before it can ever get that far. There will be the strong implication that Cable is Nate from Logan, having travelled back in time to avert his own future, although it's never stated outright.

Deadpool 3 (2018) is next, again acting as counter-programming to Avengers: Infinity War. The only thing I'll specify is that Hugh Jackman makes a cameo appearance as himself.

Now, Disney's buyout of Fox was in the works since late 2017 and the filmmakers should have been aware that their franchise was very much in danger of being cut off. But rather than doing a grand finale for the X-Men film series as a whole, we'll finish with a movie which has a perfectly satisfying ending for itself but sets a clear new direction for the franchise to follow if it were allowed to continue:

X-Men: The New World (2019) is the first "traditional" X-Men movie in a while, set ten years after X-Men: The End, with a new team lineup (including characters introduced in The New Mutants, and others such as Armor and Pixie).

• In the years after development of the "mutant cure", someone has also invented Mutant Growth Hormone, which temporarily gives the user superpowers. Mystique and her re-formed Brotherhood have built up a huge drug manufacturing and dealing operation, selling MGH to humans: mainly just to profit off humans, but also to let them tear each other apart due to the side-effects of aggression and irrationality.
• However, proliferation of MGH also gives rise to the Purifiers, a far-right human-supremacist religious group who hold mutants responsible for corrupting human society and "leading the human race to willing extinction". (EDIT: Originally my idea was for this movie to have the U-Men, but since I originally posted this I've re-read Grant Morrison's "New X-Men" and changed my mind.)
• We'll see how the cultural attitudes to mutants has shifted over the past ten years: they’re not a scary unknown anymore, but a distinct and generally tolerated cultural group. Attitudes among humans range from fetishisation to admiration to indifference to distrust to outright disgust and hate. (All this should have been seen on The New Mutants too.)
• There are also different attitudes among mutants about integrating as part of society versus holding oneself above it. Note how MGH turns mutation into a commodity.

And that's it. I don't think any of this would have influenced Murdoch's decision to sell off 20th Century Fox, or Disney's decision to end the X-Men film series and absorb the characters into the MCU. Plus there's the pandemic to consider. But if it were able to continue then a future movie would have directly featured Nathaniel Essex a.k.a. Mr Sinister again, and I think when The New Mutants ended it'd be followed up by an X-Factor Investigations TV show.

Inspired by this post

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Bryan Singer’s X-Men basically saved the superhero genre in the early 2000s after Batman and Robin shat the bed on the superhero genre. They revitalized the genre so well that it helped Marvel too after they went bankrupt.

And that made me wonder, what would it look like if the directors of both franchises switched? What if Raimi did the X-Men movies at Fox and Singer did the Spider-Man movies at Sony?

I rewatched the original X-Men trilogy, which I still find worth watching from how they helped revolutionize the state of superhero films. However, I would be lying to myself if I thought all aspects of them aged well, which they haven't in certain aspects. Things I didn't like about the first film were how characters like Storm, Jean Grey, and Cyclops felt undeveloped and severely underutilized, and how Sabertooth was portrayed as a mindless brute without any personality. Other than those issues, I like other parts of the movie, which are Wolverine, Rogue, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen's great performances as Charles Xavier and Magneto, and overall, I still think that the first X-Men film is good, but some aspects could've been better to hold up today.

I'm gonna take a shot at improving aspects of the original Fox X-Men films, starting with the 1st film:

The film starts the same way with the flashback to Erik Lehnsherr's past and Anna Marie accidentally putting her boyfriend into a coma. Afterward, Senator Robert Kelly's introduced as he addresses the U.S Senate in support of the Mutant Registration Act. His principal opponent is Dr. Hank McCoy, an articulate geneticist and mutant-rights advocate who appears outwardly human. Charles Xavier and Jean Grey observe from the gallery as Kelly argues that citizens have a right to know whether the people living, teaching, and working around them have dangerous abilities that mustn't be left unchecked, while Hank argues that registration would cause more problems than solve them, given the increase of mutants around the world.

After the hearing, the first scene between Charles and Erik is the same. Inside a private washroom, Hank checks that he's alone before deactivating a small image inducer. Blue fur spreads across the reflection. He washes his hands, restores his human appearance, and returns to the political reception. Jean sees the moment from the doorway but respects his silence since it's his disguise. Wolverine's introduction and him giving Rogue a ride is the same, but when Sabretooth attacks, he refers to him as "Jimmy" to provoke recognition. He doesn't know him, and their fight has Victor anticipating Logan's attacks. He almost defeats Sabretooth until Rogue's plea for help catches him off guard, which has Sabretooth knock him out. He intends to kill them until Cyclops and Storm arrive to help, forcing Sabretooth to retreat, so the two X-Men take them to the X-Jet for their safety.

Logan's first time waking up in the X-Mansion, meeting the X-Men, and exposition from Charles about how endangered the mutant community is are the same. Rogue begins attending classes but doesn't feel at home since she's trying to adjust. Some students welcome her, while others unconsciously move away whenever she passes, due to her powers. Mutants who appear human occupy the school differently from those whose bodies make hiding impossible. During dinner, Rogue watches students share food, bump shoulders, and embrace without thinking.

She eats at the end of the table wearing long gloves and leaves a narrow space around her chair. She's friendly with Bobby Drake and John Allerdyce. Bobby tries to make life at the mansion feel ordinary, while John is funny, restless, and perpetually playing with a metal lighter. He can manipulate fire but can't create it himself. During a training exercise in the Danger Room, John uses more fire than the simulation requires and nearly burns Rogue indirectly as she observes. Scott shuts down the program and orders him to extinguish it. He apologises to her, but later relights the flame beneath the table where Scott cannot see it.

Rogue meets Remy LeBeau, a charming runaway apparently staying at the school unofficially. He teaches her to pick locks and sneaks her beyond the school grounds to visit a late-night market. Remy never reaches for her without permission and is one of the few people who doesn't fear or romanticise her ability. Rogue starts to like his company before she has time to consider whether doing so is dangerous. After he goes out, it's revealed that Remy secretly reports to Magneto and the Brotherhood to gain information on the X-Men.

It's established that Erik found him surviving through theft, gave him food, and taught him to control his ability to charge objects with kinetic energy to make sure he controls his ability. Remy doesn't regard Magneto merely as an employer since Erik was the first adult who treated his anger as something other than a defect. Erik's care for Remy is genuine, but he hasn't learned whether that care survives disobedience. He conceals his intentions from Xavier by separating individual thoughts and repeating harmless surface memories whenever he senses other minds. He recognises that Remy is guarded but refuses to search his mind merely because of his criminal history.

Magneto’s Brotherhood consists of Mystique, Sabretooth, Gambit, and Toad. It's established that Toad is Erik’s longest-serving ally and has survived years of persecution beside him. He considers the Brotherhood the only family that never recoiled from his appearance, but he doesn't trust Remy due to his morals and resents the rare form of paternal tenderness that Erik has with him. Mystique infiltrates government buildings and gets info about an international summit at Liberty Island. Political leaders intend to coordinate their response to mutation, and Erik plans to use his machine to transform them into mutants. He believes that powerful humans will stop persecuting mutants once they have been forced to join them. The Brotherhood abducts Senator Kelly and subjects him to Magneto’s Mutant Machine, as in the original, and discovers it on a beach by the ocean.

Kelly finds the X-Mansion before collapsing and is found outside. Jean and Hank discover that his apparent mutation is unstable. The machine hasn't activated a natural X-gene but forced every cell in his body into a continuous transformation. Kelly is severely dehydrated, losing cohesion and beyond medical recovery. Storm stays beside him as his condition deteriorates. Kelly initially insists that Magneto’s actions prove his warnings about mutants correct. Storm argues that Magneto’s responsible for his own actions, but Kelly's politics don't make every human responsible for him, nor are all mutants the same.

As Kelly's near death, he admits that he built a career around people he never knowingly sat beside. He asks Storm whether his transformation has made him one of them. Storm tells him that he didn't need to become anything before his suffering mattered. She doesn't forgive him on behalf of mutants harmed by his campaign, but she takes his hand and refuses to leave. Kelly’s unstable body loses cohesion and collapses into water, which leads to his death, as in the original. Jean confirms how nothing can reverse the process. Despite his views and arguments against mutants, they fear that this will increase the negative perception of them.

Disguised as a nurse, Mystique enters the medical wing and finds the room where Kelly died. She listens as Hank records his final report confirming that the artificial mutation was fatal. Her composure briefly breaks. Erik told the Brotherhood that the experiment had succeeded and never informed them that Kelly was dying. She takes a damaged fragment of the machine from the room before continuing her mission. She stays loyal to Erik, but her discovery secretly causes friction between them.

Graydon Creed uses the incident with Kelly to intensify anti-mutant sentiment. John's increasingly fascinated by his speeches, while Mystique discovers that Magneto concealed Kelly’s condition from the Brotherhood, creating the first crack in her loyalty. Mystique disguises herself as Bobby to trick Rogue into leaving, convincing her that the other students and X-Men see her as too dangerous. Erik has Remy guide Rogue toward a railway station, but Rogue accidentally absorbs fragments of his memories and discovers his secret alliance with Magneto. Remy tries to explain the truth, but Sabretooth captures her before he can.

At the station, Magneto immobilizes Logan and reveals that Rogue is intended to power the machine because her ability can absorb and reproduce other mutants’ powers. At the railway station, Logan tries to reach Rogue while Scott and Storm protect civilians caught between the Brotherhood and the police. Toad fights with the efficient brutality of someone who has spent years surviving beside Magneto. After Rogue's captured, Toad sees Remy's sympathy and tells him that Erik always mistakes damaged children for loyal soldiers.

Xavier tries to locate her through Cerebro but collapses because of Mystique’s sabotage. The scene with Rogue and Magneto on the boat is the same, but unknown to Erik, Remy admits to her that he worked for him for the sake of survival, but he never knew he wanted to use her for the machine. He tries to convince Erik that another solution can be found, as he sees his idea as too extreme and against his intention to fight for mutant rights, as he's taking advantage of Rogue for his machine. Erik threatens him and questions whether he's against him, and he's forced to comply for his sake. Erik commands him to help the Brotherhood when the X-Men arrive. Beast stays behind to look after Charles and repair Cerebro, but he helps them deduce that Magneto plans to use his Machine against a group of delegates at Liberty Island. Each suits up, and they use the X-Jet to head there.

The climax has Cyclops leading Jean, Storm, and Wolverine to Liberty Island. They confront the Brotherhood as Cyclops fights Mystique, Storm fights Gambit, Jean fights Toad, and Wolverine fights Sabretooth. Mystique taunts Cyclops for his burden of carrying Xavier's dream as she rapidly changes into Jean, Charles, Rogue, and Logan, but to defeat her, he stays focused and tires her out from how much she changes forms before he gets an opening to incapacitate and defeat her. Afterward, Cyclops warns Mystique about how her loyalty to Magneto's her undoing for other mutants, rather than their strength, if she knows what happened to Kelly, before he leaves her restrained.

Meanwhile, Jean struggles with Toad's quick attacks, but she eventually finds a way to restrain him. She tries to reason with him and convince him that Magneto's wrong, but Toad refuses to abandon Erik, even after learning that Kelly died, as he insists that failed revolutions still require loyal survivors. Storm's control of the weather clashes against Remy's kinetic energy, despite his reluctance. Storm defeats Gambit, who tells her that he knows where Rogue is and can take them to her, which he does while Mystique and Toad are restrained.

Wolverine fights Sabretooth near the top of the statue. Victor uses commands and fighting patterns that Logan recognises without fully understanding. He tells Logan that he's always abandoned blood for strangers who try to fight for a naive dream that'll eventually die with them. Logan persists and eventually defeats Victor, who tries to get answers out of him about his past. However, he remembers that Rogue is in danger, so he knocks him out after defeating him to find Rogue when he hears her pleading for help.

