Summary
- The MCU might introduce fully comic-accurate X-Men costumes soon after
Deadpool & Wolverine
showcased faithful adaptations of extravagant costumes like Wolverine’s and Gambit’s. - Fox’s
X-Men
movie costumes were gradually getting closer to their comic book counterparts, but they never really captured their comic essence. - Storm, Cyclops, X-23, Rogue, Mystique, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Magneto, Dazzler, and Magik all have unique, iconic costumes waiting to be adapted for the big screen in the MCU.
After Deadpool & Wolverine finally featured two highly awaited comic-accurate X-Men costumes, the likelihood of the MCU introducing a fully comic-accurate mutant cast has skyrocketed. Deadpool & Wolverine introduced a Wolverine variant who wears his classic yellow-and-blue costume, as well as a Gambit variant who wears his iconic purple shirt, dark headpiece, and brown trenchcoat — not to mention other alternate-universe Wolverine variants, such as the one who wears a comic-accurate tan-and-brown suit while fighting the Hulk. Deadpool’s multiversal variants such as Lady Deadpool, Samurai Deadpool, and Deadpool 2099 also sport comic-accurate costumes.
Wolverine and Gambit’s comic-accurate costumes are the culmination of more than two decades of X-Men movies that tried to balance the extravagant nature of the heroes’ original costumes with realism. Fox’s X-Men movie franchise slowly integrated elements from the mutants’ comic book costumes into their live-action uniforms, but the franchise still had a long way to go when it ended. With visually faithful adaptations of Professor X, Beast, Gambit, Wolverine, and Deadpool already in the MCU, more mutants could finally wear exact recreations of their classic outfits in live-action soon.
10 Storm’s Giant-Sized X-Men Attire
Storm’s Black Costume Wasn’t Majestic Enough In Previous X-Men Movies
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Storm’s first-ever costume remains her most iconic look. Ororo Munroe made her Marvel Comics debut in 1975’s Giant-Sized X-Men #1, where Storm started wearing a black outfit with long black boots, a black head headpiece above her head, and a large black cape, adorned with a yellow outline and a red brouche. Storm’s classic costume displayed her muscular figure and her cape aided her in flight. Coupled with Storm’s voluminous white hair and striking white eyes, this costume fits Storm’s “weather goddess” fame perfectly.
Storm’s other iconic costumes include her all-white
X-Men: Gold
costume and her Asgardian costume.
Halle Berry’s Storm had the most comic-accurate costume out of all the X-Men in Fox’s first three X-Men movies, but only because every member of the team wore black leather. Berry’s Storm also wore a short black-and-silver cape, which wasn’t large enough to drape over her shoulders. Alexandra Shipp’s Storm costumes in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix only strayed further from Storm’s grandiose black-and-yellow outfit, as they were designed extremely similarly to the rest of the cast’s costumes.
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9 Cyclops’ Classic All-Blue Uniform
Cyclops’ Blue-And-Yellow Uniform Highlights His Leadership Skills
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Scott Summers made his Marvel Comics debut in 1963’s X-Men #1 wearing the uniform Professor X designed for him and the rest of the original X-Men team. Cyclops’ uniform soon evolved, with exposed hair, a yellow belt across his chest, and a utility belt. Cyclops’ most iconic costume is famous for its simplicity, which suits the character’s respect for the X-Men’s origins and values. As the X-Men’s traditional field leader, Cyclops honors the team’s roots with a slightly modernized version of the original team’s uniforms.
Cyclops’ other iconic costumes include his modern red-and-black
Uncanny
X-Men
suit and his prominently yellow
X-Factor
suit.
Cyclops’ live-action suits in the X-Men movies were regular uniforms. First, James Marsden’s Cyclops wore the same black leather suit as his teammates in the original X-Men trilogy, and then, Tye Sheridan’s Scott Summers wore the same uniform as his teammates in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. A version of Cyclops’ comic-accurate costume, complete with a belt across his chest and a silver visor, only made a brief appearance at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse.
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8 X-23’s Wolverine Costume
Laure Kinney’s All-New Wolverine Uniform Is Her First Official Superhero Costume
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Laura Kinney wore a plain black outfit for a long time since her first Marvel Comics appearance in 2004’s NYX #3, which followed her debut in 2003’s X-Men: Evolution, where she wore a black tracksuit. However, Laura eventually dropped her X-23 moniker and took up the Wolverine mantle after Logan’s death. As the All-New Wolverine, Laura Kinney wore an exact version of Wolverine’s classic yellow-and-blue costume, which also came in a black-and-gray color scheme in her X-Force days.
X-23’s other famous costumes include her black leather outfit, her Wolverine-inspider Fang costume, and her first tan-black-and-white X-Men costume.
