Despite cameoing in a handful of projects in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, it’s been five years since the X-Men have united in live-action. Marvel recovered the rights to adapt X-Men comics way back in 2019, and since then, the studio has teased the arrival of mutants in the MCU in every way possible. It’s even bringing back the original X-Men to help end the Multiverse Saga with a bang in Avengers: Doomsday and, presumably, Secret Wars. As exciting as that is, though, it doesn’t distract from the elephant in the room: the world needs a new X-Men movie, and development has been slow, at best.
Fortunately, there’s plenty to watch while we wait for Marvel to get its act together. Apart from the fantastic animated shows and the live-action Legion, there’s a whole saga of X-Men films to revisit (or watch for the first time) in the interim. But after nearly 30 years, said saga has grown unwieldy, to the point where its most recent installments have turned its confusing continuity into a punchline. It’s made the idea of returning to the franchise for a casual rewatch into a less-than-appealing task: how does one make sense of a 14-film series that retcons and reboots its main timeline at every opportunity?