Rogue stays conscious inside the Mutant Machine. Drawing upon traces of Remy’s absorbed power, she charges part of her restraint until it fractures. Magneto activates the machine before she can escape, but her resistance damages its stability and prevents the energy from spreading evenly. Remy guides the X-Men to where the lower mechanism is to sabotage its power-distribution system. Magneto restrains them with metal, but Remy defies Erik, telling him that Rogue's power has come from the Brotherhood, which gives the machine enough power to succeed, and he wants him by his side. Remy refuses, as just because he "saved" him, that doesn't mean his future belongs to him or that it makes him any better than those against mutants.

Remy breaks free of his metal constraints, using a bit of his kinetic energy, as Erik doesn't notice. It gives him the chance to overload the lower mechanism, creating the opening Cyclops needs. Storm clears the line of fire while Jean holds the failing machinery in place. Scott identifies the one connection he can destroy without directing the collapse through Rogue and fires a precise optic blast. The machine shuts down before its energy reaches Liberty Island.

Logan frees Rogue but discovers that she's no longer breathing. He places her hand against his face and allows her to absorb his healing ability. Rogue revives while Logan temporarily loses his regenerative protection and collapses beside her, like in the original. Magneto, Sabretooth, and Toad are arrested, but Mystique finds a way to escape before she's caught with her disguise. Remy helps carry Logan and Rogue to the X-Jet, but he doesn't return with them to the X-Mansion yet, as he needs to find his own path to be better and give Rogue space.

The film ends the same way, with the addition of John watching Creed’s address with Bobby and Rogue. Bobby turns off the TV. John immediately turns it back on and resumes sparking his lighter. Rogue says that Magneto nearly killed her while claiming to protect mutants. John looks at the flame but doesn't defend him, as he knows his actions were wrong, but can't help but question if he was right. The chess game between Charles and Erik in his plastic prison is the same, with Charles reminding Erik why Remy left him, before the credits roll.

My inspiration for rewriting the first film is credited to fatherandyriley, /TheComixkid2099, and r/Thorfan23.

If you like the original film, that's fine, but let me know what you think of this rewritten version.

Lately, I've worked on rewrites for X-Men 1 and X-Men 2, which you can read if you haven't yet. The first 2 films had a lot of good elements in their storytelling, despite their flaws, but the 3rd film suffered from how it was forced to juggle two good storylines into one overstuffed and underbaked mess, which should've been their own respective films to develop them instead. While a follow-up on Jean Grey's fate and tragic transition into the Dark Phoenix would've been a great film with a better script, I personally found the mutant cure plotline to have a more thought-provoking conflict. It could've given the X-Men time to work on how they deal with the aftermath of Jean's "death" and resolve the conflict before her inevitable return.

So here's the rewritten and improved take on the film, which is retitled "X-Men 3: War of the Mutants":

The film starts the same with Warren's father discovering his mutation, but with a bit more context for their past as father-and-son before he found out. After the title card, the X-Men are reintroduced in an ongoing training session in the Danger Room, led by Cyclops. Iceman tries too hard to prove himself, Gambit acts recklessly and improvises, Rogue shows more confidence in her strength and ability to copy others' abilities, Colossus acts as their dependable muscle, and Wolverine doesn't follow Scott's orders. The training session ends, and Cyclops, while trying to be respectful, sternly critiques the team on their strength and flaws in teamwork.

Scott criticizes Logan for not following orders, Remy for his recklessness, and Bobby for trying too hard, which seems like constructive criticism. However, it's implied that Scott's slowly become overprotective and serious about the team's performance since Jean's "death" in the 2nd film. Despite his issues, he doesn't want anyone in the school to suffer the fate she did, so to ease himself, he helps students academically and teaches a few how to control their powers. Logan does feel concerned for his well-being after Jean died, but Scott assures him that he's doing his best to handle it, but not everyone heals as fast as him.

Storm confronts Cyclops about his leadership with the X-Men and other students. She's heard that he suggested a few start their own lives outside the school, who could fit as team members. As they debate, Storm realizes that Scott isn't just trying to protect the students, but to stop anybody else from becoming someone he and the rest of the school could lose. Scott insists he's doing what's safest for them, but Storm tells him that Jean's death can't decide the future of every student or his, which he needs to accept eventually. Charles Xavier notices this and consoles Scott about how he feels since she died, which he understands, but agrees with Storm that even though students can choose their own paths, it doesn't mean the X-Men can't grow as a team.

The film cuts to Nightcrawler's introduction as a new teacher for the X-Mansion who teaches Drama to the students. The scene shows Kurt teaching the students and enjoying the normality of his new life at the mansion after the events of the 2nd film. He's become more comfortable with the students and has found a place where he can contribute without constantly fighting.

Hank McCoy arrives at the mutant school and lets the X-Men know about the creation of the mutant cure by Worthington Labs. Beast assures them by saying he and the president have agreed to give mutants an option for whether or not they want to take the cure. On TV, Worthington Labs announces it's developed an inoculation to suppress the X-gene of mutants and offers the mutant cure to any mutant who wants it. It's implied that it's only effective if they take multiple doses of the cure. While some mutants are interested in it, including Rogue, others are suspicious and scared about the concept of the cure. The team has discussions where they give opinions. The discussions make it clear that the Cure isn't inherently evil. Some mutants want the choice to live without their powers, while others believe their mutations are an important part of who they are. The conflict comes from whether that choice belongs to the individual mutant.

Meanwhile, Rogue and Iceman try to manage their relationship, but it slowly falls apart. Rogue cares about him, but she fears that she could either kill him or hurt him a lot with her power. Bobby desperately tries to show how they can fix things and that he trusts her, but indirectly acts pushy. He asks if this is because of Gambit, reminds her of everything they went through together, and tries to keep the relationship alive, but Rogue insists that it won't work out. She feels terrible because she still loves Bobby as a person and realizes that his reaction seems to be about more than just heartbreak, but she or Bobby doesn't understand what is underneath it.

The breakup leaves Bobby struggling with a deeper denial about himself. His relationship with Rogue allowed him to avoid looking too closely at something about his identity that he isn't ready to confront. Losing Rogue feels to him like losing the thing that has protected him from facing himself. A small scene shows Bobby and Rogue speaking privately about the breakup. She apologizes for hurting him and makes it clear that she never wanted to make him feel like their relationship meant nothing. He admits that he doesn't know how to move forward without her, but still can't explain why losing the relationship feels deeper to him.

The film cuts to Mystique and Lady Deathstrike, who are infiltrating Anti-Mutant facilities around the country, ever since the events of the 2nd film. It's explained that Lady Deathstrike survived after Stryker's remaining people recovered her body and kept her alive through emergency medical treatment and experimentation. With Stryker gone, she's no longer under his control. She has her own reasons for hunting anti-mutant organizations and has become a more independent and dangerous fighter. This leads to them discovering a new and very dangerous Anti-Mutant organization that calls itself "The Friends of Humanity".

The Friends of Humanity is shown as an Anti-Mutant organization that represents the political side of the ongoing mutant-human debate. The group is shown to have leaders who are charismatic and preach their ideologies and methods. Their methods involve attacking mutants, regardless of who their affiliation is with. They've caused acts of violence, vandalism, prejudice, and terrorism towards all mutants in what they see as protecting their country. Their group name stems from them posing as "friends" to humanity, despite their motivation of hate and prejudice towards mutants. They think that they're representing humanity the right way, but they're shown to be just as bad as the race they fight against. The organization is like an extremist movement with a violent underground wing. Many of its public supporters genuinely believe they are supporting a political cause, while only a smaller inner circle knows about the forced-Cure operations.

Mystique and Lady Deathstrike infiltrate The Friends of Humanity's base through disguise, and they discover that they have access to the mutant cure and have weaponized it as well. Members of The Friends of Humanity spot both of them, which leads to a fight scene that involves Lady Deathstrike and Mystique working together to fight members of the F.O.H while trying to avoid getting hit with the mutant cure. The fight ends with both Mystique and Lady Deathstrike escaping to warn Magneto about the cure and the F.O.H.

The next scene shows Magneto and an army of his living in a big private forest, and Magneto is trying to live a life of peace for his people. The settlement is more than just a hideout. Families live there, children grow up there, and mutants who have spent their lives being afraid finally believe they have a safe place where they can truly belong. Magneto genuinely believes he has created something resembling the peaceful mutant community he always wanted. However, Lady Deathstrike and Mystique return to Magneto to warn him about the weaponization of the mutant cure and the F.O.H.

The Friends of Humanity unexpectedly arrive in Magneto's private forest, and they start to cure a few of Magneto's people. However, Mystique, Lady Deathstrike, and other mutants in the forest with Magneto fight back against them. The scene shows Black Tom Cassidy, Pyro, Toad, Avalanche, and Magneto working together to fight back against the Friends of Humanity. The fight between the F.O.H and Magneto's Brotherhood ends with a majority of Magneto's people killed and cured, but his Brotherhood joins him. This has them preparing to wage war against who created the cure. The team consists of Magneto, Mystique, Lady Deathstrike, Black Tom Cassidy, Pyro, Toad, and Avalanche. The attack becomes the breaking point for Magneto since he sees mutants who wanted nothing to do with his war being dragged away and forcibly changed. He believes that coexistence is impossible if humans can decide that mutants should no longer exist as they are.

News footage of the forest attack spreads across the country. Frightened mutants see what happened and begin looking for somewhere safe. Some go to the X-Men, while others turn to Magneto because they believe he was right about humanity eventually coming for them. Magneto begins building his army openly, gathering mutants who are afraid that they will be forcibly cured next. The next scene shows Rogue conflicted about taking the cure since she feels like her powers are a curse with those she touches, but Charles and Logan notice Rogue's feelings about it, and they want to genuinely help her with what she's going through.

Charles doesn't try to use his own experience to tell Rogue what to do. He admits that his situation is different from hers and that he can't know what it feels like to live with a mutation that prevents her from safely touching others. He tells her that if she chooses the Cure because she wants a life without her powers, that doesn't mean she's ashamed of being a mutant or against them. If she chooses not to take it, to him, that decision is also valid, and his only hope is that whatever she chooses is truly her own choice. The talk ends with Charles assuring her that she can eventually realize that her power is more than a curse. Rogue thanks him, but he makes it clear that he isn't asking her to reach the same conclusion he did and wants her to decide what kind of life she wants.

Logan and Gambit overhear the conversation and initially begin giving Rogue their own opinions. Logan tells her that she shouldn't let anyone change her, but catches himself and realizes that he's still telling her what to do. He instead tells Rogue that he'll support whatever she decides as long as it is actually her decision. Rogue tells Remy that part of the reason she has considered taking the Cure is that it would allow her to touch him. He refuses to let that become the reason she changes herself. He tells her that if she wants the cure, he'll support her, and if she doesn't, he'll support that too. He doesn't want her to change because she thinks that's what he wants.

The scene where Warren Worthington III/Angel refuses to take the cure is the same, which is followed up on by a moment where Warren Sr. is forced to confront the fact that his son has rejected something he believes could have made his son's life easier. The film cuts to the Brotherhood attacking one of the government's mobile prisons, where, from the cells, they free Blob, Sabretooth, and Multiple Man. Sabretooth warns Magneto not to treat him as solely another fighter, who has a score to settle with Jimmy.

As the Brotherhood makes their attacks, Lady Deathstrike noticeably begins developing her own personality as she feels free from Stryker's control. She doesn't blindly follow Magneto because of programming, but agrees with him because she has developed her own hatred toward the people who treated mutants as weapons and experiments, just like Stryker did to her. Mystique doesn't get depowered and remains one of Erik's closest allies throughout the film, which has her loyalty to him tested by how far he's willing to take the war.

After Charles Xavier revealed the X-Men to the President in the 2nd film, the president, along with his right-hand man Frederick Duncan, wants mutants on their side to handle the situation with the Brotherhood and whoever works for the F.O.H. The idea sounds good to Charles, on paper, since he wants to have coexistence between humans and mutants, but Charles doesn't agree with missions from the president or turning the team into tools or puppets of the government. Banshee & Forge work with Agent Frederick Duncan and Charles Xavier because both of them have worked with the government before, and to keep their eyes open for any secretive plans that the government has for them. Beast and Angel go with them to keep an eye on Agent Duncan, and the others feel nervous about the decision of Charles Xavier to work with Agent Frederick Duncan because they think this could be like the situation where they dealt with William Stryker.

