X-Men First Class Sequel…What to expect

It’s official. FOX wants an X-Men: First Class sequel, which was pretty much guaranteed, considering the amount of critical praise the film received when it debuted in June. They’ve already signed First Class producer Simon Kinberg to pen the script, which gives me mixed emotions. Kinberg has certainly had some great films, but he’s also had his fair share of bombs. He’s the man responsible for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Sherlock Holmes. Take from that what you will…but I’m not entirely sure if he’s the right scribe for the job. Now, if Director Matthew Vaughn returns to the helm, which I hope he’ll do, then the movie has a shot greatness. Add in the mandatory inclusion of Michael Fassbender’s Magneto and James McAvoy’s Professor X, and I’d say our chances get a lot better.

Even though we’re a long way from seeing a sequel in theatres, or even seeing a draft of the script for that matter, we can still speculate on what we’ll probably see in future films. First Class left us with a strong understanding of the characters and their motives, so figuring out their next moves won’t be too difficult.

Without further ado, I present to you…

Birth of the Brotherhood

At the very end of First Class, when Magneto was fully converted to his role as the series’s arch-villain, we saw the very beginnings of his Brotherhood. He inherited Sebastian Shaw’s flunkies, along with a few notable X-Men (I’m looking at you Mystique), and thus created his familiar team of villains…but not all of the characters were fully explored. In the next film, expect a strong chunk of the movie to be devoted to the organization of a proper Brotherhood of Mutants.  Will we see Scarlet Witch? Quicksilver?  Polaris?

Active Enrollment at the Academy

So if we’re going to see more from Magneto’s Brotherhood, expect to see way more from Professor X’s Academy. In the last flick, the X-Men played second fiddle to the dynamic relationship between Charles and Erik, but with all of that squared away, we should be seeing more emphasis placed on the actual X-Men.  This means that we’ll probably be seeing the inclusion of classic characters from the X-Men mythology, which leads me to my next point…

Wolverine? Cyclops? Jean Grey?

If Professor X’s academy has finally opened its doors to students, then we should be expecting the arrival of Cyclops and Jean Grey. After all, they were Charles Xavier’s first students. I’m not really sure how Matthew Vaughn will resolve this sequel with the rest of the X-Men continuity, but hopefully he finds a way to make it all come together. I think it be a gigantic fumble if he simply refused to acknowledge the origins of Cyclops and Jean Grey as told in the original trilogy.

And what about Wolverine? We already saw him once in First Class, will we be seeing him again? Fox has already oversaturated their X-films with Jackman’s feral persona, but I know they can’t keep their gluttonous musings to themselves. Some studio big-wigs will probably try to force Wolverine into this sequel, but hopefully Vaughn resists their tampering ways.

New Villains

With Magneto official turned to the Dark Side, we should expect him to have a much larger, villainous role in the sequel. But I still think we’re going to see an original villain join him on screen. It could be a super powered lunatic like Mr. Sinister or Apocalypse, or a malign human force, like a covert government agency. I think the best choice, at least at this point in the franchise, would be to appoint Sentinels as the main antagonists.

They don’t have to be the huge, clunking piles of machinery that we’re all familiar with. Instead, the should be sleek and small…like robot ninjas. I know that sounds a little silly, but First Class set them up perfectly. At the end of the film, the government knows about mutants but the general public is still in the dark. Since they couldn’t openly hunt mutants without revealing their existence to the world, the CIA will create a mutant-hunting squad. I’m sure they’ll be adapted to the big screen, to insure that they look cool, but they’ll remain Sentinels at heart.

What do you think will be in the next film?  Sound off in the comments section below.