X-Men Timeline: The Ultimate Guide

The X-men is a superhero movie franchise based on a paramilitary group of what society calls mutants. Charles Xavier leads this group by opening a school to train them and gives them visibility to the world. Of course, that does not always go well, as many people are against mutants. It originally appeared in the comic books of the same name, created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. It has a total of 13 movies and has grossed around six billion dollars since the first movie was released in 2000.

The X-Men work to fight equality and peace between mutants and humans and try to save the world from supernatural evil forces. They are called the X-Men mainly because of the X factor that corresponds to a gene that is not known and causes the person to become a mutant.

Unlike other superhero movies, with X-men, when a superhero enters the group, he or she will have to learn how to fight in a team and against villains instead of knowing it all. That brings a sense of fragility to the hero that people can relate to. Instead of this idea of overpowered superheroes, we encounter human beings with superpowers instead. However, they suffer just like any human.

The following content has spoilers about all X-Men movies, so tread lightly if you do not want to be spoiled!!

You should watch the X-men in chronological order as it will give you a better sense of the universe, despite the inconsistency in quality throughout. It follows the creation of the X-Men by Professor Xavier as well as the school for mutants. This school is there to enable mutants to understand their powers and to teach them how to live in a society with regular people in the real world. Here's the X-Men timeline in order of movies released.

• X-Men: July 14, 2000
• X2: May 2, 2003
• X-Men: The Last Stand: May 26, 2006
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine: May 1, 2009
• X-Men: First Class: June 3, 2011
• The Wolverine: July 26, 2013
• X-Men: Days of Future Past: May 23, 2014
• Deadpool: February 12, 2016
• X-Men: Apocalypse: May 27, 2016
• Logan: March 3, 2017
• Deadpool 2: May 18, 2018
• Dark Phoenix: June 7, 2019
• The New Mutants: August 28, 2020

X-Men First Class

It is an origin story for relevant characters in the universe of the X-Men and how everything started out. It follows Professor Xavier and Magneto. Despite their very different backgrounds - Charles comes from a very wealthy family, while Magneto is poor and lost his parents to the war - they create a team of mutants to stop the nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union. It is set in 1962 and shows the fight between the newly formed team against Sebastian Shaw, a mutant with the power to absorb energy. However, the strength of the war separated the two friends.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Mutants are killed by robots known as sentinels. Created by Dr Bolivar Trask, that replaced Senator Kelly as the person whose assassination will ruin everything, these killing robots can detect mutant genes and track them down. Wolverine volunteers and Pryde sends him back to 1973 to kill the inventor of those murderous machines. Although this movie takes place in 2023, Wolverine goes back to the '70s, and it is where most of the movie is set. Wolverine has a hard time figuring out Where Dr Bolivar might be and what his plan involves, but soon finds out in the worst possible way.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It follows the origin of Wolverine and its beginnings with his brother. Since his childhood in Canada before they ran away. Trying to find a secure place from his terrorizing past, Wolverine finds love in Kayla Silverfox. But that soon goes down when Victor Creed, his brother, kills Kayla. That brings Wolverine to sign up for the Weapon X program, where a very painful procedure is made on him and his bones turn into adamantium and become pretty much indestructible. Wolverine seeks revenge on Victor. It also follows their fight in the Vietnam War and his inclusion of Team X.

X-Men: Apocalypse

It follows Apocalypse, the first mutant ever and also the strongest and the disturbances it causes with its arrival. In a tomb, in Egypt, he awakes after thousands of years and he calls Magneto to join his team. Professor X and Raven put a team of young X-men. The X-Men will try to stop him as Apocalypse calls on The Four Horsemen to help him and to try and destroy the world and all mankind. In the final battle, the X-men arrive in Cairo and find out Professor X is being controlled by Apocalypse, who is trying to distort and communicate with other mutants around the world.

Dark Phoenix

Following the victory after they defeated Apocalypse, mutants are highly regarded throughout the world. It follows the powerful and formidable Jean Grey and what happens when they try to save some astronauts from space. During the mission to rescue, Jean Grey is almost killed by a massive energy force that increases her powers but also brings up some suppressed memories. Once she returns to earth, the X-men will try to defeat her without killing her, because she is not only a lot more powerful, she is also very unstable, making many aliens try and control her because of her new abilities.

X-Men

It follows the different sides of the Mutant Registration Act, meaning all mutants had to register their name in a government database and how everything unfolds. Professor X is against the act, and Magneto is in favour, which brings conflict to the story. Magneto also wants to turn every world leader into a mutant with the help of a new mutant called Rogue, as he believes mutants and humans should not live on the same planet. These extraordinary powers reveal themselves when a mutant hits puberty, and because the world is yet to get accustomed to mutants, there is a lot of hate.

