The X-Men film franchise hasn’t had the smoothest ride over its 14-year life, but thanks to the success of X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine and X-Men: Days of Future Past, the series is revitalized and looking towards the future... or rather the past. Yesterday, we reported that Fox is working on a live-action X-Men TV series. There’s plenty of mutant territory to be explored in live-action, and now we may be getting another iconic X-Men group on the small screen.
Since yesterday's big news broke, Shawn Madden of Eat Geek Play took to Twitter to explain the show will be based on the Peter David’s run of X-Factor from the early 90s.
While the first X-Factor consisted of the original X-Men lineup, the group was reorganized by David as a government sponsored mutant strike force. Jamie Madrox, a.k.a Multiple Man, was one of the original members, along with Polaris, Havok, Quicksilver, Strong Guy (yes, that’s really his name) and Wolfsbane. Madrox appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand and Quicksilver was the breakout star of Days of Future Past, but to keep things simple, it’s likely that the show will use a brand new lineup. Even if the show connects with the movies, it’s better to keep the TV characters off doing their own thing rather than having them pop back and forth between both mediums. Or they could go the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. route and bring one of the movie characters to the show and hire them as the team’s leader. Between Iceman, Colossus, Bishop, Blink and more, there are many worthy candidates among Professor Xavier’s gifted youngsters.
Madden also had the inside scoop on one of the lead mutants, saying Jamie Madrox, a mutant with the ability to duplicate himself, would be a part of the plot. He then went ahead and compared the project to a weird but critically acclaimed Fox science fiction series.
Public opinion towards mutants in the X-Men films is polarizing at best, from people wanting them exterminated to wanting to cure them of their “disabilities.” Thanks to Days of Future Past, it’s unclear how mutants are living in the revised timeline, although with Sentinels not hunting them down, anything is better by comparison. Regardless of how the public views them, the government would recognize their usefulness, so organizing a mutant strike force isn’t farfetched. The most intriguing tweet is Madden saying this show will be the “Fringe of the X-Men world.” Fox’s Fringe had the FBI investigating paranormal events around the world, and eventually major plots revolved around parallel universes and alternate timelines. If this statement is true, it’s possible X-Factor would be a military group, but rather a team investigating unusual mutants and related events. If the show really wants to emulate Fringe, they’ll need to get a kooky scientist on board. Someone who’s eccentric beyond measure, but with intelligence equally unparalleled.
Although mutants have been explored on TV with the Generation X TV movie and Mutant X an X-Factor show would be a welcome expansion of the X-Men film universe. With the main mutants fighting Sentinels and Apocalypse, they can leave the TV characters to dealing with the less explosive problems, although that doesn’t mean they’ll be any less dangerous.