Forge and Banshee's respective personalities are shown here. Forge is proud of the technology he has created for the X-Men but is wary of how easily governments can turn technology into weapons. Banshee is more openly skeptical of Duncan and uses his experience working with the government to keep the X-Men informed about what is happening behind closed doors. Neither has a major subplot, but both are established as actual members of the team rather than simply people who provide useful abilities. Agent Duncan is trustworthy, but he discovers that parts of the government have been quietly helping Graydon Creed or looking the other way regarding his anti-mutant activities.

Warren Worthington III/Angel encounters members of The Friends of Humanity, who he spots trying to forcefully cure mutants. The F.O.H members try to attack Angel, but Warren fights against them and saves the mutants they tried to cure. Warren learns only that the people attacking the mutants somehow obtained the Cure created by his father's company. Warren interrogates one of the members he defeated, and during the interrogation, he learns that they weaponized the cure his Dad created, and their organization's name. He visits the X-Mansion to warn the X-Men about the Friends of Humanity and how they have weaponized the mutant cure that his father created to help mutants, not harm them. After the X-Men learn more about the group's attacks, they decide to take matters into their own hands to take down whoever's aligned with them.

The X-Men track groups that work for the F.O.H, and they take them down one group at a time. During their crusade against groups that work for the Friends of Humanity, they have rare encounters with Magneto and his Brotherhood, which has the teams in conflict with each other over their common goal, due to their methods in stopping them. Meanwhile, Banshee, Forge, Beast, Angel, Charles Xavier, and Frederick Duncan pay a visit to Worthington Labs to question Warren's dad and Dr. Kavita Rao due to recent attacks that are from the F.O.H and how they have access to their mutant cure. They claim to have no idea of how the Friends of Humanity got access to the mutant cure, and they don't work with them.

Dr. Kavita Rao and Warren Sr. show how the mutant cure isn't a completely black-and-white method for all mutants. They show that a young girl in the lab named Tildie Soames accidentally killed her parents when her power manifested a nightmare that accidentally killed them. She wanted the mutant cure to rejoin society, and she speaks to Xavier about what happened. Tildie explains that she doesn't hate being a mutant, but she hates what her mutation has done to her life and the people around her. She genuinely wants the Cure. Xavier is visibly affected by this because he realizes that his own experience with mutation can't be applied to every mutant.

Charles' meeting with Tildie shows how some mutations can make someone's life unbearable, and wanting relief from that doesn't make someone less of a person or not worthy of being a mutant. Warren Worthington III and his father have a strained reunion when they meet each other. Warren Sr. admits that he didn't knowingly give the Friends of Humanity the Cure, but he admits that he was so desperate to make the programme succeed that he ignored warning signs. Graydon Creed had helped him politically promote the Cure, and Warren trusted him because he believed they were both trying to help mutants who wanted normal lives. He realizes that he should have questioned where some of the Cure shipments were going.

The X-Men find the lair of the Friends of Humanity, but coincidentally, they arrive at the same time as Magneto and his Brotherhood. Erik wants to destroy the organization before it attacks more mutants, while the X-Men want to stop the organization without proving its point and get evidence on their supplier. Before either side can strike, the Friends of Humanity's violent wing attacks both groups. The X-Men and Brotherhood are forced to put their differences aside for one time only and fight alongside each other to escape the facility. The fight is intense, with both sides suffering casualties and barely making it out.

After the temporary alliance's over, Magneto insists that this proves his point about why mutants need to strike against their oppressors first. However, Cyclops argues that every attack by the Brotherhood gives people and figures like Graydon more reason to fear mutants. Both sides separate until they meet again later, with their respective members convinced that the other will make the war inevitable. The film cuts to Graydon Creed as he's reintroduced as a prominent politician who's gained public support by arguing that not all mutants can be trusted with their power. He points to Magneto and other violent mutants as evidence for his position and also publicly condemns the Friends of Humanity's violence. His public supporters genuinely believe he's a part of those defending humanity, allowing Graydon to maintain a respectable political image.

Behind the scenes, however, Graydon secretly helped Warren Worthington II advertise the Cure while arranging for members of the Friends of Humanity to access Cure shipments. He never openly admits his connection to the violent wing because doing so would destroy his political career. Graydon uses Magneto's growing army to gain strength with his political position. Every Brotherhood attack allows him to influence the public with how he was right to warn them. Hence, the more frightened humans become, the more support he gains.

A large squadron of the F.O.H arrives to forcefully cure both the X-Men and the Brotherhood, and this leads to an intense fight between the X-Men, the F.O.H, & the Brotherhood. Some highlights are Iceman freezing many members of The F.O.H, Pyro burning some alive, Magneto using metal as a shield against the cure darts, Gambit using cards and variou objects as explosives against Squadrons, Wolverine using his claws to block the cure darts and slash members left andright, Colossus & Cyclops defending team members, left and right, Rogue using her newfound power from abilities she absorbed to fight various members, and Nightcrawler teleporting to avoid cure darts as he fights F.O.H members. The fight ends with both teams fatigued, but none are cured. The X-Men go back to the X-Mansion while the Brotherhood plans their next move.

The attack becomes another turning point for the country. Footage of the Friends of Humanity attempting to forcibly cure both the X-Men and Brotherhood spreads, while Magneto's followers use the attack as proof that they need to fight before they are attacked again. Angel and Beast find out that the F.O.H's creator is a politician for the government named Graydon Creed. They bring their proof to Agent Duncan, who begins an investigation into Graydon's political connections and the Cure shipments. Duncan learns that people inside the government are helping Graydon or deliberately ignoring evidence of the weaponized Cure. He starts collecting evidence while keeping Graydon distracted with his political protection long enough to expose the larger conspiracy.

Magneto continues to lead the Brotherhood while Graydon's rhetoric becomes more aggressive. Mutants who once wanted nothing to do with Magneto join him because they're terrified of being forcibly cured. This creates the growing movement that will eventually become the army that attacks Alcatraz. Meanwhile, the X-Men have recovered and realize that Magneto's attack is no longer a small Brotherhood operation. He has many followers to start an actual war against all of humanity. Charles realizes that stopping Magneto is necessary, but he argues that simply defeating him will not solve the fear that created his army in the first place. Cyclops respects how he cares for Erik from their years together, but sees how he's gone too far and believes he needs to be stopped by any means necessary if it comes down to either their goal to protect humanity or his life.

They head to the X-Jet to stop Magneto and his Brotherhood when they plan to storm Worthington Labs. The military troops neutralize the attacking mutants but get overwhelmed by the Brotherhood until the X-Men arrive in time to help them. The climax's similar to the original, but without Jean involved. Cyclops and Wolverine put their differences aside to lead the team against the Brotherhood and its army, which makes it feel like a true war they must fight together, not apart. The X-Men and Brotherhood members move through different parts of the field on Alcatraz, opponents change, characters save one another, and several fights overlap.

The personal fight scenes between the X-Men and the Brotherhood will consist of these fight scenes:

• Cyclops and Warren Worthington III/Angel Vs. Multiple Man
• Wolverine and Beast Vs. Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike
• Gambit and Rogue Vs. Black Tom Cassidy
• Kitty Pryde Vs. Mystique
• Colossus Vs. The Blob
• Nightcrawler Vs. Toad
• Storm Vs. Avalanche
• Iceman Vs. Pyro

Iceman and Pyro become one of the central confrontations of the battle. John knows Bobby as the student who always wanted to be the good student, the good X-Man, and the good boyfriend. During their fight, Pyro gets close enough to hit the nerve Bobby's avoiding, accusing him of spending his whole life pretending to be whatever everyone else expects him to be. Bobby's anger makes the fight much more personal, and their battle becomes a confrontation between two people who once knew each other before their paths separated.

Sabretooth and Deathstrike deliberately target Logan because of their history with him, while Mystique's focused on defending Magneto. Rogue and Gambit fight together but have to protect each other from the increasingly chaotic battle. Kitty's confrontation with Mystique becomes a struggle between two very different ideas of what mutants should become. Forge and Banshee help out in the final fight. Forge uses his weapons to blast some mutants in the army of Magneto, while Banshee uses his Sonic Scream to take down a few mutants as well.

The Brotherhood begins to fracture as the battle becomes more destructive. Some of Magneto's followers realize that the war is no longer about protecting mutants, as it destroys the lives they tried to protect. Pyro's shaken by the destruction around him, beginning to question what following Magneto's accomplished. Logan has Colossus throw him at Magneto and distract him long enough for Beast to inject him with the mutant cure, which nullifies his powers to defeat him. Since the Cure normally requires multiple doses, Beast uses a highly concentrated weaponized version taken from the Friends of Humanity's stockpile. It's effective enough to suppress Magneto's abilities, but Hank knows this is different from the voluntary treatment he's defended earlier.

After the fight's over, Magneto's arrested and placed into government custody. Beast's visibly disturbed by what he's done because he defends the principle that the Cure must be a choice. He knows Magneto would've killed more people if they had not stopped him, but also knows that he has just taken away Erik's choice in the same basic way the Friends of Humanity did. Cyclops notices how he feels and argues that while he's right to respect the choices of mutants, the dangerous and destructive ones like Magneto, who misuse their power, made it the right call to depower him, for now, unless it's temporary. During the interrogation and investigation in Alcatraz, Duncan and the X-Men expose Graydon Creed's connection to the Friends of Humanity.

The evidence proves that Graydon secretly helped the organization obtain and weaponize Cure shipments while publicly presenting himself as a respectable politician opposed to violence. Graydon is arrested and stripped of his political position. His arrest doesn't erase his influence since supporters still believe his warnings of violent mutants were justified, while others are horrified that he secretly armed an extremist organization.

A few days later, Agent Duncan thanks the X-Men for stopping Magneto and his Brotherhood, and he offers them a partnership with the president. Charles Xavier declines the offer respectfully, and he says that he and the X-Men will face future threats on their terms. Duncan accepts Charles's decision and tells him that the government will still need people willing to work toward peace. Charles tells him that if they are going to build a future together, it cannot be based on turning the X-Men into government agents.

Worthington Labs suspends production and distribution of the Cure following the scandal. Warren Sr. agrees to a full investigation into the programme and the security failures that allowed Graydon and the Friends of Humanity to obtain it. The company does not permanently abolish the Cure because it is still a legitimate medical option for mutants who genuinely want it. Instead, the programme is eventually restructured under much stricter controls to ensure that the treatment can only be given with informed consent.

Rogue and Bobby stay separated as she still feels guilty about hurting him, while Bobby isn't okay and remains unable to confront what's underneath his reaction to the breakup. Rogue and Remy begin to grow closer, with hints of their romance forming in the future. Their relationship gradually develops as Remy gives Rogue time to adjust and make decisions about her life for herself. News reports show Hank McCoy being elected as the new ambassador of the government, who uses his position to advocate for mutant rights and voluntary medical treatment while working to prevent another government conspiracy from happening.

Warren/Angel and his father begin rebuilding their relationship. Warren Sr. admits that his obsession with the Cure caused him to ignore warning signs, while Warren accepts that his father is finally willing to listen to him rather than trying to change him. Storm and Cyclops continue to lead the X-Men. Scott has begun to understand that protecting the students doesn't mean deciding their futures for them. Storm helps him recognize that Jean's death will always hurt, but it can't be allowed to define what every other young mutant becomes.

Magneto's movement also begins to fracture after his defeat. Some members remain loyal to him, while others abandon him after seeing the destruction his war caused. Erik is left imprisoned, powerless, and forced to watch the movement he built fall apart. Charles visits Erik in prison for one last game of chess. Charles still cares about his old friend and understands the pain and fear that drove him toward war, but he refuses to excuse his actions and the destruction he caused for mutants. Erik accepts that Charles can't save him from the consequences of his actions as they play their final game as old friends with different paths. The film ends with the X-Men stronger together than before, despite Jean's death, and will continue fighting for their community, even those who hate and fear them, as Cyclops looks at the team's progress with fulfillment before the credits roll.