X2

Nightcrawler, a mutant from Xavier school, attempts to assassinate the US president, and the government starts to investigate the Xavier School, mostly because they know about Wolverine’s past and hold the key for both the future of the school and the X-Men. Unfortunately, Stryker captures Professor Xavier and Cyclops after an assault on the school, and we later find out Stryker was controlling professor Xavier and Nightcrawler. After leaving the cell Magneto asks for a partnership between him and Xavier and the X-men, to fight this enemy they have in common. The fighting also brings back the infamous mutant registration act.

X-Men: The Last Stand

The movie follows the efforts to find a cure for a mutant genome and the turning point that causes it. The hypothetical cure brings further division within the mutant's world, as they can now surrender their powers in exchange to become fully humans, or keep the powers and maintain their unique genes. Magneto forms the Brotherhood of Mutants, and Professor X finds out that Jean Grey's death brought other consequences. The movie revolves around the fight between Professor X, who advocates tolerance between all, and Magneto, who preaches survival of the fittest as they try to fit the mutants back into society.

The Wolverine

After Wolverine kills Jean Grey, he moves to the remote woods and is discovered by Yukio. She is a mutant with the power to see future death, and they both go to Japan to find Ichiro Yashida, an important leader that Wolverine saved from the atomic bombing in Nagasaki. Wolverine finds himself in a Japan that he has not seen in a long time, involved in weird yakuza and samurai fights. He then goes against the daughter of a very important industrialist and fights with the possibility of his own death, as well as the haunting ghosts of his past.

Deadpool

It follows the hero Deadpool and its origin story. Deadpool is a former Special Forces commander, who now works as a mercenary. The mercenary Wade Wilson falls in love and soon finds out that he has terminal cancer, and that leads him to a brand new experimental treatment that turns him into a mutant, although that also turns him into a misconfigured person. That experience is conducted by a mad scientist called Ajax, that after a long time of torture leaves him with accelerated healing powers and a very dark sense of humour. With the help of Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Deadpool tries to find the man who almost killed him.

Deadpool 2

Deadpool meets Russell, who is a very angry teenage mutant living in an orphanage. He soon finds out Cable, a Genetically mutated soldier from the future, is after him. Deadpool teams up with other heroes to form the X-force and try to stop Cable. Domino, Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Peter form a new group called X-Force to stop Cable from killing the new mutant called Russel Collins that murdered the whole family of Cable. Once Deadpool finds out about that, he is in a struggle between helping Russell Collins or letting Cable do what he has to do to kill him.

The New Mutants

This movie is about five new mutants - Wolfsbane, Mirage, Cannonball, Sunspot and Magik - that perform surgery and treatments in a secret institution that claim to cure them of their powerful and dangerous abilities. Dr Cecilia Reyes, asks them to share their stories, but soon their memories start to remember everything they had to go through during the treatment of their powers and many questions are revealed to the teenagers. From their horrible realities during the procedure to who is in charge of destroying them, who held them, who put them there in the first place. A terrifying place to be as a teenager.

Logan

In the near future, Logan is a limo driver and no longer possesses the same strength he once had. He follows Professor X to a remote place on the Mexican border. But his plan to get away from the outside world blows when Logan meets a young mutant, with who he identifies. He is then trying to protect the girl and fight everyone that tries to capture her. The fact that no mutants had been born in the last 25 years, makes Logan's quest a lot harder, as powerful people try to get their hands on what is probably the last mutant on earth.

Marvel got back the rights for X-Men from the 20th Century. We can expect new movies and tv shows coming up, as well as crossovers between the X-Men universe and Marvel. There are many hopes now for the X-Men world belonging to Marvel. The company has a proven record of making great superhero movies that last for years, and also an intricate timeline that crosses over all the time and gives the viewer an immersion feeling.

Because since the merge there has been many talks and rumours on how X-Men will get introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, people have been wondering how Marvel is going to pull it off. Well, it turns out some people say X-Men will be brought to the MCU by a villain. If Marvel follows the multiverse road, then it is very plausible, but how that leads to any villain from X-Men reaching MCU, is still unknown.

With the arrival of Deadpool 3, there is a chance of that happening, as we know for sure that he can crossover from X-Men’s universe to Marvel’s universe. Until we wait for more details on the new Deadpool movie we will have to be expectant about it and hope something will emerge soon enough.

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