UPDATED X-Men Timeline
Hey all! I got some great feedback from my previous post about the timeline and based on your awesome suggestions I've tweaked the timeline to, hopefully, make even more sense. The biggest change is to the Origins timeline, which now is exactly fifteen years.
I hope it doesn't bother anyone too much that I'm posting a fresh version instead of updating the previous one. This thing is a beast. Link to previous post: http://loganandmarie.livejournal.com/248599.html
Short version
1962: X-Men: First Class
1970: Logan joins Team X
1984: Logan walks away
1986: Charles and Erik recruit Jean
1987: (Nov) Rogue is born
1990: X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Rogue lives with her aunt and uncle
2004: (Apr) Rogue manifests; (Aug) Rogue runs away and learns how to use her power
2005: (Apr) X-Men; (Oct) X2: X-Men United
2006: (Nov) X-Men: The Last Stand
2007: (Apr) The cure fades
Genesis Period (1845-1944):
A handful of mutants live in secret among a greater number of proto-mutants.
1845: Logan manifests [explicit XMOW].
1861-1865: Logan and Victor serve on the side of the Union during the Civil War [estimated XMOW].
1914-1918: Logan and Victor serve as Allied soldiers during the First World War [estimated XMOW].
1930-1944: Sebastian Shaw poses as a Nazi to gain more intelligence for his genetic research, but turns to atomic theory and the Cold War as soon as the bomb drops.
1939-1945: Logan and Victor serve as Allied forces during the Second World War on the European and Pacific fronts [estimated XMOW].
1944: Logan and Victor charge the beach at Normandy [explicit XMOW]; Erik manifests in a concentration camp in Poland, where he vows revenge on Shaw; Charles meets Raven when she breaks into the Mansion [explicit XMFC].
Atomic Age (1945-1974):
The children of the atom prepare for the future amid suspicion and fear.
1945-1954: Logan lives peacefully, for a time, in Japan, as a Buddhist and a samurai [adapted comics].
1949: Erik comes through Ellis Island [explicit X1].
1952: Charles meets Erik for the first time, but ultimately feels he must erase their friendship from the latter’s mind [stated X1; presumed XMFC].
The “I first met Erik when I was seventeen” line can only fit if Charles did meet Erik at that age (maybe in England; Erik must have received a classical British education), and then something happened that he had to erase the memory, but to keep Erik’s trust he plays it cool when they meet again in First Class.
1962: The backdrop of the Cuban Missile crisis forces Erik to join Charles and the CIA in their plan to thwart the Hellfire Club; Charles assembles and trains the first X-Men (sans Logan), Charles loses his ability to walk and Raven to Erik [explicit XMFC].
1962-1970: Logan dodges Division X and SHIELD [adapted comics]; The Brotherhood and X-Men battle it out [presumed XMFC sequels]; Emma is killed and subsequently cloned [presumed XMOW; adapted comics].
How can there be two Emma Frosts? With all these military scientists running around, and then adding Nathanial Essex/Mister Sinister technology on top of that, explanations like cloning aren’t too far-fetched.
1970: Logan and Victor are in Vietnam to serve with United States forces; Logan and Victor are recruited by Stryker to become a part of the black ops Team X [estimated XMOW].
Stryker says he’s been working with mutants for twenty years, and Team X seems to be his first real endeavor into that territory. Plus, he keeps calling Logan his “old friend” - one mission doesn’t cover that, but twenty years should.
Arms Race: (1975-2004)
Mutants, as they gain a voice, face identification and exploitation by opposing sides.
1970-1984: Logan, as part of Team X, serves as a black ops agent, while also moonlighting for SHEILD and Department H [presumed XMOW; adapted comics].
1984: After a buildup of suspicions surrounding frequent memory loss and an inside assassination attempt on Stryker, Logan is allowed by Stryker to walk away from the team for a time [estimated XMOW].
The way the team reacts to Logan leaving and the emphasis Wraith keeps placing on what “we” did, give me the impression that Logan isn’t as innocent of Stryker’s sins as he believes. Stryker seems to know one hundred percent that Logan’s memories won’t “grow back” (which is…not science, but what in this movie is?), so I think he might have been messing with Logan’s memories for awhile, probably through a combination of drugs and brain trauma. This also makes Logan’s angst much more compelling - all we see in Origins is him being a good guy. So what’s does he need redemption from?
1984-1990: For six years, Logan lives as a lumberjack deep in the Canadian Rockies, not knowing that his live-in girlfriend is a Team X handler [estimated XMOW].
I don’t think Logan even tries to hide from Stryker. I think he goes back to a cabin he’s had for a while, daring Stryker to come get him. So Stryker makes the base at Alkali Lake close to where he knows his Weapon X is and starts plotting.
1986: Charles fails at helping Jason Striker [presumed XMOW, X2]; Charles and Erik firmly and finally establish the School by proactively recruiting mutants like Jean [presumed X3].
In X1, Charles tells Logan that Jean and Scott are some of his first students. Obviously, First Class shows this isn’t the case. However, in the comics, the Mansion is never a school the way it is in X1. So maybe Jean is one of the first students recruited for the current incarnation of the school.
Also, in the comics Charles loses and regains the ability to walk all the time, so the eighties must be a good time for Charles legs-wise.
1987: Anna Marie is born in November.
Now, in the comics Marie doesn’t really have a last name because she’s an orphan raised by her aunt because her parents are swept into “the other side” after trying to contact the Adversary - a far cry from the upper-middle class thing she’s got going on by X1.
