Having a hard time distinguishing between the fire guy, the other fire guy, the ice guy, the guy with the tattoo, and the other guy with the tattoo in those X-Men: Days of Future Past teasers? We’ve got you covered. …
Beast/Hank McCoy (played by Nicholas Hoult) (Expand the gallery to fullscreen for the complete mutant breakdowns.) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Beast (Hank McCoy)
Powers: Improved strength and dexterity, prehensile toes
In the Comics: One of the five original X-Men, Beast is a genius whose frustration with his crude physical power set led him to tamper with his genetic makeup. The experiment backfired, turning him blue and furry. Beast's a mainstay of the X-Men, but he's been getting increasingly unhinged lately, dabbling in timeline-crossing and turning up his interest in the mad end of science.
In the Movies: Comics Beast has always been a confident dude, balancing the beast and the scientist with aplomb. But while his original film incarnation (played by Kelsey Grammer) stayed in line with that, Nicholas Hoult played him as painfully bashful in X-Men: First Class (where, like his comics counterpart, a botched experiment turned him blue). In Days of Future Past, Hoult says he'll be switching between human-passing and blue versions, although details remain, well, fuzzy.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Bishop/Lucas Bishop (played by Omar Sy) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Bishop (Lucas Bishop)
Powers: Energy absorption and redirection
In the Comics: Bishop is a mutant cop from a dark future who joined the X-Men after getting stuck in the present while chasing some supervillains through time. His knowledge of the future has averted some disasters, but caused just as many through wacky misunderstandings—like the one that led him to spend years barreling around the timestream trying to murder a baby.
In the Movies: All we really know about movie Bishop so far is that he's from the future, looks really cool, and has a sweet laser rifle.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Blink/Clarice Ferguson (played by Bingbing Fan) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Blink (Clarice Ferguson)
Powers: Teleportation
In the Comics: The Blink of the main Marvel Universe has been dead for years. The one who shows up in comics these days is a refugee of the Age of Apocalypse timeline who survived the (later retconned away) destruction of that world and traveled with the universe-hopping Exiles before finally settling in the 616. All you really need to know, though, is that she teleports and has bitchin' facepaint.
In the Movies: In the dark-future scenario of DOFP, Movie Blink seems to be part of a band of rebels, so her post-apocalyptic origins seem to be intact. For the rest, we'll have to wait and see.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr (played by Michael Fassbender and Ian McKellen) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Magneto (Erik Lehnsherr)
Powers: Manipulation of magnetic fields
In the Comics: Magneto is Professor X's star-crossed on-again-off-again Best Frenemy. In addition to being a supervillain and mutant supremacist, he's a Holocaust survivor and occasional Nazi hunter. Over the years, Magneto's powers have encompassed a remarkably generous definition of magnetism—including, briefly, "magnetic personality." Magneto also has a bunch of kids, most notably quasi-incestuous wonder twins Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.
In the Movies: Same deal, pretty much, but with more blatant homoerotic subtext and Sebastian Shaw retconned into his backstory.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Professor X/Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
In the Comics: The father of the X-Men and Magneto's on-again-off-again Best Frenemy, Charles Xavier is (usually) an omega-level telepath. He also romanced a space babe and was briefly a mass-murderer, which is something the comics tend to pretty much gloss over.
In the Movies: Movie Xavier is smoother and—at least in his retro version—has hair.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Colossus/Piotr Rasputin (played by Daniel Cudmore) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Colossus (Piotr Rasputin)
Powers: Organic steel skin, strength, durability
In the Comics: Comics Colossus was created during the Cold War, and he started out like every Soviet bumpkin stereotype, calling everyone "Comrade" and the like. Later he joined Magneto's space cult, died briefly and came back, and hosted some cosmic forces. Oh, and he has a little sister who's basically the dictator of a Hell dimension.
In the Movies: Colossus hasn't had a whole lot to do so far. Like his comics counterpart, he's a sweet, stoic dude who looks good without a shirt, and that's good enough for us.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
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Mystique/Raven Darkholme (played by Jennifer Lawrence) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Mystique (Raven Darkholme)
Powers: Shapeshifting, including vocal mimicry
In the Comics: Mystique is basically a shapeshifting-bisexual-lady-supervillain James Bond in the comics. She's Nightcrawler's mother and Rogue's adopted mother (and maybe biological father; it's complicated). She's also been a thorn in the side of nearly everyone—hero or villain—at one time or another.
In the Movies: Mystique is Charles Xavier's sort-of-unofficially-adopted sister. She's been played by Rebecca Romjin and Jennifer Lawrence, and in both interations, she's hard-line into mutant acceptance and head-over-heels in love with Magneto.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Havok/Alex Summers (played by Lucas Till) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Havok (Alex Summers)
Powers: Energy blasts, somehow managing to be even less cool than Cyclops
In the Comics: Comics Havok is defined primarily by being Cyclops's shitty younger brother. He shoots energy blasts and spends a lot of time trying to prove that he's not Cyclops, and one time he went on a beer-and-murders vacation with Wolverine.
In the Movies: Unless there's time travel involved—which is always possible, considering—the odds that Havok is still Movie Cyclops's little brother are slim to none, and even if you keep all the other factors the same, removing that relationship redefines the character significantly.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Iceman/Bobby Drake (played by Shawn Ashmore) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Iceman (Bobby Drake)
Powers: Ice creation/control, sass
In the Comics: Iceman has always been a reluctant superhero—at one point he even left the X-Men to go to college and become an accountant. But over the years, his powers have evolved from lobbing snowballs to a pretty spectacular level of control, and in a recent storyline, he learned that he's gonna become a freakin' ice wizard, righteous beard and all.
In the Movies: Movie Iceman is a generation younger and a little less sophisticated power-wise than his print counterpart—he can create and manipulate ice, but not turn into it—but otherwise, he's pretty close to the original model.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Ink/Eric Gitter (played by Gregg Lowe) Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
Ink (Eric Gitter)
Powers: Has tattoos that give him superpowers and can therefore force me to type "has tattoos that give him superpowers."
In the Comics: Ink was a dude who thought he was a mutant because he manifested powers based on the tattoos he got. But it turned out his tattoo artist was actually a mutant and—sorry. This is just too stupid.
In the Movies: Seriously, out of all the options out there, why on Earth is Ink in the movies? His power is dumb, not really his, and ultimately a waste of screen space.
Photos by Marvel/20th Century Fox, altered by WIRED
X-Men: Days of Future Past is barely a month away, bringing with it a glorious snarl of time-travel continuity and a whole new cast of characters from across the franchise. If you struggle to keep your mutants straight—the fire guy, the other fire guy, the ice guy, the guy with the tattoo, the other guy with the tattoo—never fear. Our in-house X-Perts (sorry, not sorry) have assembled a handy quick-reference field guide to the current lineup in Days of Future Past, complete with comics-to-movie comparisons and one or two twisted family backstories. We’ll be posting 10 today and another 10 later this week—with updates every time a new addition lights up on Cerebro. (Of course WIRED has its own Cerebro. What do you think this is, the 20th century?)