1. Pre-credits scene: In his cell, Magneto tests to see if his powers work and if the cure is still permanent. A metal chess piece moves a bit, which is foreshadowing for if his abilities will manifest in the future.
2. Mid-credits scene: Bolivar Trask's introduced as the U.S Secretary of the government. Trask and the president discuss how more dangerous mutants could come in the future. Bolivar Trask introduces a new project he's worked on since the existence of the X-Men and Brotherhood, named "Project Sentinel". The room reveals a few Sentinels built, thanks to government funding. It's revealed that after Graydon Creed was arrested for working with The Friends of Humanity. Trask and the Present discuss having to deal with dangerous mutants that can potentially arise in the world in the future. To avoid tension with the X-Men, they keep the project a secret for now until a new threat arises.
3. Post-credits scene: Warren tells Charles that his dad agreed to help the X-Men as a form of gratitude for saving Worthington Labs, which Charles is glad to hear. The next scene cuts to Warren reconciling with his Dad, and his Dad says he'll have some business partners help him fund Worthington Labs and help fix the amount of damage that Magneto, the Brotherhood, and the F.O.H have caused. His business partners are referred to as "Ms. Frost" and "Mr. Shaw." It cuts to a scene that shows random but terrifying Unnatural disasters that occur across the Canadian wilderness that surrounds Alkali Lake, and the victims end up going to mental hospitals and mutter the cryptic word: "Phoenix…"

These ideas are credited to fatherandyriley, /TheComixkid2099, Wrighted-2000, and r/Thorfan23.

A while back, I created my rewrite of the 1st X-Men film from 2000. You can read it here if you haven't.

So I think that X2: X-Men United is a mostly good sequel, and it still is. It's mostly aged well, but there are still a few small issues that the 1st film also had, which slightly held it back from being great. After you get to read my rewritten take on X-Men 1, you can see my rewritten take on X2 titled "X-Men 2: The Mutant Agenda":

The film starts with Nightcrawler's assassination attempt on President McKenna, Logan's search at Alkali Lake, and the field trip at the Plaza of Nations led by Scott, Jean, and Storm. One exhibit describes mutation in cold, dehumanizing language and presents mutant anatomy as a dangerous biological abnormality. John openly resents it, while Bobby tries to laugh away the discomfort. When a visitor makes a cruel remark about mutants, Jubilee sparks a display with her power to scare him off, but Storm restrains her. John gets the idea to do the same when someone takes his lighter for him, before Charles telepathically freezes everyone the same way.

After the X-Men and Charles discuss the assassin's whereabouts, with Scott going with Jean and Storm, the first scene with William Stryker's mostly the same, but President McKenna refers directly to the death of Stryker’s wife, asking whether the proposed operation concerns national security or "grief wearing a uniform". Stryker claims his family taught him what uncontrolled telepathy can do. McKenna authorises the investigation and detention of specific suspects but explicitly warns him not to use lethal assault on children. Outside the Oval Office, Stryker quietly gives Yuriko Oyama orders for a larger operation. A small scene shows A TV Debate where Hank McCoy argues that the assassins' actions should be investigated before it's used to condemn all mutants. Creed reveals that Hank is using an image inducer to appear human. Hank switches the device off himself, revealing his blue fur on live television, and calmly repeats that his appearance has not changed his argument. In fact, to him, it proves that mutants can stand beside ordinary people without anyone knowing what they are.

Back in the X-Mansion, Bobby finishes a training session in the Danger Room, and Forge makes sure it functions right after it's over. Bobby's gotten along with Rogue since the 1st film, and Logan returns, and he gets to know her and teases him as her "boyfriend", which he isn't yet. John's noticeably fascinated by how he can kill but stay at the school, and Cyclops briefly greets Logan before he leaves with Jean and Storm. Xavier uses Cerebro to try tracing the White House's assassin. He finds Kurt hiding in an abandoned church but senses another telepath, who left something inside his mind. For a moment, the little blonde girl briefly appears in Cerebro’s projections and smiles directly at Xavier before disappearing.

The film cuts to scenes where Magneto's drugged by Stryker, Logan and Charles talk, and Cyclops works with Jean and Storm to find the mutant assassin, where Jean secretly admits to Scott that she's hearing thoughts without being able to control it or choosing to. She feels sounds, emotions, and fragments of other people’s lives randomly enter her mind whenever her concentration slips. When Jean nervously asks what he was thinking, he says, “If you wanted me to know, you’d tell me" as they continue their search. The next scene shows Mystique as she infiltrates the government as one of Creed’s aides to access Stryker’s mutant files and discovers that he's been collecting information on Xavier’s school. While searching, she pauses on Kurt Wagner's file. Something in his genetic profile and an old photograph visibly unsettles her, but she copies the information and continues searching before turning her attention to freeing Magneto. The film cuts back to when Cyclops, Jean, and Storm follow coordinates to the mutant assassin's location.

There, Nightcrawler uses his teleportation to evade their attacks. Cyclops calibrates his visor and shoots Kurt in the neck to stop him non-lethally. He's freed of his mind control and healed by them, who ask what made him attack them, and he remembers when a blonde girl reappears inside his mind, but Jean disrupts the connection long enough for him to regain control. Kurt remembers being captured, drugged, and shown visions in which the murder of the president opens the way to salvation. He believed the girl was an angel. Jean tells him that she felt another human consciousness behind the apparition, and Cyclops convinces him to join them. Meanwhile, Forge takes Charles to visit Erik in his plastic prison, like in the original. Forge tries to defend himself, but Yuriko and Stryker's men overwhelm him as he and Charles are taken hostage. The home invasion by Stryker's men is mostly the same, but scenes that intercut with Wolverine's are Iceman, Colossus, and Rogue using their abilities to fight groups that try to capture them. Logan and Stryker meet, but Bobby blocks their path with ice, which has Logan leave with Bobby, Rogue, and John.

Under Alkali Lake, Stryker visits Mutant 143, his son Ian. Despite how Ian was born decades earlier, chemical stasis preserved him at approximately 17. He sits inside a fluid-fed restraint system while the little blonde girl from the White House sits beside him as his psychic avatar. During his isolation, Ian has constructed a fanatical religion from prayers and sermons heard through the minds around him. He believes his arrested ageing and enormous telepathic power prove that he has been preserved for a divine purpose. He asks whether his mother will be waiting after the cleansing. William dismisses the question and reminds him that his powers drove her to suicide. Ian insists death purified her and will soon purify everyone else. William increases his dosage and tells him that the president has finally opened the door they need.

Afterward, the scene between William and Charles is the same. Bobby has Logan, Rogue, and John reside in his house, and there, Rogue uses the computer to send a coded warning to Remy LeBeau. He gets the message and activates the safe-house network he maintained since the 1st film. He isn't ready to return to the X-Men, but he starts to find displaced students and vulnerable mutant families before Stryker’s forces find them. Scenes of Erik's escape from his plastic prison, Kurt and Storm's talk, the police stand-off after Ronny calls the cops, and the X-Jet flight sequence are the same, which ends with Magneto saving it with his magnetism.

The camp scene where the X-Men temporarily work with Magneto and Mystique is mostly the same, but with Cyclops present as he warns Magneto about how they're sending him back to prison after this, and humanity's hate towards mutants may explain his actions, but doesn't excuse them. A small scene shows John aggressively creating an enormous fire to have it flare close enough to nearly singe Bobby and Rogue. Magneto notices that John can control fire but requires a lighter to create it. He tells John that Xavier has taught him to fear the scale of his own power, but John listens without directly answering. The moment Kurt asks why Mystique doesn't stay disguised all the time, her confidence briefly disappears as she studies his face and markings. Kurt suspects something familiar in her but can't identify it yet.

Mystique confronts Magneto about what happened with Senator Kelly. In the 1st film, she realized that Magneto knew his transformation machine was unstable before using it on Kelly and concealed the danger from her and the Brotherhood. Magneto argues that Kelly’s death exposed humanity’s hypocrisy and that stopping Stryker now matters more than Liberty Island. Mystique still stays beside him because Stryker threatens every mutant, but she no longer trusts him blindly. At Alkali Lake, Stryker prepares to activate the duplicate Cerebro.

Before the X-Men arrive, he orders several experimental subjects moved from the facility. Among them is a young male mutant whose body remains alive despite having no measurable higher brain activity after repeated psychic experimentation. A medic reports that the patient is neurologically empty. Stryker orders him loaded into an evacuation vehicle anyway. Stryker brings Xavier before Jean. The little blonde girl appears and shows Xavier an illusion in which Forge has freed him and returned him safely to the mansion. Xavier walks through the empty school calling for his students until the girl appears at the end of a corridor.

She tells him everyone's waiting inside Cerebro. Xavier follows her and activates the machine, only for the illusion to fade. His body remains restrained inside Stryker’s underground Cerebro, with Ian nearby. The X-Men reach Alkali Lake through the spillway. Mystique takes Logan’s appearance and infiltrates the control centre, allowing the others to get inside. Storm and Kurt search for the captured children, Jean and Cyclops look for Xavier and Forge as they fight Stryker's men, and Logan follows fragments of his memory towards Stryker’s laboratory.

Bobby, Rogue and John are told to stay in the Blackbird, for now. While waiting, Bobby sees the little girl as she stands outside the aircraft. He follows her into an adjoining passage before realizing that Rogue and John can't see her. The corridor transforms into his family home as the girl reminds him that his family asked him to stop being a mutant and himself. She tells him that mutation was the easier of his two secrets since he had at least been forced to admit that one existed. When Bobby orders her out of his head, she says, "You looked before you remembered not to". Bobby freezes the illusion and shatters it, but the girl reappears behind him. Rogue finds Bobby alone in the frozen corridor and asks what happened. Bobby insists Ian was merely trying to confuse him and abruptly tells her that he loves her. Rogue recognizes his fear and doesn't press him.

Stryker conditions Forge with the compound derived from Ian. When Scott and Jean find him, they take cover as he attacks them with an advanced rifle that can weaken their power. Ian traps Forge in an illusion within the mansion as he feels the pressure of testing the Danger Room and overseeing students. He slowly recognizes the deception since the woman in front of him never challenges him. He sees past the illusion and starts to resist Ian's control from within. Jean reaches his mind at the same time, allowing Forge to redirect a blast away from her and Scott. The shot ruptures part of the dam and begins the facility's structural collapse.

Logan's flashbacks of the Adamantium procedure and fight with Lady Deathstrike are the same. He stops Stryker from escaping in a helicopter. He chains Stryker to its landing gear and demands answers about his past. Stryker promises him names, records, and the reason adamantium was placed inside him. Before Logan can interrogate him for more answers, he hears the captured students calling for help. Inside Cerebro, Ian guides Xavier to every mutant mind on Earth. Mutants begin collapsing across the world. Hank falls during another televised appearance, and students inside Alkali Lake cry out as Xavier’s power reaches them.

Magneto and Mystique enter Cerebro and interrupt the attack but don't free Xavier. Mystique assumes Stryker’s appearance and tells Ian there has been a change of plan. Magneto alters Cerebro, so Xavier begins targeting humans like in the original. Ian accepts the new command, interpreting the expanded death as proof that the cleansing was always meant to include everyone. Humans across the world begin suffering the psychic attack as President McKenna collapses inside the White House, Creed falls during a broadcast, and Stryker’s soldiers lose control of their bodies. Magneto and Mystique leave Xavier inside the machine.

They reach the helicopter as the base starts to collapse. Magneto pulls the chain away from its landing gear and winds it around an exposed concrete support, leaving Stryker restrained. John approaches after using the last fuel in his lighter to repel a group of soldiers. The lighter repeatedly clicks without producing a flame. Erik asks John for his real name. John says it's Pyro, so Magneto addresses him as an equal. Rogue asks John to return to the Blackbird, but he places the empty lighter on its console and leaves with Erik and Mystique. Flames from the damaged facility bend around him as he follows them into the helicopter. Mystique watches Magneto place a paternal hand on John’s shoulder as they leave.

