Every X-Men fan knows how important “the dream” is to Marvel’s mutants, but what happens when the dream becomes unrecognizable? That’s the stake right through readers’ hearts that the new X-reboot throws out early in its debut, making it frighteningly clear just how much this is a wholesale reinvention of X-Men lore.
The X-Men franchise has mutated into something new and scary, as part of Marvel’s new “Midnight Universe” initiative. Midnight X-Men does more than just turn heroes into villains and shift mutantkind full-on into horror genre territory, it rewrites X-Men lore down to its very DNA.
That becomes exceptionally clear during an exchange between Storm, the Big Bad of X-Men’s experimental new era, and Nightcrawler. Storm dismisses her former friend’s insistence on clinging to “the dream,” but what she’s talking about isn’t the mutant heroes’ usual desire for acceptance and peaceful coexistence with humanity. No, the reimagined dream is something even more dire.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Midnight X-Men!
Midnight X-Men Darkly Reinvents “The Dream” For The Franchise’s New Horror Era
Vampirism has become a plague upon mutantkind in Midnight X-Men. The leader of the vampires is Ororo Munroe, the mutant best known as Storm. “I think we’ve suffered enough from foolish men and their foolish dreams,” Storm says to a captive Nightcrawler, in a tense scene. Their dialogue exchange is dripping with the lingering affection the two have for each other, even though they have become mortal (and immortal) enemies.
The dream, as they’re talking about it, is a dream of a cure. A cure for mutantkind’s vampirism problem. A dream of saving Storm and other vampirized mutants. There are much more urgent problems for Marvel’s “Children of the Atom” in this new Marvel continuity than fitting in with humanity. Which is a fundamental, foundational change to X-Men. And that is a good thing. It is essential to Midnight X-Men’s success.
It is one thing to do a horror X-Men story. It is another to build an entire new canon around the X-Men, turning the Marvel Universe from a “House of Ideas” into a “House of Horrors.” To do that, the very building blocks of the franchise had to be rebuilt. Storm and Nightcrawler’s dialogue about “the dream” is the springboard from which the rest of Midnight X-Men jumps off.
“The Dream” Was A Holdover From An Older X-Men Era; “Midnight” Kills It To Make It Fresh Again
“The dream,” specifically Charles Xavier’s dream of harmony between humans and mutants, has been the guiding light of the X-Men since their debut in 1963. In recent years, the franchise has been deliberately moving beyond Xavier, and his vision for what the X-Men are, or should be. Midnight X-Men is the next step in that ongoing process. It not only establishes a drastically new paradigm for mutantkind, it redefines “the dream.”
Where Midnight X-Men takes the story from here is an open-ended question, the answer to which is likely going to take years to unfold. For now, though, skeptical X-Men fans should rest easy, at least, knowing that this monumental new phase of the franchise is off to a solid start, setting its own foundation, with its own version of “the dream,” that it can build on indefinitely. And gorily.
Midnight X-Men #1 is available now.
Sound off, X-fans. What do you think of the Midnight Universe’s reinvention of “the dream”?
- Movie(s)
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X-Men (2000), X2, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Wolverine (2013), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Deadpool (2016), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Logan (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018), Dark Phoenix (2019), The New Mutants, Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
- TV Show(s)
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X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men, X-Men (1992), X-Men: Evolution (2000), Wolverine and the X-Men (2008), Marvel Anime: Wolverine, Marvel Anime: X-Men, Legion (2017), The Gifted (2017), X-Men ’97 (2024)
- Video Game(s)
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X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), Marvel Super Heroes (1995), X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996), Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), Marvel vs. Capcom (1998), X-Men: Mutant Academy (2000), Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 (2001), X-Men: Next Dimension (2002), Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (2011), Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011), X-Men Legends (2005), X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (2005), X2: Wolverine’s Revenge (2003), X-Men (1993), X-Men 2: Clone Wars (1995), X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse (1994)
- First Film
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X-Men (2000)
- Character(s)
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Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, Phoenix, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Jubilee, Morph, Nightcrawler, Havok, Banshee, Colossus, Magneto, Psylocke, Juggernaut, Cable, X-23
- Comic Release Date
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213035,212968