X-Men Apocalypse: Magneto innamorato e paterno
We look at the significance of the X-Men: Days of Future Past Post-Credits scene and what it means for the next X-Men movie.
This article contains major spoilers for X-Men: Days of Future Past and potential spoilers for the next X-Men movie, X-Men: Apocalypse. Read no further if you don't want to know any more. We have a far less spoiler-y review that you can read here.
These days, it's more of a shock if a superhero movie doesn't have some kind of post-credits scene as opposed to those that do. X-Men: Days of Future Past certainly has one, but it takes a more unique approach to showing fans what's coming next...by first looking to the past.
While X-Men: Days of Future Past deals primarily with a dystopian future and the less than rosy past of 1973, its post-credits sequence is another matter entirely. While brief, the film takes us back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt, and introduces a mysterious, powerful, grey-skinned mutant.
Who is he? This is En Sabah Nur. Soon, he will come to be known as Apocalypse.
While Apocalypse became one of the X-Men’s greatest foes after his first appearance in X-Factor #5 in 1986, what we’re seeing here is a callback to the origin story told in the Rise of Apocalypse mini-series from 1996 by Terry Kavanagh and Adam Pollina. En Sabah Nur is conceivably one of the world's first mutants, left out in the desert to die by his tribe because of his bizarre appearance. Soon, he was rescued by a tribe of warrior nomads who lived by a “survival of the fittest” creed that would factor heavily into his life before finding himself living under the thumb of obscure Fantastic Four villain Rama-Tut (before he became somewhat less obscure Avengers villain Kang the Conqueror).
In terms of that comic book origin story, this scene would take place shortly after En Sabah Nur fully manifests his mutant abilities, well beyond his odd appearance. What are these mutant abilities? We're glad you asked!
What you’re seeing here, as he is more or less constructing the pyramids, are manifestations of two of his abilities, telekinesis and perhaps a crude technopathy...but mostly telekinesis. What you aren’t seeing is the complete control he wields over his molecular structure, which allows him to grow, heal, regenerate, and generally be a tough sonuvabitch. If all of this sounds like fairly run-of-the-mill mutant stuff, don’t worry, there's more. Lots more.
What we haven’t seen yet, and what will presumably be detailed in some form in X-Men: Apocalypse, is how he spends the next several thousand years amassing and interfacing with all kinds of godlike alien technology. By the time he appears in the next X-Men movie, he’s likely going to be the most powerful supervillain ever seen on screen in any film, one who is not only essentially immortal, but has thousands of years of wisdom, evolution, and insane technology at his disposal. He'll be using this to preach his own view of how mutants and humans should co-exist.
If you're wondering just how much further these films can push the MLK/Malcolm X analogy with Professor X and Magneto, don't worry. There's less nuance involved with Apocalypse and his mission. He just wants the strong to survive. This may give the advantage to mutants on the surface, but even they need a bit of a push, often at the hand of Apocalypse himself.
Apocalypse’s villainous accomplishments are too lengthy to detail here, but among the most important are changing Warren Worthington III, The Angel, into Archangel, a much more formidable character with deadly razor-sharp wings. He’s also responsible for the creation of Mr. Sinister, a character who is long overdue on the big screen, as well. We may see some version of one or both of these events in the next film, although Warren Worthington may prove problematic based on the uncertain place in X-Men continuity that X3 now holds.
As evidenced by X-Men: Days of Future Past, the X-Men franchise is quite comfortable with the concept of alternate timelines. Expect Apocalypse’s finest hour to appear in some form in X-Men: Apocalypse. While it's no secret that this film will take place in the ‘80s, Simon Kinberg recently told us that it will take elements from the Age of Apocalypse storyline, which dealt with a future that will make that of Days of Future Past look like the Magic Kingdom by comparison.
X-Men: Days of Future Past resets a number of elements of the X-Men timeline, but it’s likely that still more needs to be smoothed out. One way to do this is introducing another alternate timeline, in this case the Age of Apocalypse, a world where Charles Xavier died early on, inspiring Erik Lehnsherr eto take up his cause...right before Apocalypse successfully conquers the world. Folks hoping to see Michael Fassbender’s Magneto continue on a more heroic path will get their wish, as will those looking to see this trilogy take on the “me decade” of the ‘80s. Once things are set right again, the franchise can return to the time period of its choosing with a relatively clear path for McAvoy and Fassbender to carry on as the definitive Professor X and Magneto.
So, just to boil this all down for you: a potentially immortal mutant who would already be ridiculously powerful without any enhancements but who also has access to insane alien weaponry is coming for the X-Men in 2016. Considering that X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, while among the best (if not the best) entries in the entire franchise have lacked a singular, proper villain for the team to let loose on, Apocalypse will be a welcome sight.
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