After an underwhelming first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, the narrative might have been turned around recently, thanks to the news that one of the trailers will focus on the X-Men. The X-Men have been confirmed to be part of Avengers: Doomsday since March 2025, when the infamous stream revealed seven different members of the X-Men cast from the 20th Century Fox era of films would appear in the MCU team-up. Yet one question many had been whether the returning X-Men would wear their signature (yet controversial) black leather outfits, or whether Marvel Studios would put the actors in more comic-accurate costumes as they did with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in Deadpool and Wolverine.
The X-Men-focused Avengers: Doomsday trailer has, like all the others, leaked online. The most notable feature is that Cyclopes (James Marsden) is seen wearing a blue costume that feels directly pulled from his iconic 1990s Jim Lee design that was also featured heavily in X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men ’97. This is undoubtedly great for fans who have always wanted to see James Marsden in a comic-accurate Cyclops look, but it presents a problem. If Marvel Studios is putting the classic X-Men in comic-accurate costumes for Avengers: Doomsday, where does that leave the inevitable X-Men reboot the MCU is planning? Does this short-term boost of nostalgia fan service come at the cost of the long-term for the future MCU X-Men?
Why The X-Men Are Getting Comic-Accurate Costumes Now (And Why That’s a Problem for the MCU)
Given that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige got his start on the first X-Men film, even sneaking Hugh Jackman X-Men comics when Bryan Singer banned the comics from set, he clearly holds a lot of affection for the original X-Men cast. This explains why he is not only including them in Avengers: Doomsday, but also is putting them in the iconic costume. It is a way to give the original X-Men cast, the ones who audiences commonly associate with the characters, a chance to “do it right” and put them in comic-accurate costumes. It gives fans a version of the X-Men they’ve been waiting to see for over 25 years.
Yet if the goal is to see the classic X-Men stand alongside the MCU Avengers, wouldn’t it mean more if the X-Men wore their iconic black leather costumes?
Putting the X-Men in their comic-accurate costumes then poses an issue for the creative team responsible for rebooting the X-Men in the MCU proper. Part of the hook for the MCU’s X-Men reboot would be on the surface, giving fans what the previous feature film versions never could: comic-accurate costumes.
If the prior version of the X-Men is already getting to wear the comic-accurate costumes, where does that leave the new MCU versions that are expected to come following Avengers: Secret Wars? This isn’t expected to be a decade-long wait like The Fantastic Four; an X-Men reboot is in active development. Is Marvel Studios going to put the inevitable MCU Cyclops in the Jim Lee 1990s iconic suit so soon after James Marsden wore it? The MCU’s X-Men will already lose some novelty so soon following the former X-Men’s appearance in Avengers: Doomsday, but then taking away the one big distinguishing cosmetic feature can’t help but make the X-Men’s eventual MCU debut feel less special.
History of the X-Men’s Black Leather Costumes
When X-Men was released in theaters in 2000, the idea of brightly colored superhero costumes felt like a relic of the “cheesy” superhero films like Batman & Robin and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Partially inspired by The Matrix, when the X-Men leaped to the big screen, they wore black leather rather than their yellow-and-blue costumes. The movie even lampshades the team’s classic uniforms (and fans’ complaints before the movie came out) when Cyclops said, “What would you prefer, yellow spandex?”
The X-Men film franchise was a box office hit, helping kick off the superhero movie genre of the 21st century. Yet a common point of contention among fans was the team’s costumes being so far removed from the iconic look many associated with the character, despite the movies themselves inspiring the look of Frank Quietly’s New X-Men costumes or the Ultimate X-Men costumes. While X-Men: First Class did the classic blue-and-yellow costumes while keeping the tactical nature of the film suits, X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse saw the X-Men trade black leather for grey armor. X-Men: Apocalypse ended with a tease of the characters in their iconic comic costumes, but by the time of Dark Phoenix, they were wearing what looked like cheap X-Men Halloween costumes.
For years, the 20th Century Fox X-Men black leather costumes have been a sticking point among fans, and also something Marvel Studios has exploited to their advantage. Characters like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America showed up on the big screen as a direct translation of their comic counterparts, while the X-Men films felt stuck in a bygone era of superhero films. X-Men ’97 reversed the film’s joke by having Cyclops tell Cable before they suit up, “What did you expect, black leather?” One of the big selling points of Deadpool & Wolverine was the promise of seeing Hugh Jackman wearing the iconic Wolverine costume after nine films. Deadpool even says about the Wolverine variant he finds, “And bonus, he’s actually wearing a costume like he’s not embarrassed to be in a superhero movie for once.”
The MCU X-Men Will Need to Stand Out Even More
While the idea of putting the former 20th Century Fox era of X-Men in comic-accurate costumes could take some of the thunder out of the MCU’s future X-Men reboot, it isn’t all bad. In fact, moving past the traditional “iconic” look many fans associate with the X-Men in the original 20th Century Fox characters might allow the MCU X-Men to forge their own paths and draw on different eras of the comics.
Taking Cyclops for example, the MCU version could wear a costume similar to the John Cassady design for Astonishing X-Men. There is also Stuart Immonen’s All-New X-Men costumes, which show the team in white outfits with arm and leg accent colors for each team member, with Cyclops rocking a black-and-blue accent. If Marvel Studios wanted to take a big swing, they could put the X-Men in their Krakoan era outfits, possibly their notable Hellfire Gala wear. There is no shortage of comic-accurate costumes that Marvel Studios could draw from to put him and the rest of the X-Men into. More fans need to accept that there are multiple different meanings of “comic-accurate” costumes.
Finding a distinctive hook for the X-Men reboot is going to be the big question hanging over the MCU. For the most part, the MCU built itself on characters audiences weren’t familiar with, so they were their first exposure. For characters like The Hulk, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Blade, and now the X-Men, they have needed to find a way to distinguish their version from the past. For Spider-Man, they put Peter Parker in high school and emphasized that part of his story. The Fantastic Four leaned into the 1960s aesthetic for the team. Marvel Studios has spent six years struggling to find a hook for their Blade film, and will face a similar one with the X-Men.
Without the promise of the classic X-Men comic costumes, Marvel Studios is giving itself an even bigger challenge. A challenge created just so the original cinematic X-Men characters get a brief moment of fan service, all while sacrificing what made the X-Men movies distinct.
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