X-23 has only appeared twice in live-action, meaning that she hasn’t had the chance to wear any superhero costume whatsoever. Fortunately, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s ending saved Dafne Keen’s X-23 both from her original timeline’s dystopic future and from the Void. Now in Deadpool’s Earth-10005, Laura Kinney can officially leave her X-23 past behind and receive Logan’s blessing to wear a costume inspired by his X-Men uniform. Thus, Dafne Keen’s Wolverine can return alongside Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, both wearing similar costumes, in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
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7 Rogue’s Casual X-Men Outfit
Rogue’s Leather Jacket Over Her X-Men Uniform Is Synonymous With Her ’90s Popularity
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Rogue went through various iterations of her original green outfit introduced in 1981’s Avengers Annual #10, where she made her debut as a villain. However, Rogue only became an A-list Marvel character in the early 1990s, when she joined the X-Men and started wearing the team’s uniform. Rogue has always displayed a tendency for casual wear, adding a wide variety of jackets, coats, belts, scarves, and sweatbands to her superhero costumes ever since then. Hence, Rogue’s most famous outfit is her yellow-and-green X-Men uniform with a brown leather jacket on top and a green sweatband that controls her voluminous curly hair.
Rogue’s other outfits include her original green-and-white villain outfit and her modernized red-and-black X-Men uniform.
Anna Paquin’s Rogue wore a casual outfit in X-Men before joining the team, after which she adopted the X-Men’s black leather uniforms. Rogue also appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past wearing a white costume, but never wore anything based on her iconic yellow-and-green look. Thanks to Rogue’s central role in X-Men ’97‘s popularity and Gambit’s highly-acclaimed comic-accurate appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine, Rogue’s first MCU appearance could adapt this outfit accurately on the big screen for the first time.
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6 Mystique’s All-White Look
Mystique’s White Dress Accentuates Her Shapeshifting Abilities
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Mystique’s debut appearance in 1978’s Ms. Marvel #16 introduced her most iconic outfit, which hasn’t changed much in over four decades. Mystique usually wears a white tunic with a loincloth, long white gloves, and long white boots, plus a skull-shaped jewel on her forehead and a belt decorated with small skulls. Mystique’s white outfit is all part of her body, which serves as a constant reminder that Mystique’s shapeshifting abilities can create any material and design she wants.
Mystique has also worn an all-black version of her classic outfit in the comics.
Mystique’s physical appearance in the X-Men movies was inspired by reptiles such as chameleons, which famously change colors; and snakes, which shed their skin regularly. Mystique’s nudity helped explain how she could shapeshift constantly, as wearing real clothes would limit her abilities in real life. However, superhero movies have now moved past the need for strict realism, as evidenced by Deadpool’s animated eyes and Wolverine’s inexplicably adaptable mask in Deadpool & Wolverine.
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5 Jean Grey’s Marvel Girl / Phoenix Jumpsuit
Green and gold, with or without a mask
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While Jean Grey’s ’90s costume, featured prominently in X-Men ’97, is one of her most popular looks, Jean’s Marvel Girl persona is an especial part of her history. Jean Grey made her debut in 1963’s X-Men #1 as Marvel Girl — a moniker that represented her innocence, and as such, returned in the mutants’ Krakoa era to signal the beginning of a peaceful era for Jean and the rest of mutantkind. Jean Grey’s Marvel Girl era is composed of a simple gren gress with a black belt, a golden mask, golden gloves, and golden boots.
Jean Grey’s other famous costumes include her original yellow-and-blue X-Men uniform, her X-Factor costume, and all color variations of her Dark Phoenix suit.
Jean Grey’s Phoenix persona played a big role in the X-Men movies, but both adaptations of Marvel’s Dark Phoenix saga left fans disappointed. The movies’ weak adaptations of the Marvel Comics storyline apart, neither Famke Janssen nor Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey wore the character’s classic yellow-and-green costume from the comics, let alone Jean’s Marvel Girl outfit. Like her teammates, the MCU’s Jean Grey could forge a more defined superhero persona with a comic-accurate costume that represents both her good and evil identities.
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4 Nightcrawler’s Red & Black Suit
Nightcrawler’s Classic Suit Is Inspired By His Circus Background
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Like Storm, Nightcrawler’s debut costume from 1975’s Giant-Sized X-Men #1 remains his most popular look. Nightcrawler’s black jumpsuit and red vest with pointy shoulder pads, white gloves, and white boots honor Kurt Wagner’s background as a circus performer known for his demonic appearance. The red-and-black color scheme contrasts with the X-Men’s traditional blue-and-yellow and green-and-yellow uniforms, but it suits the era NIghtcrawler was introduced in.
