Over the course of six X-Men movies covering two different timelines, the cinematic world of the mutants has seen more characters come along than we can honestly keep track of. However, the newest entry is looking to bring back a couple of characters we've met before. A new report claims that Fox is currently in negotiations with actors Evan Jonigkeit and Gregg Lowe, which would mean we'll be seeing the return of mutants Toad and Ink, who last appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
If you don't even remember the characters of Ink and Toad appearing in X-Men: Days of Future Past, you'd be forgiven, as neither were in the film for very long. Both were members of the military outfit approached by William Stryker in Vietnam that also included the characters of Daniels and Havok. Stryker was going to bring them into his Mutant Research Program before Mystique arrived to liberate the team. The four mutants then boarded a plane for the states, and Havok was the only character we followed after that, though we also see a much older Ink in one of the mutant camps in the film's futuristic setting.
The report from ThatHashtagShow doesn't seem to know how the two characters will be used in X-Men: Dark Phoenix. The supposition is that Magneto will begin to form the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or something similar, in the new film, and that he'll recruit Toad to be part of the team. That makes some sense as Toad is one of the mutants aligned with Magneto at the beginning of the original X-Men film, played by Ray Park, and while that film now may not have happened, at least not in the same way, thanks to changes in the timeline, we would still expect some elements to play out as they did before.
As far as how Ink will be part of the story, the character's face tattoo is that of a phoenix, and in the comics it gives him the ability to tap into similar powers as the Phoenix Force, which, based on the title of the new movie, will be at the forefront of the plot, so this will likely all come into play.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix will be the second time in the film franchise that the movies have tried to bring the Phoenix saga to the big screen. The version seen in X-Men: The Last Stand was generally panned by critics and audiences. The fact that Jessica Chastain has been cast in the new movie, reportedly in the role of Lilandra, would seem to indicate that the new film will be telling a version of the story more directly inspired by the comic, which may be the piece that was missing last time.
