The upcoming Deadpool movie made quite a splash at Comic-Con 2015, in part because the trailer actively made fun of the fact that 20th Century Fox completely screwed up the character in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
It was a cute joke, and the apology was a long time coming, but it only calls attention to the fact that although Fox has turned the X-Men into an incredibly lucrative movie franchise, they have a long history of completely screwing up classic X-Men characters in one way or another. Reducing great mutants to pointless cameos, repeatedly reintroducing the same characters over and over again and just hoping we wouldn’t notice, these are just a few examples from a studio that didn’t always have a plan in place for the X-Men series. For fans of the comics it has been frustrating as hell.
Related: Comic Con 2015: X-Men! Mutants! Fantastic Four!
With more X-Men movies on the horizon – probably forever at this rate – Crave is taking stock of 12 great characters from the comics who got completely screwed over by the films. Sometimes more than once.
Fox, you may have fixed Deadpool, but you still have a long way to go to remove all of this red from your ledger. Get cracking!
14 Mutants Who Got Screwed Over By The X-Men Movies:
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
12 Mutants Who Got Screwed Over in the X-Men Movies
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Psylocke
The fan favorite X-Men hero Psylocke was inexplicably turned into a villain in X-Men: The Last Stand, but her role was so tiny that most folks didn't even notice she was there. She was played by a 26-year-old Meiling Melançon in The Last Stand, and will now be played by the 35-year-old Olivia Munn in X-Men: Apocalypse, which takes place decades earlier.
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Sabretooth
Wolverine's arch-nemesis Sabretooth was one of the most popular villains in the comics, but when the time came to put him in the first X-Men movie they turned the wily sociopath into a lunkheaded Magneto crony with an embarrassing look and nothing to do but fight Wolverine at the end. Liev Schreiber played a much better version of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but no attempt was made to explain how the character changed from a smart and dangerous villain into a hulking idiot between the films.
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Jubilee
A beloved character from the 1990s - when she served as the X-Men's de facto teen protagonist, sidekick to Wolverine and the star of Generation X and the X-Men animated series - Jubilee was reduced to cameo status in the first two films, and had nothing to do but get kidnapped. Jubilee will reappear in X-Men: Apocalypse, but since that film takes place decades before the original movies, trying to fix her will only junk up the chronology of the movies even more.
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Callisto
The leader of the Morlocks has a prominent supporting role in X-Men: The Last Stand... as a pointless lackey who works for Magneto and has a different mutant's powers. The filmmakers apparently confused Callisto with Caliban (who has the ability to track other mutants) and either didn't care, or didn't bother to check their work.
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Emma Frost
She was one of the X-Men's most popular villains and later became one of the most popular X-Men, thanks to her no-nonsense attitude, confrontational sexuality and controversial romance with Cyclops. But in the movies she appeared as a teenaged kidnapping victim in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, an adult supervillain embarrassingly played by a sleepy-eyed January Jones in X-Men: First Class (which took place two decades prior to her teen years in X-Men Origins), and then she died off-camera between First Class and Days of Future Past. One of the best X-Men characters ever, totally wasted time and time again by the films.
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Angel
Although Warren Worthington III was one of the original founding members of the X-Men in the comics, in the films he didn't show up until X-Men: The Last Stand, in which he got to stand around, fly for a moment, and then ask to stay at Xavier's Mansion. That's it, nothing else. They cast a great actor in the role, Ben Foster (The Messenger), but did absolutely nothing with the character, who hasn't been seen or mentioned since.
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Bishop
The time-traveling mutant Bishop was one of the most important X-Men characters in the 1990s, coming back in time to prevent a disaster that wound up shaking the Marvel Universe to its very core. But in the movies he only made a brief appearance in X-Men: Days of Future Past, in which he didn't go back in time and doesn't have any dialogue to speak of, even though he's played by acclaimed actor Omar Sy. What a waste...
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Juggernaut
In the comics, Juggernaut is Charles Xavier's brother and one of the X-Men's greatest foes. (He was also not a mutant, getting his indestructible powers from mysticism instead.) In X-Men: The Last Stand he's a leather fetishist who only shows up to reference the god awful "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch" internet meme that wasn't all that funny in the first place. The fans all wanted him in the movies, but not like this.
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Toad
Toad is one of the original X-Men villains, who started out as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and even went on to lead the team himself. Although Ray Park was well cast as Toad in the first X-Men movie, he had very little to do and wound up the victim of one of the most notoriously bad movie deaths in history. "Do you know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning?" Yes, and we also know what happens when he gets screwed over by the X-Men movies.
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Multiple Man
Although he was originally a very minor character in the X-Men comics, Multiple Man eventually became a breakout character who starred in multiple series of his own, and become the Marvel Universe's greatest detective. In X-Men: The Last Stand he's a cameo character who exists to distract faceless soldiers and then never make an appearance in the series again.
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Deadpool
Ryan Reynolds was the perfect Deadpool in the prologue of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, kicking ass and quipping with the best of them. Then they recast the character mid-film and sewed his mouth shut, basically turning him into a generic villain that had nothing to do with the beloved Merc with a Mouth. At least the upcoming Deadpool movie seems intent on fixing Fox's mistake, but this remains one of the most egregious misuses of a character in a franchise that's already filled with them.
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Cyclops
Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men, but you wouldn't know it from watching the films. Played as a drab stick in the mud by James Marsden in the first two films, killed off-screen in the third, and then reappearing as a teenager in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (set two decades before his first appearance as as a 27-year-old in X-Men, screwing up the whole timeline), Cyclops never got a fair shake from the film franchise. Heck, they hardly even gave him a chance.