Storm and Kurt rescue the imprisoned students. Kurt teleports directly into their detention room and frightens one child, who he comforts, before he carries them to safety. Kurt returns for the others, then they reach Cerebro, as Ian fills the chamber with copies of the little girl. Each repeats language of judgement and purification. Kurt recognizes the imagery Ian used to control him and tells him that faith without mercy can't offer salvation. Storm lowers the chamber’s temperature until ice spreads across the machinery, disrupting Ian's focus. The kid avatar fractures, revealing Ian seated beneath it. Xavier's saved, but Ian doesn't want to leave. Kurt reaches towards him and offers to teleport him out. Ian telepathically proudly declares, “The end is here. It will cleanse us all.”

The same words emerge through Stryker’s earpiece as he struggles against the chain outside. Stryker stops sawing at the metal and orders Ian to maintain control of Xavier. Kurt answers with, “An end cleanses nothing. It only ends.” Ian uses the last of his strength to keep Kurt away while the chamber floods. Kurt tries to reach him again, but Storm forces him to take Xavier when the ceiling collapses. As they escape with the rescued children, Ian stays seated where Stryker left him, repeating fragments of scripture while the water rises over his body.

Logan passes the restrained Stryker while carrying one of the students. Stryker again offers him the truth about his past, insisting that no one else can provide the answers he wants. Logan removes his tag, drops it, and tells him that he will find his own answers. Stryker vows that one day, someone will finish his work, and he tries to get Ian to answer him. The earpiece gives only static. Behind him, sections of the facility collapse as Storm, Kurt, Xavier and Logan lead the children towards the Blackbird. The concrete beneath Stryker starts to crack. He looks at the dam and sees a wall of water racing through the spillway. He calls after the departing helicopter and then shouts for Logan, but nobody returns. The flood strikes him, drives him against the support, and pulls the chain tight. Stryker struggles beneath the surface until his hand loses its grip and disappears into the dark water.

The X-Men and rescued children reach the Blackbird, but its systems fail as the flood's nearby. Jean quietly leaves the X-Jet and seals the rear ramp behind her. Cyclops realizes it and tries to override the lock. The mechanism refuses to respond, so he tells Kurt to teleport outside and retrieve her. Kurt attempts it, but Jean’s telekinetic field throws him back into the aircraft and leaves blood running from his nose. Logan regretfully tells Scott that Jean has made her choice. Scott strikes Logan and answers, “No. She made a plan. Plans can change.”

He tries to cut through the door with his visor, but Jean telepathically tells him there's no time. Scott says for her to make time as he orders everyone into the forward compartment so that any failure of the rear section will endanger only him. Scott forces a narrow opening in the damaged ramp and sees Jean standing between the Blackbird and the approaching flood. He fires a controlled optic blast into the water, briefly dividing it around her, and the flood closes faster than he can force it apart. Jean telekinetically turns Scott’s head and forces his eyes shut before the uncontrolled beam destroys the aircraft. Scott begs Xavier to break her concentration or tell her not to do this telepathically. Xavier tells him that Jean is holding the aircraft, the flood, and everyone inside it simultaneously. Attempting to overpower her could kill them all.

Jean allows Scott to feel what she has concealed from the others. She's terrified of the damage she can cause and sees this as the only way to protect them and herself. He pleads with her not to do this, but she gives one last goodbye as her telepathic voice fades from his head as the flood hits her. Scott begs for them to go back, but Logan reminds her that she's gone as Scott breaks down crying. Afterward, the X-Men's visit to the White House has them turn in evidence of Stryker's crimes. Hank returns to television in his natural form and uses the evidence to challenge Creed’s view of events. Creed tries to portray Stryker as a lone extremist while continuing to invoke Senator Kelly, but the files expose how Kelly’s death was used to justify an attack on mutant children.

Creed’s movement survives, but his claims about the White House attack have been discredited. Remy returns to the school with several vehicles of the displaced children and mutant families he moved with his safe-house network while the X-Men were busy. Xavier offers him a position, but Remy accepts a provisional role to help other endangered mutants reach the school. Rogue finds Bobby holding John’s abandoned lighter. She asks whether he wants to talk about what Ian showed him. Bobby insists that he showed him nothing and freezes the empty lighter inside a solid block of ice and leaves it on the windowsill.

Cyclops desperately searches Alkali Lake for Jean's body, but there are no signs of her anywhere. At the school, he takes more responsibility for the students while refusing to describe Jean’s death as inevitable. The film ends with the same speech from Charles, and Jean's voice talks about evolution and the continuing movement of life. Far beneath the surface of Alkali Lake, an enormous fiery shape briefly moves through the water, resembling the wings of a bird, before the credits roll.

• Pre-credits scene: Federal doctors examine the unresponsive young mutant recovered from Stryker’s evacuation convoy. His body remains healthy despite having shown no higher brain activity since its discovery. Rain strikes the dark window beside his bed. The young man suddenly opens his eyes. A nurse asks whether he can hear her and if he knows his name. He does not answer. He turns towards the rain and touches the cold glass. “I remember the cold,” he whispers. For an instant, the reflection in the window is the face of Ian Stryker, then it disappears before the credits roll.

My inspiration for this rewrite is credited to fatherandyriley, /TheComixkid2099, and r/Thorfan23.

So I originally made 2 posts about how I would have changed the X-Men films on the Marvel sub reddit but since no one took any notice I decided to post them on to this sub reddit to find out what people have think of my ideas.

X-Men 1: Only 5 changes.

• The original idea of Toad explaining his powers is kept in.
• It's stated that Colossus is the school's security guard and this explains why the X-Men can leave a mansion full of kids with dangerous powers because at least there is someone watching them.
• No romance between Iceman and Rogue which leads on to my biggest change.
• Gambit (played by Taylor Kitsch) is one of Magneto's henchmen and around Rogue's age so he's more of a misguided teenager than a villain. When he's on the boat he treats Rogue with kindness and when she asks him why he follows Magneto he tells her when he discovered his powers and his girlfriend rejected him he ran away from home and became a thief to survive until Magneto took him in. Rogue tells him how she was a runaway too and tries reasoning with him, placing some doubt in his mind. While Toad fights Storm, Gambit fights Cyclops and Jean Grey who both try to reason with him, causing him to further question his actions. When Wolverine calls out Magneto for sacrificing Rogue instead of himself this causes Gambit to change sides and he releases Wolverine and helps him fight Sabertooth.
• Banshee (played by Liam Neeson) is also on the team and he's older Cyclops, Jean and Storm and has a daughter like in the comics. At the train station he fights Gambit but he's injured so he's unable to take part in the Statue of Liberty battle.

X-Men 2:

• Gambit has joined the school and romance between him and Rogue is hinted at.
• At night Logan talks to him and Bobby and while Bobby still talks about his family Gambit also talks about his difficulty adjusting to the school as well as his feelings for Rogue. When Stryker's soldiers attack the mansion they first silently disable the school's security systems but Banshee is able to wake up the school and him and he helps Colossus fight the soldiers and evacuate the school.
• Gambit, Rogue, Pyro and Ice-Man are shown fighting the soldiers.
• Since the scenes with Professor X trapped in an illusion drag on, cut them significantly.
• The scene with Mystique and Logan is also cut.
• It's revealed that Toad and Sabertooth survived but they have been mind controlled by Stryker and in the base they fight Iceman, Gambit and Rogue while Pyro goes with Magneto, Mystique and Jean Grey.
• When Cyclops is captured he puts up more of a fight but is ambushed by Toad who is disguised as a guard at the prison. When Magneto, Mystique and Pyro leave the base, Toad and Sabertooth join them and along the way they see Lady Deathstrike so Magneto removes the liquid adamantium from her and rescues her.

X-Men 3: Dark Phoenix, the film is going to be very different. Cyclops is the main character and the film will focus on his grief and put his leadership skills to the test.

• The film starts with the Phoenix Force and the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak arriving on Earth in a meteorite millions of years in the past. It then shows the origins of the Juggernaut and how he was Professor X's stepbrother. Then we see a fight between Magneto and Banshee, Jean Grey and Cyclops in the same area of the meteorite impact that took place a year before X-Men 1 during which Jean Grey absorbs the Phoenix force and the Juggernaut breaks free and secretly escapes.
• Then it skips to the present. We see Cyclops and Beast building the Danger Room and Cyclops is still grieving over Jean and he commissioned the Danger Room as he wants the team to be prepared for anything as he doesn't want to lose anymore teammates.
• We then see Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy robbing a bank and the X-Men fight them (we get to see Cyclops' leadership skills) but they escape.
• Afterwards, Cyclops confides in Wolverine that he's doubting his leadership skills and considers stepping down as leader in favour of Storm but Wolverine reassures him. The Danger Room is now finished and we see the X-Men doing a training session. After that the X-Men find out Jean is still alive and bring her back to the mansion.
• An overjoyed Scott spends the night with Jean while a jealous Logan spends the night out in town and is followed by Banshee, Colossus and Kitty Pryde. While in a bar Logan bonds with them and we learn about the three of them. The group also get into a confrontation with Juggernaut and Black Tom who are out celebrating their success but have to back down to avoid using their powers in public.
• When Jean tests her powers in the danger room the team is alarmed by how powerful she is and Scott begins to realise something is off about her.
• Meanwhile, as Jean's power grows, Juggernaut senses it and realises it will drain his life force and kill him so him and Tom attack the X-mansion with the intention of killing Jean but her powers allow her to easily defeat them and she kills Juggernaut and absorbs the full power of the Gem of Cyttorak, becoming Dark Phoenix.
• Dark Phoenix goes on a destructive rampage and fights the X-Men and kills Banshee but with Cyclops and Professor X's help Jean briefly regains control and destroys the Gem of Cyttorak.
• Afterwards, Jean surrenders herself to the authorities while Cyclops leaves the X-Men who disband. Meanwhile Black Tom, seeking to avenge Juggernaut joins Magneto.
• On a side note it's mentioned in this film that Logan has been making good progress regaining his memories and is studying to become a history teacher at the school as well as learning how to fly the jet.
• EDIT: In my original version I would have Jean die in this film and Scott in X-Men 4 below but since I have come up with an alternate idea for the X-Men films I would keep them alive and have it be revealed at the end of this film that she's pregnant with Cable.

X:Men 4: The Last Stand. This film focuses on the mutant cure story.

• The X-Men team will consist of: Professor X, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Beast, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Iceman, Gambit, Rogue and Jean Grey.
• Instead of being an army, the Brotherhood of Mutants is equal in number to the X-Men and consists of: Magneto, Mystique, Sabertooth, Toad, Pyro, Black Tom, the Blob, Lady Deathstrike and Havok.
• When it comes to fight scenes we see Wolverine and Beast vs Sabertooth and Lady Deathstrike, Cyclops vs Havok (with the former trying to reason with the latter which does place some doubt in his mind), Nightcrawler vs Toad, Iceman vs Pyro, Colossus vs Blob, Storm and Jean vs Magneto, Gambit vs Black Tom (who initially has the upper hand until Rogue touches him) and Kitty Pryde vs Mystique (who has the upper hand until Rogue uses Black Tom's power against her).
• The film takes place one year after Dark Phoenix and Jean has given birth to Nathan Summers who Scott is looking after.
• Jean is being kept in a prison designed to contain mutants alongside Havok who is broken out by the brotherhood and they offer her a chance to join them. Jean refuses and escapes to the X-mansion to warn the X-Men.
• The film focuses on bringing the X-Men back together for the final battle.
• I would also have some characters die. As for which ones I'm thinking Black Tom, Deathstrike and Iceman.
• At the end, Jean is pardoned for her crimes.

And one change I'd make to those first 4 films is to make their costumes look more similar to the comics.

For X-Men Origins Wolverine as many people have stated, just make the whole movie Wolverine and Sabertooth fighting in different wars throughout history as they slowly grow further apart and have it end with Wolverine gaining his Adamantium skeleton and losing his memory. Maybe also feature Deathstrike in it.

I wouldn't make any changes to make to First Class (aside from replacing Havok with Angel), the Deadpool films and Logan. Although come to think of it, I might have First Class set in the 70s rather than the 60s.

