5. Professor Xavier
The story of Charles Xavier in the movies seems very much like the more contemporary comics, spotlighting a born leader who nonetheless remains loaded with contradictions. Patrick Stewart’s debates and discussions with Ian McKellen’s Magneto bring out the fire in the first two films, the two of them having obvious respect for each other, if distinct disdain for the other’s politics. Stewart brings such gravitas to the role that it’s almost startling to see Xavier’s common sense and rationality plunge out the window in the third film, which depicts Professor X as a schoolmarmish jerk who forces himself onto the mind of Jean Grey and eventually brings about the Phoenix. In a series filled with tumult, questionable continuity and tragedy, Stewart’s Xavier feels like a constant, a reminder that in the end, the mutants always have a home at his school.
4. Young Magneto
Michael Fassbender took over for Ian McKellen in ‘First Class’ and ‘Days Of Future Past,’ adding untold levels of sexuality to the character’s mutant leadership. You didn’t just want to follow Magneto into battle, willing to take any sort of bruises for his quest for mutant domination. You also wanted to jump in bed with him. Sure Fassbender’s accent flags considerably, but his Magneto is equal parts Malcolm X and Che Guevara, absolutely magnetic in his conviction. The first chunk of ‘First Class,”’where Fassbender tracks his Nazi tormentors, is some of the best material in these films. The manner in which he savagely executes these villains are sharp stabs at violence with considerable, cocky wit carried out by an actor at peak physical charisma.
3. Mystique
Given a massive facelift from the comics, the movies’ version of Mystique is a real show-stopper. Ostensibly the second in command to the Brotherhood of Mutants, Magneto’s bosom buddy in the first two films, played by Rebecca Romjin, is a convincingly dangerous zealot, a skilled martial artist, and a sexual nightmare: the moment where Mystique infiltrates Wolverine’s tent in “X2: X-Men United” is the most sexually-loaded moment in all superhero films, as she leafs through a list of Wolverine’s friends and enemies to find a persona that excites him. She has a real mic drop moment when approached by Nightcrawler, responding to his question about appearances with a defiance that suggests years of hard-fought oppression. The earlier films had the older Mystique as a Swiss army knife villain, one of mystery who didn’t let her facade slip. While we’re glad the new films reveal some newer aspects of her character, a little bit went an awful long way.
2. Wolverine
Oh Hugh Jackman, you devilish stud. You may not be the dream Wolverine — you’re far too handsome, and not at all close to Wolverine’s infamous 5”3 height from the comics. But we were really only a few breaths away from getting Dougray Scott as Wolverine, and if production on “Mission: Impossible 2” didn’t run long, that’s exactly what would have happened. Perish the thought. Jackman’s rise to the A-List coincided with his placement as Marvel’s treasured mutant anti-hero, and he brought a tremendous amount of loner sex appeal to one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel canon. And wouldn’t you know it, the films actually gave him an arc, as we met Logan in 2000’s “X-Men” as a troubled loner only to find him growing into the role of leader during “X-Men: The Last Stand,” a move that was later echoed by the comics. And in “The Wolverine,” it convincingly shows that arc unraveled in the wake of Jean Grey’s death, Wolverine resorting back to his hairy wanderer status as if it were some sort of lone man prophecy: he’ll live forever, which means things will keep getting taken away from him, and he’ll keep reverting back to the animal inside of him.
1. Magneto
It was “X-Men: The Last Stand” when Ian McKellen’s super villain answered a snobbish question about tattoos by rolling up his sleeve, revealing the numbers the Nazis had imprinted on his skin. This was following him interrupting a paranoid town meeting suggestion about genocide by stating, “No one ever talks about it. They just do it.” Right then and there, with Magneto making his pitch to the disenfranchised as the government planned to use the “cure” as a weapon… THAT’S the point where you stop rooting for the X-Men and realize you’re on Magneto’s side. It isn’t just that the humans are demonstrably monstrous in these films, nor is it that Professor X is so unconvincing as a leader. Rather, it’s the magnetism of McKellen, who wears his cape not as a portrait of comic excess, but because he believes the mutants should have a throne, and few have made as many sacrifices as he has in the battle to liberate mutantkind and eradicate the human threat.
Well, there we have it, thoughts? Weigh in below as usual and try not to freak out too much. – Drew Taylor, Rodrigo Perez