Director Bryan Singer has been taking full advantage of Instagram over the last several months to tease the production of X-Men: Apocalypse, from giving us our first official look at Jean Grey and Jubilee at the mall, to confirming that Cyclops and Havok share the same parents in this universe. Now his newest picture brings fans a blast from the past, and I’m not talking about how the movie is set in 1983. Take a look!
Here we have a group of uniformed men out in forest armed only with bow and arrows (though two of the guys on the right may be holding some kind of spears). The only clue Singer provided with the photo is the line "The past catches up," which doesn’t offer much elaboration on what exactly is going on here. At least the weather looks pleasant enough.
What first comes to mind when I see these primitive weapons is Magneto. His metal-controlling abilities render any normal gun or firearm useless, which is why the government has been known to rely on plastic weaponry when combating the mutant. If those aren’t available, then bow and arrows are another good alternative. Assuming this scene isn’t just set in the 1980s, and these guys are deciding to go old school with their hunt for Magneto, a likely scenario is that this could be a flashback to Magneto’s young adulthood after World War II. Plastic weapons weren’t around then, so if these guys (presumably Nazis) wanted to capture the young mutant without any incidents, they would have to rely on weapons fashioned from wood and stone to take him down.
Another possibility is that this scene involves the film’s titular villain. In the comics, Apocalypse has wandered the Earth for millennia, so him showing up in the early 20th century is quite plausible. The problem with this scenario is that it doesn’t explain why the men are using these types of weapons, but if Apocalypse was somehow able to destroy all their guns, then perhaps they had to rely on the bow and arrows for a final stand against him. Again, it’s hard to determine what is happening in the picture without more context, but hopefully these guys have good aim with those bow and arrows for whoever they’re looking for/arming themselves against.
Specific plot details on X-Men: Apocalypse are being kept under wraps, but the story will see the mutant superheroes battling the molecule-controlling antagonist, and the aftermath of this conflict will impact the course of history within this world. The film will also mark the conclusion of the "First Class" trilogy that began in 2011. You can catch it in theaters on May 27, 2016.