All other famous versions of Nightcrawler’s suit are slight variations of his original costume, such as his modernized
X-Men Red
uniform.
Alan Cummings’ Nightcrawler is a memorable part of X2: X-Men United, where he wears trenchcoats and striped pants as a reference to his circus background. Like his teammates, Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Nightcrawler received a more comic-accurate costume at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, which didn’t return for Dark Phoenix. The MCU can correct this mistake with a new version of Nightcrawler’s original outfit, especially if it’s less overdesigned this time around.
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3 Magneto’s Vibrant Red & Purple Costume
Magneto’s X-Men Movie Costumes Have Lacked His Original Color Scheme
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Magneto’s costume and helmet are timeless, having remained virtually unchanged for more than sixty years. Magneto’s costume is composed of a red shirt, red pants, purple trunks, purple gloves, purple boots, a purple cape with a purple collar, and a red helmet with a purple outline around its face opening and a pair of small horns. Magneto’s silver hair often pops out of the helmet, highlighting his old age.
Magneto’s other famous costumes include his all-white
Dawn of X
costume, his black-and-red
Ultimate
suit, and his black-and-white
Uncanny X-Men
suit.
Ian McKellen’s Magneto wore a more grounded version of Magneto’s iconic costume in all of his X-Men movie appearances, and Michael Fassbender’s wore slightly different variations of the same outfit. However, Magneto’s movie costumes largely lacked the vibrant red and purple color scheme his costume is known for in the comics. Fassbender’s Magneto only wore a comic-accurate version of his comic book costume at the end of X-Men: First Class, which was discarded immediately after.
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2 Dazzler’s 70s-Inspired Disco Outfit
Few Superhero Costumes Are So Closely Connected To The Hero’s Identity As Dazzler’s
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Alison Blaire a.k.a. Dazzler was created by Marvel in 1980 specifically to capitalize on the disco craze of the 1970s. Dazzler made her debut in 1980’s Uncanny X-Men #130 wearing a shiny, white, form-fitting disco jumpsuit with flared pants and a large flared V-neck collar, plus shiny bracelets, a disco ball necklace, white rollerblades, and blue make-up. Dazzler’s superhero costume embodies the disco scene’s flashy aesthetic and the powerful, upbeat music that fuels her sound- and light-based mutant abilities. While Dazzler has worn different outfits throughout the years, her disco outfit is an essential part of her story.
Dazzler’s other costumes include her all-blue 1990s jumpsuit and her all-white Agent of Shield uniform.
Dazzler only appeared once in Fox’s X-Men movie franchise. Halston Sage appeared as Dazzler in a brief Dark Phoenix cameo, where Dazzler performed part of an original song around a campfire. While Dazzler’s white dress and blue make-up in Dark Phoenix were faithful to her origins, there’s still room to improve in the MCU. Dazzler’s MCU debut could provide her with all the disco-themed extravaganza that inspired her creation.
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1 Magik’s Extravagant Limbo Outfit
Magik’s Demonic Origins Make Her The Perfect Candidate For A Groundbreaking Superhero Costume
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Ilyana Rasputin spent a long time being known as Colossus’ little sister in the comics. That is, until she became the superhero Magik. As Magik, Ilyana Rasputin wears a black asymmetrical top with spiky armor on her left shoulder, black shorts, long black gloves, and long black boots, plus a crown with two rectangular black horns on each side. Magik’s superhero costume combines elements of dark fantasy with a modern superhero style, which makes her stand out from other X-Men characters in the Marvel universe.
Magik’s other comic book costumes include her classic yellow X-Men uniform and her red Phoenix costume.
Anya Taylor-Joy’s Magik is a major highlight of Fox’s New Mutants movie, and her powers are visually well translated, albeit limited. Yet, Anya Taylor-Joy’s inspired casting would have been taken to the next level with a comic-accurate suit. The MCU’s X-Men movies and shows can give Magik a proper outfit. But instead of a traditional superhero costume made of spandex, leather, thermofabrics, or fictional nanotech, Magik’s live-action costume could be made of innovative materials like metal, latex, or even stone. Magik’s demonic origins open the door for infinite design possibilities.
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Marvel’s X-Men
Studio(s) Marvel Studios Distributor(s) Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Upcoming MCU Movies
- Captain America: Brave New World
Release Date February 14, 2025
- Thunderbolts*
Release Date May 2, 2025
- The Fantastic Four (2025)
Release Date July 25, 2025
- Blade (2025)
Release Date November 7, 2025
- Avengers: Doomsday
Release Date May 1, 2026
- Avengers: Secret Wars
Release Date May 7, 2027