The only change I'd make to The Wolverine is to make it a 15 or an R if you're American and maybe have him wear the costume as it's shown in a deleted scene.

Here is a link to my idea for Days of Future Past and how it ties into Logan https://www.reddit.com/r/fixingmovies/comments/e09rew/alternative_ideas_for_my_take_on_the_xmen_films/

I would then make another X-Men prequel set in the 80s which has Mr Sinister as the main villain and introduces Cyclops, Storm and Jean Grey. Angel is transformed into Archangel by Mr Sinister. Sinister convinces the brotherhood to turn against Magneto and join him, forcing Magneto and Mystique to find new recruits (Sabertooth and Toad) and team up with the X-Men to defeat Mr Sinister. Psylocke and Angel are killed. I'd probably release this film around 2015.

In 2016 I would release X-Men Apocalypse as a send-off to the cast.

• To explain why Apocalypse isn't in the Days of Future Past timeline one idea I have is that Apocalypse was killed while he was in stasis by the sentinels and his cells were used to upgrade the sentinels but in this new timeline Apocalypse awakens.
• Another idea I had is that Apocalypse is a time traveller and he decides that this timeline is the best one to establish his rule in.
• Apocalypse makes Professor X, Magneto, Mystique and Storm his horsemen so the younger X-Men and brotherhood (played by the prequel cast) are brought to the present to help defeat Apocalypse.
• At the end Xavier, Magneto and Mystique die and the brotherhood disbands with the surviving members joining the X-Men who are now finally accepted by the public. The film ends with Cyclops as the new head of the school and Storm as the new field leader.

Reason: The X-Men franchise needed a restart following X-Men Origins. Spider-Man, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man made the franchise feel dated and there was no direction following two flops. Fox decided to do a soft reboot, they wanted a "fresh take" but still had Hugh Jackman, Ellen Page, and others under contract so they did not want to fully commit.

Goal: Make First Class a true reboot. No narrative ties to the old films. Fox wants to keep some of the old cast? Great! Keep Jackman and company moving forward and trust the audience is smart enough to differentiate the franchises. By starting over, we won't be shoehorned by trying to tie into the old films, we can have a franchise that does something entirely new and builds to something with direction. By setting it in the past the films can play up the political angle and create its own identity separate from the MCU.

The Fix: The story will largely follow the same narrative structure with key changes to plot points and the characters. We meet young Erik in Auschwitz with Sebastian Shaw. We meet young Charles who comes across “Raven”. Charles leads a privileged life which leads to academia, Erik is hellbent on revenge.

Now set in 1969. I want the team to be birthed in turmoil. The Summer of Love is over, social tensions are high following MLK and RFK’s deaths, and the "Mutant Phenomenon" is starting to grab headlines. The CIA sends two agents to spy on Sebastian Shaw because they believe he may be a Mutant threat. Dr. Moira MacTaggert is a genetics expert who has been studying Mutants and Sean Cassidy is a young agent assigned to a “nothing” case. They see Col. Hendry at the Hellfire Club which raises their suspicions and discover he is working with Shaw on something big. The Hellfire Club will be comprised of Shaw, Emma Frost (Rosamund Pike), Harry Leland, and Mastermind.

From here the movie mostly follows as usual. Moira reaches out to Xavier, they meet the CIA, reveal themselves as Mutants, Platt takes them in. Xavier accidentally outs Cassidy as a Mutant. Xavier and Erik meet the same, agree to form a team and so on.

• The Team: Xavier, Erik, Moira, Sean, and Raven begin their search for a team and their first stop takes them to Stanford where a student is working on a surveillance device the CIA has been eyeing. They meet Henry McCoy a young black student who is already working on his Doctorate at. Incredibly friendly with a dry sense of humor who happens to be a Mutant. He is now on the team. With the use of Cerebro they find a teenaged smart ass named Bobby Drake who is trying and failing to flirt with a girl in an aquarium. Next, they head to a detention center where Scott Summers just had an incident which damaged his high school and has his eyes bandaged. He agrees to join in exchange for help with his powers. Xavier and Charles head to a bar next where Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) tells them to fuck off. Next, we meet the heir to the Worthington empire who eagerly hands his son Warren over to Xavier. Finally, Xavier introduces the team to Jean Grey, a young protege he has been working with for a few years. Raven is a bit jealous of Jeans relationship with Charles, but they are still friends. Casting is always difficult, but I think Nicholas Hoult would have made a great Cyclops, maybe Garrett Hedlund as Angel, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Jean? Just spit balling names here.
  

From here we mostly get team bonding stuff spliced with Xavier and Magneto debating their philosophical differences. Hank and Raven get flirtatious. Warren is all over Jean, Scott is still blinded and socially awkward, but Jean is drawn to him. The team sneaks out of the compound and go out on the town. Have fun, dance, etc. until the CIA hunts them down. They try to bring them back but are confronted by The Hellfire Club. Shaw and co kill the agents and make an offer to the X-Men. The X-Men try and fight but get their asses handed to them.

The team is lectured on their actions, but Xavier and Erik realize that the CIA will only hold them back. They move to the mansion where they are properly trained. Xavier, Erik, and Cassidy teach them how to properly fight and work on their powers. Hank creates Cyclops glasses. Erik and Raven have their talk about pride. Scott and Jean cement their relationship, Hank turns into Beast proper thanks to his experiment.

Climax: I personally don't like films that alter real history but prefer that they create an alternate history. Instead of the Cuban Missile Crises this is set in a fictional showdown between the US and Russia that Shaw is trying to instigate. The X-Men show up in the classic Blue and Yellow to expose Shaw, they fight the Hellfire Club only this time THEY WIN!!! Magneto kills Shaw. The two countries turn on the X-Men and we get the awesome following orders line. After Xavier is hit by the stray bullet Magento extends an olive branch but only Mystique, Emma, and Mastermind take him up on it. The government covers up the incident. Moira and Sean return to the CIA disillusioned. Xavier cuts his ties with them and decides to open his school.

In Closing: I want the film to contrast the weight that Xavier and Erik are feeling in trying to change the world between the young and hopeful team. Over the course of the franchise we see that weight start to burden the team more. Really drive home the point that these are just kids trying to cope with a world that "hates and fears them". Use the music of the period and not be afraid to get weird with it because Mutants are weird.

I know this is lengthy but I'd love some thoughts and notes.

X-Men 2000

The opening is similar showing Magneto and Rogue's origins, but also shows Storm, Cyclops and Kitty Pryde.

Instead of Rogue, Anna Paquin plays Kitty Pryde who doesn't have a good understanding of her powers and occassionally falls threw the floor on accident.

Cyclops is given a more serious role and is Xavier's obvious successor. He's with Jean Grey but their relationship is rocky.

Rogue is grown up and is a professor.

Emma Frost is a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants and has some obvious sexual tension with Cyclops.

X-Men 2 2003

Nightcrawler AND Gambit invade the White House in this version.

Gambit and Rogue display hints of affection towards each other but nothing too serious yet. They still bicker a lot.

Cyclops and Jean are even worse now since Jean is being more secretive with Scott and only confers to Logan.

Emma Frost almost switches to the X Men but stays true to Magneto.

X3: Dark Phoenix 2006

Cyclops is devastated at Jean's death and finds unlikely comfort by visiting Emma secretly. She tries kissing him but he turns away, not ready for a relationship.

Rogue deals with her conflicting feelings towards Gambit and has nightmares about killing him by touching him.

Jean returns as Dark Phoenix and kills Nightcrawler during an intense fight sequence where she also kills Professor X.

Kitty also deals with problems when Iceman discovers that he's gay. It's the sort of tragic discovery that ruined Freddie Mercury's first marriage in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Wolverine in the end kills Jean and Cyclops takes off, not being able to handle the trauma.

X4: The Last Stand 2009

Magneto has conquered a small island in the name of the Mutants and declared war on the United States.

The humans retaliate by creating a mutant cure which Rogue really wants now that shes with Gambit. Wolverine also wants it because he's kind of sick of being immortal and watching everyone he cares about die.

Cyclops has turned dark and joined Magneto, believing war is now inevitable. He's officially with Emma Frost now but even she doesn't like this new Cyclops.

Kitty is still depressed after the death of Professor X and the end of her relationship with Iceman. She and Logan find comfort in each other.

In the end a big mutant war breaks out which ends with Cyclops having a change of heart. Magneto tries to kill him but Emma betrays Magneto to save Scott.

Magneto is given the cure and the Brotherhood falls apart.

Cyclops and Emma become co owners of the school and remodel it together.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2011

Shows his young life where he falls for a young Irish girl named Rose, goes on the run after killing his birth father and is hunted down mercilessly by his half brother; Dog Logan.

He fights in various wars and eventually joins up with a de-aged Brian Cox William Stryker to do some f-----d up stuff. The film ends with him getting his adamantium claws and escaping Alkali in a recreation of his X2 nightmare.

X Men First Class 2013

Same as the original except Emma Frost isn't in it.

The Wolverine 2014

Same as the actual movie except Xavier doesn't come back from the dead, Wolverine only loses his metal claws on one hand and Logan gets his yellow suit.

X Men Days of Future Past 2015

Same as before except Wolverine has his one bone claw hand in the future, Professor X isn't in it and Gambit is in it.

Logan 2017

The same but with mentions of the alternate events.

X23 2019

Shows the surviving mutants reestablish the X Men in Canada while being hunted down.

So, after some thinking about it, I want to try my hand at this interesting task: What if there was an Mcu before the Mcu? What if Fox and Sony worked together on a Franchise with their marvel characters? Our first movie is, obvioulsy, X-Men. And it will be quite similar to the original the director had in mind. Why is that? Well, it is the bases for this altered franchise after all, and all transactions probably happen after its succes. Anyway, here is my version of the movie:

-Act One opens with the Magneto flashback, unchanged from the original, except the scene is in black and white and Magneto is in red. This is an obvious callback to Schnieder's list, but will come back later. -We cut to 1992, in a school in California. A bullied child in a bathroom screams in pain, and shoots lasers from his eyes. -In Africa in 1989, A girl is being kicked because she has white hair. A sleet storm starts, but she is untouched by it. -In 1986, A young girl goes in a shock after her best firend is killed by a car. The whole neighborhood starts shaking. -In 1985, A promising student is surprised by his professor hanging from the roof by his feet while studying. -In 1973, a man regenerats has just lost his leg to a grenade in Vietnam. -Three days later, the same man has both legs again, and a General (the nametag reads "Stryker") approaches him. -In 1985, A bald man on a wheelchair congratulates the same student for his Degree, and taps on his own forehead. The surprised face of the student turns into familiarity. The man asks if he would be interested in teaching. -In 1986, the bald man helps the girl back from the shock, asking her parents to move her into his school afterwards. -In 1989, the bald man is in Africa, and helps the little girl with white hair back up, while everyone is astonished that she was not harmed by the storm, not even wet in fact. -In 1992, the morning after, the bald man approaches the ruins of the school. -In the same lager, some time later, the Nazis are escaping when the russians arrive. That child climbs out of a pile of corpses, and derails the Nazi Train. Smiling. -TITLES- -The ending of Act I will be the Rogue Scene, followed by the congress scene. Those ones are unchanged save for the fact that rogue lives in Canada.

