Adam Driver Is Perfect for the MCU X-Men Reboot, But He Shouldn’t Be Magneto
The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe rumors have Adam Driver joining Marvel as one of the most iconic X-Men Supervillains in history. The rumors have been running wild about who will be part of the first X-Men team once the dust clears after Avengers: Secret Wars, and the MCU kicks off its age of mutants. The early rumors indicated that it would be younger mutants, some not seen before, but those rumors are now taking a turn, and the mutant team lining up is one that might be a little too familiar for fans of the Fox movies. In fact, the latest rumors indicate that the new X-Men movies will look a little too much like the original Fox films.
The latest rumors have indicated that Margot Robbie might be playing Emma Frost on a team that includes Rogue, Storm, Cyclops, Magneto, Jean Grey, and Professor X. That lineup is straight from the first X-Men movie that Fox ever made, but with Emma as a newcomer and Magneto on the side of good. This also goes against previous rumors that Adam Driver would play Magneto, and he would be the villain of the movie.
Adam Driver Should Play Mister Sinister Instead
The news that Adam Driver might be signing on to the MCU X-Men movie as Magneto is extremely uninspired for several reasons. While Driver could possibly be great as Magneto in the movie, he would be perfect as a very different villain who has still never debuted in an X-Men movie. Adam Driver should play Mister Sinister in the MCU X-Men.
For one thing, Adam Driver could perfectly fit into the role of Mister Sinister. He doesn’t really look like any version of Magneto in comics, although he does have a stature similar to Michael Fassbender’s. It would be hard for even an actor as talented as Driver to replace someone like Ian McKellen or even Fassbender in the iconic role. That is also the big problem. Magneto was a villain in the first three X-Men movies and then a big part of the prequel movies as well. Outside of hints and Easter eggs that teased a future that never happened, though, Mister Sinister has never been in a live-action X-Men movie.
There were two moments where Mister Sinister was explicitly teased as the next Marvel big bad. The first was in X-Men: Apocalypse, where the post-credits scene showed that Mister Sinister’s company, Essex Corp, collected Wolverine’s DNA to use for the X-23 project. However, when X-23 (Laura) was finally introduced, it was in Logan, which took place in the future where all the X-Men were dead except for Logan, Professor X, and Caliban, and director James Mangold chose not to use Essex and instead had a corporation called Alkali-Transigen.
Fox still tried to fit in Mister Sinister with The New Mutants, but that ended up being the last movie in the franchise for Fox, and its commercial and critical failure left any storylines it set up dead in the water. The biggest one was that the New Mutants in the movie were not at Professor X’s institute and were instead locked in a secure facility owned by the Essex Corporation. Essex was collecting data from young mutants and either killing them or turning them into weapons. Mister Sinister was coming at that time, and he still needs to show up now.
The X-Men Need to Move On From Magneto as a Villain
If it is true, Adam Driver joining the MCU is great news. Playing Magneto is just tired and something that Marvel should be moving away from. If the lineup is no different from the original trilogy or the prequels, it seems like most fans will see it as just more of the same. There are casting rumors surrounding Rogue (Inde Navarrette and Odessa A’zion) and Storm (DeWanda Wise), and while it would be nice to see Storm finally done right after two misfires, the new X-Men movies need to seem fresh and new. Another go at Magneto would be a mistake.
Magneto has been a villain and the leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He has been a hero who helped bring down the Hellfire Club. He has been an antihero who helped stop Apocalypse and the Dark Phoenix. X-Men fans have seen enough of Magneto for now, unless he is in a smaller role, and a star like Adam Driver isn’t signing on for a small role. A villain like Mister Sinister is unlike anything the Fox movies ever presented.
The Fox movies have had evil mutants, paramilitary factions, the Dark Phoenix twice, the Hellfire Club in the 1960s, time travel in the 1970s, and Apocalypse in the 1980s. What the X-Men haven’t fought, though, is an evil geneticist who wants nothing more than to create the ultimate mutant-destroying weapon. The franchise also hasn’t seen the X-Men fight their deadliest enemies, the general public, who all live with prejudice in their hearts for anyone born different from them.
There is a chance Magneto could work in a movie about a society that hates mutants for just being born different. However, it has been far too long since World War II, so his essential Holocaust storyline can’t play out in the modern-day MCU. Magneto just doesn’t work anymore in the movies. Mister Sinister would work out perfectly, especially with both Cyclops and Jean Grey expected to be in the new X-Men movies. Mister Sinister messing with Scott Summers and Jean Grey could pay off perfectly if it is set up right. If anything, it would at least finally pay off the former teases and give comic-book fans a villain they have been waiting to see for a decade now.
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