They haven’t quiiiiiite been folded into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe yet, but Wolverine, Magneto and the gang are pretty close to hand if you know where to look.
Those in the mood for some mighty Marvel mutant mayhem should jump onto Disney+, where every single X-Men film is now streaming. They’re also available to rent or buy from Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, Microsoft, and Prime Video.
The sprawling X-Men cinematic saga began all the way back in 2000, at the dawn of the current superhero boom, debuting a little after Blade (1998) but a bit before Spider-Man (2002).
X-Men begat—in release order—the markedly better X2 (2003), the not-as-bad-as-you-remember X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), absolute catastrophe X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), top notch soft reboot X-Men: First Class (2011), Wolvie-versus-ninjas banger The Wolverine (2013), the triumphant return to form X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), fan fave Deadpool (2016), total garbage fire X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), masterpiece Logan (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018), the bafflingly bad X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), and the unfairly maligned The New Mutants (2020).
So, quite a mixed bag.
But there’s gold to be sieved here. The essential conceit of the X-Men mythos, an oppression allegory where superpowered mutants either protect a world that hates and fears them or else strike back at hostile humanity, has huge cultural resonance. It helps when your key players are the likes of Sir Patrick Stewart as benevolent Professor X and Sir Ian McKellan as terrorist/freedom fighter Magneto, bringing gravitas to what was thought of, at the time anyway, as a juvenile genre.
X-Men also gave us Hugh Jackman as the razor-clawed Wolverine, and in doing so gave Jackman a much different career than the song-and-dance man could possibly have envisioned for himself, the steel corridors of the Alkaline Lake Weapon X facility being a long way from Broadway. But for better or worse, Wolverine is his signature role now. Spin up an X-Men movie tonight and find out why.