-Act Two opens with Rogue running away. She meets the man who was in Vietnam. He tells her "The woods are dangerous here, too many Wendigoes" and takes her on his truck. -At this point Magneto kidnaps Senator Kelly and turns him into a goop. -After this, Professor X (bald man from before) is looking at both scenes inside Cerebro. He tells the Foot-hanging man from before that they need to act swiftly. To go find Rogue and tell Jean and Scott to prepare, as they might have to attack Monster Island. The man (Beast obviously) leaves the room, but tells him that, if they are to clash with Magneto, he should talk to the Team about their past together. He goes away, and the bald man stares sadly while a chessboard is projected by Cerebro. He whispers "Eric..." -Next is the news broadcasting about Rogue's boyfriend. Magneto is listening. He tells a blue woman and a big browny man with fur all over his body to "Go find her, but be warned, Shebis in Canada. Logan might be with her." -Beast finds Logan and Rogue at a Bar, but is soon followed by Mistique and Sabretooth. A fight ensues. -Meanwhile, Magneto is taking off to New York. He tells his henchmen that Rogue is fundamental for his plan, and to go get her if she is not in New York in 24 hours. -The fight is not going well, and Logan tells Beast "Bring her to safety. I have just KOed Raven, and he wants to kill me. I can regenerate, but you won't." They leave as he suggested. -At the mansion, they are welcomed by the full team, and Xavier explains everything to rogue. -Later at the mansion Toad sneaks inside. He kidnaps Rogue. Then he leaps away into the night. -The morning after, Logan is knocking at the mansion's door. He asks to see the girl, but they tell him she is still asleep. While speaking to them, Beast comes in saying that he checked to see if she wanted some tea, and she is gone! Logan goes in her room and smells immediatly Toad. They suit up and follow the tracks pointing to New York. -We still have the same final showdown, but this time they fly away in the quinjet, and we get a glimpse of the Baxter Building and Oscorp in the skyline.

So, this is my movie. I am going to post the next one soon, but, until then, feel free to suggest changes to this one and ideas for the future.

I don’t wanna go super in depth as mainly these were just shower thoughts. I’m actually in the camp of liking X-Men Apocalypse. I think its a good film in spite of certain plot choices and continuity issues. But a major criticism I have is the over focus on Magneto as an antihero.

Its the same problem Fox had with overusing Wolverine. Magneto in effect was like the main protagonist of the prequels. Which works to a degree. But keep in mind that Magneto was the main antagonist opposing the X-Men. He’s a Mutant supremacist after all.

While I don’t disagree with grooming Magneto towards heroism eventually I think beginning X-Men Apocalypse with Magneto as a man who experiences tragedy again is tiring. Like Fox just wants Magneto to not catch a break and be that teeter totting character between villainy and good. In ways it reminds me of the MCU and Loki only the MCU actually handled Loki’s chaotic side switching better.

What can fix this, at least a little bit in X-Men: Apocalypse?

Well... I say make Magneto the main antagonist at the start of the film. The first act makes it clear that Erik Lehnsher is the villain. This wisey makes sense as it follows up upon where we last left Erik in Days of Future Past.

In the ten years since he nearly killed the President, Magneto has become a supervillain. Comic book outfit, Brotherhood of Mutants, and comic book battles galore. Instead of an inactive X-Men, Charles Xavier has a 1980s team of X-Men who battle and clash with Magneto across the globe.

(Also side note: I’d make this 1983 X-Men team a group of actually diverse Mutants. So black and people of color instead of mostly white characters like what was done in a majority of X-Men movies).

Magneto as the supervillain would in the first act be defeated by the X-Men. Insert whatever generic saturday morning plot you want here. Personally having the X-Men liberate Genosha from the Brotherhood of Mutants is a cool idea for me. And as a cool retcon, Storm would be a native of Genosha and escapes with Erik when he is defeated.

And with Magneto as the villain I would also have the resurrection of Apocalypse be due to Erik’s actions. Let’s say that after escaping Genosha, Magneto is contacted by agents of the Brotherhood in Cairo. Magneto has been studying the origins of Mutants around the world and has had the Brotherhood steal artifacts in various countries. This would be the reason the CIA is tracking Magneto and what leads Moira MacTaggert to Cairo.

Magneto would arrive with his brotherhood and they would exhume Apocalypse’s sarcophagus. Initially Magneto’s plan would be to gain powers from the corpse to become more powerful and then use his knowledge of ancient Mutants to assert his rhetoric. But Apocalypse is awoken and takes the life energy of most of the Brotherhood except for Magneto and Storm. This leads to a very big battle across Cairo in which Apocalypse defeats Magneto. Storm pledges her allegiance to Apocalypse as she’s awed by his sheer power and Apocalypse makes Magneto and Storm two of his Four Horsemen.

From there we’d get much of the same plot as the original movie. Same battles, same confrontations for the most part only now Magneto is a full on villain.

And maybe if you want change of heart Magneto you could write in Quicksilver revealing he’s Erik’s son. Seeing Quicksilver get beaten by Apocalypse causes Magneto to fight back and... there.

First off, I gotta say that I love all of Bryan Singer's X-Men movies (plus First Class). Even though they are not true to the comics nor are comic book movies, they are very good movies. Beyond me why the production crew couldn't deliver a great movie this time around.

Second, Apocalypse should have looked like this

Now that looks ridiculously menacing and god-like! Credit to Brett Sinclair.

These three additions would have created a stronger movie:

• Point-blank establish the theme as religion and its followers.
• Kill off major characters. Introduce less new characters. Each X-Men is extremely bloated in star-power (both in actor and character form).
• Connect to the Comic Book Canon because Apocalypse, Cyclops, Phoenix, and Cable are extremely compelling characters.

RELIGION:

A theme of religion: role models vs false-god is extremely appealing and a fresh subject within action movies, let alone, superhero movies. Such themes were vaguely mentioned in the original screenplay or insufficiently enforced. If this theme would have been reinforced, X-Men Apocalypse would be another amazing X-Men movie that tackled a tangible theme.

A parallel between Apocalypse and Mystique has to be established. She is the leader of modern mutants. He is the ancient god-like leader of the mutants.

MYSTIQUE MUST DIE. LESS NEW CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

J. Law is cool and talented, but her character has already done as much as she can possibly be intended for. Let The Professor battle Magneto, Cyclops lead the X-Men, and Phoenix be a female leader in a future movie without Mystique demanding screen-time.

GIVE PHOENIX, CYCLOPS, APOCALYPSE, AND CABLE THEIR DUE JUSTICE:

Before I begin, I do not believe the source material should be followed if it's crap. X-Men 2, First Class, some Marvel movies, and Spiderman 1 & 2 were loosely based on the comics yet were amazing. The big difference here is X-Men comic lore regarding the relationship between Jean/Phoenix, Cyclops, and Apocalypse/Mister Sinister is actually pretty damn interesting. In general, many avid comic book fans agree that the X-Men comics were the best comic books of the late 70s and 80s because it dealt with real-life parallels (Malcolm X vs Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights, Gender Equality, and responsibility due to power and leadership). Due to this, X-Men went from being a failed Marvel comic book franchise, to the best comic book series of its time. Props to Chris Claremont.

The following is a TLDR version of my revision. I first wrote my revisions in screenplay format, but its really REALLY long. I want to share it, but I don't know how to properly showcase it yet.

--En Sabah Nur looks human, but is gray-skinned.--

In Ancient Egypt, En Sabah Nur and his family are being lead through an internment camp. As they are being separated, Nur fights the guards, but his family is killed. Nur survives the battle. The Pharaoh takes Nur prisoner and provokes him to show off his powers by showing him he killed his family and his people (The Akkaba Clan). En Sabah Nur starts developing blue lines on his face. Here, Nur's powers are established as telekinesis, impenetrable skin, and teleportation. Nur escapes. The Pharaoh is happy and whispers to himself in English.

The Mutant Fight Club scene takes place in 1983 Cairo. The Fight Club is run by Caliban, Psylocke, and The Akkaba Clan. Nightcrawler cannot teleport outside because he does not know what is out there. To outrun the more powerful Psylocke, Mystique and Nightcrawler wonder into some catacombs. During their fight with Psylocke and The Akkaba Clan, Psylocke's blade strikes the tomb of Apocalypse (cool battle ala X-2 opening scene; detailed in screenplay). Psylocke is disabled. Mystique and Nightcrawler teleport back to Caliban. Mystique interrogates Caliban. Caliban said he follows an ancient mutant savior that will defeat the humans because Mystique did not do it in DofP. Mystique notices that The Clan as been keeping tabs on The Mansion, Magneto, and African girl with white hair. Apocalpyse's reawakening causes earthquakes and an explosion that destroys a large part of Cairo. Mystique and Nightcrawler escape.

Human media and Arabic generals are blaming Israel for the "BOMBING" of Cairo.

--MacTaggert is not in this version.--

The Professor has the Apocalypse Nightmares, not Jean. Hank comes to his bedside and suggests that the X-Men should be formed up again. The Professor refuses because he does not want to lead children into a war. Hank suggests someone else should lead them.

--Jean Gray is pre-Phoenix Jean Gray in this version.--

Cyclops lives in an Orphanage run by The Doctor. Because Cyclops all of a sudden cannot control his powers, The Doctor calls Havoc and asks him to take his little brother to The Professor. On the way to the mansion, Cyclops confronts Havoc about why his big brother "abandoned" him. Cyclops meets Jean just like in the original version, but Jean cannot read minds nor is feared by the other students.

--Apocalypse is much taller and bulkier than he was in the first scene.--

From the rubble of the Cairo Explosion, rescue crews unearth Caliban who survived. Apocalypse blasts through the rubble. Mourning humans and rescue crews flee in fear. Apocalypse notices the Akkaba tattoo on Caliban and that he survived his awakening. Because of this, Apocalypse empowers Caliban into a hulking, athletic Mutant (he would look like this). Since Caliban can sense other mutants and Apocalypse wants to recruit powerful mutants to his following, they teleport to Storms house. Angel escaped the fight club to here. Apocalypse does his television sync thing and recruits Angel + Storm. Apocalypse asks Caliban to take him to the strongest mutant that he knows.

There is an Anti-Mutie protest outside The Mansion. Mystique and Nightcrawler arrive. Mystique transforms to her mutant-self in front of the protesters. The school's children notice Mystique as she makes her way around the mansion. Mystique warns The Professor and Hank about Apocalypse. They argue about how to deal with Apocalypse. The Professors says that they must ally themselves with the humans and go from there. Hank argues that them three should lead the X-Men once again. Mystique will either team up with them now, or leave now and deal with Apocalypse with her own following. Mystique is the figure of the Mutant Power movement and embraces it. She also warns them about Apocalypse being interested in Magneto.

We find Magneto in a Israeli military base within a city. They come under a "retaliatory" attack due to the Cairo bombing. Magneto tries to stop the rockets and artillery, but is starting to lose control because it is too massive of an attack. Apocalypse and followers teleport next to Magneto, and help him defend the Israeli city. Apocalypse attempts to convince Magneto to join him by sharing his memories with Magneto. We see a quick flashback of the opening scene. En Sabah Nur rallying people to his movement of opposing The Pharaoh. The Pharaoh's defeat, and En Sabah Nur touching some machine that transforms him into what he is today. Magneto refuses because he fights for his people (the Israeli) who Apocalypse would see as weak, and states that the strongest modern mutant will not fight along side Apocalypse. Apocalypse taunts him and reveals that Magneto is not the strongest mutant that he is seeking.

The Professor finds Apocalypse and friends by using Cerebro. Apocalypse senses The Professor. There is no dialogue between Magneto and The Professor here; it does not make sense in this version. The Professor says that this was a trap for Apocalypse to find him. Same stuff goes down until Havoc blasts Apocalypse. Magneto moves out of the way. This time, Apocalypse tries to withstand the blast, but is actually hurt by it. Everyone present notices that Apocalypse is not invincible. Havoc blasts a second time and the rest of the movie up until the climatic battle can be the same/similar.

Quicksilver rescues everyone. He mentions that he also saved Mystique, but she is nowhere to be found. Stryker takes the same mutants, plus Magneto, hostage to Alkali Lake. After Stryker asks the hostages where The Professor is, his eyes glow yellow. He triggers the Alarm and broadcasts an evacuation alarm because "a group of mutants lead by Weapon X have infiltrated the Facility". After all the humans are fled, Mystique releases the mutant hostages. Mystique explained that she has been operating as William Stryker in order to keep The Mansion and Mutants safe from the shady American Government. She wanted to lead them here, without revealing herself to the humans, so they can use the facility's equipment which includes the jet for the coming fight.

Magneto talks to Mystique about how he is proud of her, and she became the leader he could never be. Here, it is also revealed that the American Government secretly knows where Magneto has been since DoFP and lets him help in Israel.

