With the highly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday just a few months away, Marvel fans everywhere are gearing up for it by rewatching movies starring the Avengers, X-Men, and more. In fact, the MCU just announced an official watchlist of everything you need to see before the latest movie arrives. The projects they consider essential are X-Men, X2: X-Men: United, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Loki, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Captain America: Brave New World, Deadpool & Wolverine, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. With the likes of the Fox X-Men, Gambit, Shang-Chi, Loki, and more appearing in the trailer, as well as the return of Steve Rogers, those choices mostly make sense. That said, the list omits one specific movie featuring the X-Men, and it makes no sense.
The lack of X-Men: Days of Future Past from this essential watchlist is baffling. While the main point of the film focuses on the prequel version of the X-Men, who aren’t part of Avengers: Doomsday, the storyline and conclusion are exactly what you need to see ahead of the upcoming blockbuster.
Released in 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past is the sequel to the great X-Men: First Class, yet it also brings in the original big-screen versions of the X-Men. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, and more returned for this movie, which involves time travel. If you’re someone who only watched the original X-Men trilogy and skipped the prequels, or if you just forgot what happened in these films, then seeing characters like James Marsden’s Cyclops and Patrick Stewart’s Professor X in the Avengers: Doomsday trailer likely surprised you. Both were famously killed off in X-Men: The Last Stand.
Although Professor X came back in different ways over the years and has died in several films, including the watchlist’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, X-Men: Days of Future Past explains how these characters are back. Wolverine goes back to the ’70s to change history and prevent the Sentinels from obtaining Mystique’s mutant ability, which could make them adaptable and unstoppable, leading to the eventual extinction of mutants. When Logan and younger versions of Professor X, Magneto, and the rest of the team succeed, it changes the franchise forever.
Wolverine’s consciousness returns from the ’70s, yet he wakes up in a different world than he was used to. His suspicions get confirmed when he sees Jean Grey, whom he had to kill to save everyone in X-Men: The Last Stand. Cyclops also comes up to him, as the mission in the ’70s completely altered the timeline. It’s not clear how exactly it did that, but ever since it did, Cyclops and Jean Grey are no longer dead. It marked a happy ending for Wolverine and the team at the time, though Avengers: Doomsday will likely change that.
The most recent teaser released for Avengers: Doomsday reveals just a bit more about the plot. Sue Storm explains that she knew Victor Von Doom in the past, but everything he loved was taken from him, and now he’s a broken man. We then hear Doom himself say, “All of you have lived stolen lives.” That’s said over shots of Professor X, Magneto, Steve Rogers with his baby, and Thor with his adopted daughter. It seems like Doom is coming after people who should have died and found a way to get a second chance, which his family apparently didn’t.
Steve Rogers gave himself a different life at the end of Avengers: Endgame, while Love was dead until Gorr wished her back to life at the end of Thor: Love and Thunder, where she became Thor’s adopted daughter. X-Men: Days of Future Past explains how the X-Men are in a similar position. Due to their time travel antics, characters like Cyclops and Jean Grey are now alive. The X-Men meddled with time, which ended up giving a few characters stolen lives.
Not including X-Men: Days of Future Past on the watchlist ahead of Avengers: Doomsday makes no sense, especially if these stolen lives are going to play a crucial part in the film’s plot. It’s important to have context for why the X-Men are back and on Doom’s hit list.
You can stream X-Men: Days of Future Past on Disney+.