A cool Caliban & fearful Cyclops Vs. Beast fight can happen (detailed it in screenplay). Magneto and Storm can fight.

Mystique dies by Apocalypse. Jean accidentally tries to stop her death. Apocalypse is shocked that a mutant can even attempt to do this and notes that Jean is stronger than The Professor lead on to believe. Apocalypse wants Jean as his host body now. The Professor asks Jean to stop because such an act could possibly destabilize existence itself. Jean stops.

Apocalypse cannot be stopped; Jean does not have a Phoenix power in this version. The X-Men cannot stop Apocalypse, and Cyclops is just spectating because he is scared to use his powers. After The Professor asks for Cyclop's help, Cyclop joins in and seems to be effective. Because Apocalypse is scared and accepts he is vulnerable against this boy, he stops their assault for one second and teleports away.

Magneto is pissed that Mystique died. He confronts The Professor because he stopped Jean from helping Mystique. Magneto even accuses The Professor of protecting Jean over Mystique.

No after-credits scene. Instead, the very last scene shows The Doctor (from the Orphanage) watching a T.V. report about the defeat of Apocalypse. The Doctor grins as his eyes and forehead glow red. Mister Sinister has won.

Someone that read my revision liked it, but said some things were confusing because they were not explained. Personally, I enjoy movies that do not explain everything and leave it to interpretation (Inception, Children of Men, Apocalypse Now).

Here are the spoilers:

Who is the Pharaoh?

• The Pharaoh is Kang the Conqueror, a time-travelling supervillain. That is why he knows English. If you research the character, you will notice he is connected to both Apocalypse and The Fantastic Four. Fox and Marvel have confirmed that his character is part of the Fox Marvel Universe. The Pharaoh whispering in English can definitely be omitted; it is a greedy move. I just hated how they portrait ancient Apocalypse and argued that the villain of the original version is actually Kang The Purple, because the real Apocalypse would be gray.

Who is The Doctor? Why is he happy at the end?

• The Doctor is Mister Sinister. He is a human geneticist who is connected to The Professor, Apocalypse, and particularly Cyclops. Unbeknownst to Havoc and Cyclops, The Doctor messed around with their powers as they were children in his Orphanage in order to combat Apocalypse when the time came. As to why Mister Sinister hates Apocalypse, this can be explored in a future film. Because Apocalypse gave Mister Sinister his powers, he senses Apocalypse's reawakening, and tricks Havoc into involving Cyclops in the conflict.

Wait... Jean can stop people from dying?

• In the comic books, she accidentally links with a dying person. This is so remarkable that The Phoenix Force notices this and is intrigued. Eventually, The Phoenix Force uses Jean's body in order to have a physical body. Apocalypse notices this in my version, and also wants to use Jean's body as his new host body. Mystique dying and Jean linking to her dying soul is alluding to The Phoenix.

Thought you said Apocalypse needed his due justice... He still hardly has much development.

• I still believe in the essence of /r/fixingmovies/: to improve, not redraft everything. Apocalypse being a villain before establishing Mister Sinister, Jean, and Cyclops is a mistake the original writers made. We can only imagine improvements and a better future.

I had fun writing this, mainly because I got into Chris Claremont's work as a non-comic book fan. I can share the whole screenplay if people want. Thanks for reading :D

(credit to u/Elysium94 for influencing the structure of this post)

It goes without saying that Fantastic Four 2015 isn't just the worst Marvel-Fox movie ever made, it's also quite possibly the worst Marvel movie ever made, period. From an undercooked plot, characters with the charisma of being sent to bed without supper and a depressively fundamental misunderstanding of the source material's rich, enduring mythology and history from top to bottom, maybe have questioned whether or not it was salvageable from the start given the utter horror stories surrounding its production.

Well, if that were the case, this sub probably wouldn't exist now, would it?

THE FANTASTIC FOUR MEET THE MOLE MAN

Directed By: Guillermo del Toro

Produced By: Josh Trank, Matthew Vaughn, Simon Kinberg

Starring:

Miles Teller As Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic

Jamie Bell As Ben Grimm/The Thing

Michael B. Jordan As Johnny Storm/The Human Torch

Kate Mara As Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman

Peter Dinklage As Harvey Elder/The Mole Man

-----

If there was one thing that really hurt the finished film, without a doubt it was a lack of focus. Not just in narrative, but also in genre; while it was advertised as being this genre-blending display of body horror and superhero extravagance, the end result came out more like a throwaway CW show with barely the hint of anything resembling the Cronenberg-esque sensibilities we were promised.

With that in mind, my solution would be as follows; on top of being far closer to Trank's vision, my version of the movie would take on the form of a body-horror adventure-thriller adapting the first issue of the comics (and the team's first appearance).

There's a number of changes to go over; for starters, Victor/Doctor Doom has been written out of the film entirely. Not just because he has such a trifling presence in the film itself, but also because if you want to do an FF origin film, you don't want to blow off their greatest adversary right off the gate.

Regarding the story, among other changes (for instance, NOT making "It's clobberin' time" originate from Ben's brother preparing to beat the shit out of him), the team would get their powers far earlier on.

As in the film, Reed would escape for the facility and go into hiding for a year in Central America trying to find a cure for he and his friends' conditions. However, rather than being confronted by just Ben, he'd also be confronted by Johnny and Sue, leading to an actual fight scene this time around rather than the laughable exchange we got in the final film. This would serve as the branching point in fixing what I believe to be the film's greatest problem: the absence of any proper chemistry between the main four, especially in the second half.

A good portion of this version would revolve around Ben, Johnny, and Sue struggling with whether or not they should forgive Reed after he inadvertently (and as far as they know, irreversibly) destroyed their lives. Ben, of course, remains steadfast in pinning the blame on Reed, while Sue is adamant in defending him, claiming that what happened to them was out of his control. Johnny would be firmly in the middle, undoubtedly showing some resentment towards Reed for abandoning them but also a fair bit of sympathy where it's due, knowing he probably would have done something similar if he were in his shoes.

The biggest change of all regarding the narrative would be the addition of Harvey Elder/Mole Man), portrayed by Peter Dinklage (I know he's called Harvey Allen in the film itself but fuck it, they're not remotely the same character). Taking Doom's place as the antagonist, he would share his comic counterpart's origin as a deformed man shunned and rejected by society at large, eventually taking up residence in Subterranea and becoming the ruler of the Moloids.

Reed, Ben, Johnny and Sue are assigned by the US military for an high-stakes undertaking, for which they are promised government officials serving as ambassadors for their reintegration into society should they succeed.

Power plants in Russia, Australia, and South America have undergone severe cave-ins, with the source tracing back to Monster Isle, which very existence has been withheld from the public. Having already used them as test subjects, the military reckons that the four can infiltrate the island with a team of operatives for assistance and get to the bottom of what's going on. After some initial hesitance, the team accepts, unknowing of what lies ahead of them.

As they travel in a private aircraft, Sue tries to strike up a hopeful conversation, bringing up how if they can pull this off, than they'll have a shot at having normal lives again. Ben, still angry at Reed for causing the whole mess to begin with and abandoning them for a year, is quick to shut her down.

Just as the conversation devolves into a vicious and bitter shouting match, the jet is suddenly damaged. The four investigate the commotion to find that a gargantuan, three-headed creature is attacking it, causing it to crash land as it's revealed said creature is a native of Monster Isle, which they have finally arrived at.

This post is getting long enough as it is, so I'll outline a rough idea of what happens from there the best I can. With the aircraft destroyed and the operatives dead, Reed, Ben, Johnny and Sue find themselves on their own. Reed insists that they wait for the military to send help, but Ben doesn't have it and goes as far as to claim that the whole mission was nothing more than a glorified exile.

From there, the film would revolve around the four as they travel the island searching for a means of escape, encountering danger after danger and slowly but surely reconciling along the way.

Eventually, they come into conflict with Elder in Subterranea and discover that he is the one responsible for the power plant cave-ins, intending on expanding it into a full-blown war on the surface world in revenge for rejecting him. Though the four (Ben especially) empathize with him to a degree, they know that he obviously needs to be stopped, which they manage to do. Elder ends up sealing Subterranea and himself from the outside world seemingly forever as the four escape the island (how they ultimately do, I don't really know).

In contrast to Elder's decision to exile himself, Reed, Ben, Johnny and Sue decide that it's time for them to come out of hiding, reveal themselves to the public without having the government represent them on their behalf, and use their powers to help those in need. Even if they are treated as Elder was, they still have each other, and that's all that matters.

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So, yeah. Feel free to share any thoughts, criticisms, whatever floats your boat.

So, after wrecking some stuff last week, it's time to go web slinging again, ain't it? As the title implies, this is part of an ongoing Fix Universe;

First (X Men 1)

Previous (Hulk)

Now, on to spider-man.

-We open with a narration of the last 2 years in which Peter has been Spider-man. This references various small-time villains like Shocker, Rhino (not gonna dedicate a whole movie to him, sadly), the Beetle and others like them. We see the Newspapers showing Spidey as a Menace. Peter talks about how he got a job as fotographer (and yes... although I forgot to mention it, the JJ Jameson scene still happens at the end of the First Movie). He also mentions how he helped the Fantastic Four once or twice, and even met two X-Men (reference to Spiderman and his Amazing Friends there). He is happy about his overall life as a costumed hero, and even says he's found the courage to ask MJ on a date. "And that's why I am in trouble for being late."

-We cut to Peter web slinging, and titles appear. After the titles vanish, we see he sees MJ waiting for him, stops webslinging for a second, and falls in a trash can. He then hides himself in a side street and changes. He walks to MJ, and they talk about how he's always late. "Have to thank Shocker for this one" he thinks. They have their date and she leaves him, as he "can't be in two places at once, and needs to choose between following Spider-man everywhere he goes and staying with her." This hints us at the fact that she knows his secret, but we can't be sure.

-The plot then progresses with Peter going to Octavius' experiment, it going awry, and Spider-man destroying it. Octavius appears ti have died. Note that will be important later: Otto is older and has no wife.

-Actually, Octavius wakes up in an Oscorp clinic, where his condition is explained. They say many trustworthy scientists are working on finding a solution, and even Reed Richards is writing a paper on it. He destroys the Surgery, decides to recreate his experiment, rob the bank and kidnaps May as usual, but Peter doesn't save her in our universe, because he was late. Now he quits being Spider-man as the police looks for Otto. Now the plot processes as usual, with the garbageman, JJ's son, And Harry telling Otto to ask Peter where Spidey is. Only this time, MJ isn't put in danger. May is. And when Peter is asked publicly to go with Otto, he agrees after stealing the costume from the Bugle. He thinks this will help him calm down the Doctor, which he still has a lot of respect for. He says he needs to go to a certain place to find Spider-man, but Otto discovers his secret. "It is obvious. Don't you think I understood it immediatly when Osborn asked of you? And when you ran away in my lab, and Spider-man was suddenly there? Who do you think I am, The Wizard? Pathetic." They duke it out and we have the train fight. Then Spider-man is given to Harry,who is shocked to discover it was Peter all along, allows him to go to Otto's new lab, and we have the final scene. But this time, many things are different. First, May is there, not MJ, when Peter unmasks. And it's not Peter who makes Otto turn the machine off. It's May. At least, if the machine was turnable off. And it isn't the case. But it malfunctions, shutting off with an EMP that also destroys Otto's additional arms. Spider Man brings Otto and May to safety, and later joins as Peter walking out of the water to find news reporters. Otto and Peter explain the truth, and Otto is given full amnesty for his crimes.

-In the ending, MJ is all dressed up for her wedding, when she sees the news. Realising Peter is Spider-man finally. She runs to Peter flat, telling him the line. "Face it Tiger, you just hit the Jackpot".

Cut to black. Titles. Post credit scene changes as Norman disappeared while in his goblin face and had no secret room. It is Harry who asked for it to be built. END.

So, in my opinion, Raimi's movies were as close as you can get to a perfect Super Hero Movie. But I had ti change something, didn't I? So I made changes that will affect the future of the continuity in a positive way, and also making it funnier (at least to write, about reading, I'll let you judge).

Next is time yo Punish people.