In my personal canon, Annie D’Ancanto runs away from home at 16 and joins the carnival as “Pricilla,” where she meets rodeo cowboy “Owen Smith” (actually James Hudson - a mutant on the run from Department H and the son, presumed dead, of that nice old couple and real owner of Logan’s favorite jacket). The two get pregnant.
1990: Bradley is killed by Victor at the carnival; Logan undergoes the Weapon X procedure; repeat Three Mile Island incident; Charles brings Scott, Emma and other young mutants to the school [estimated XMOW]; Logan, with his fractured memories, goes to Canada for answers but is met by Dr. Carol Hines (Frost), who finishes the memory-wipe out of pity and Dr. Cornelius, who is turning Sabretooth into a monster at his own request [presumed X1].
A lot of the continuity problems of Origins rests on the idea that the Three Mile Island setting means the movie has to take place in 1979. Maybe the filmmakers intended that, but nothing in the movie definitively states it. So Stryker could vey well have gotten control of the facility after the meltdown (since no one else wants it because of the radiation, as Gambit mentions).
So why does Logan think he’s Canadian? Because he remembers enough to go back there, but Dr. Frost/Hines grants him the favor of giving him a new life by suppressing his memories with drugs as a thank you for saving her “daughter” Emma Frost and because her stepdaughter, Kayla, loved him. Logan wakes up in the Canadian wilderness, utterly alone.
1990 cont.: Marie’s parents, living in a Canadian commune dedicated to contacting “the other side,” get their wish when everyone dies; Marie, the only survivor, goes to live with her aunt and uncle - but grows up thinking they are her mother and father [adapted comics, presumed X1]; Logan travels to Japan in an attempt to regain his memories, falling in love and battling the Silver Samurai [presumed XMOW sequel].
In the comics, Maries parents fall into a different dimension, angering the Adversary - an American Indian spirit character a lot like the “trickster” in that story Kayla tells Logan about the moon.
Here’s hoping that The Wolverine doesn’t completely mess this timeline up!
1996: Next class of X-Men have first missions [adapted comics]; Emma regains her old consciousness and betrays the X-Men [adapted comics]; Warren III manifests and tries to cut off his own wings [estimated X3].
This is added pretty much because I really like the idea of the Scott-Emma-Jean triangle. And it adds some sympathy to Jean’s character - maybe her flirtation with Logan is a bit of revenge because she was the “Scott” of a previous love triangle with Emma.
2000-2004: Irene Adler/Destiny and Raven conspire to take Marie from her family to be raised by the Brotherhood, but it doesn’t work out so Marie lives comfortably in Meridian with her aunt and uncle [adapted comics; presumed X1]; Worthington Labs begins works on the cure [presumed X3].
Another shout-out to Marie’s comics history. Why wasn’t she raised by the Brotherhood this time around? Because Destiny put her on a completely different path. It also answers how Erik new about Marie and where to find her - Destiny, who always took an interest in Rogue in the comics, kept a watch on her.
Apr 2004: Marie manifests her powers after kissing the neighbor boy [estimated X1].
Apr-Aug 2004: Erik begins to perfect his machine, sends in Raven to push a research clinic to Marie’s family to get Marie [estimated X1].
I like the idea of Marie having a few months to really become disillusioned with her home life before she takes off. It makes her social anxiety more compelling.
Aug 2004: Marie succumbs to the pressure and runs away from home, unknowingly dodging Erik [estimated X1].
Aug 2004-Apr 2005: Marie lives out on the streets, learning that even among mutants her powers make her an outcast [estimated X1].
Marie knows how to use her powers to steal mutant abilities, so somewhere between Meridian and Laughlin she fell in with other mutants. There are lot of ways to go with this one, but I really like the idea of Marie ending up as small-time mutant asset for the Thieves’ Guild in New Orleans. And maybe having some interaction with a certain Cajun. Also, this is an eight-month period, as stated in the deleted scene in X1.
The X-Wars (2005-2034)
Ideologies collide in an onslaught of violence that threaten the peaceful hopes of many.
Apr 2005: Marie and Logan meet in Laughlin City and fall in with the X-Men; Erik kidnaps Marie to sacrifice her, the X-Men thwart the Liberty Island attack; Logan leaves Marie with his tags [estimated X3].
Apr 2005-Oct 2005: Flooding hides the base, giving Logan a chance to get his head right in the wilderness; Marie settles into the school; Jean’s powers leap forward [estimated X3].
X2 hints that the Liberty Island incident was a month before, but everyone’s changed so much by X2 I wanted to give the characters a little time to settle and grow.
Oct 2005: Stryker sends Kurt to stage an assassination attempt on the President; Logan finally makes it to Alkali Lake, which seems abandoned; Stryker invades the Mansion; Freak Out; Logan walks away; Jean sacrifices herself, Marie and Bobby join the X-Men [estimated X3].
Oct 2005-Nov 2006: The government is shaken up as it tries to take a positive pro-mutant stand, giving Hank a job and Charles’ school protection; Kurt leaves the school; Logan does some clean ups and pick ups; at some point Logan and Storm probably hook up; the young X-Men begin training; Marie probably almost puts Bobby into a coma; a year after Jean’s death, the Phoenix starts haunting Scott.
A lot of stuff probably went down between X2-X3, these are just some general ideas.
Nov 2006: The Cure is announced; the Phoenix returns to kill Scott and the Professor; Marie takes the cure, Alcatraz; outcome is strangely peaceful [estimated X3].
Apr 2007: Magneto and the world discover that the Cure isn’t permanent [estmated X3].
?: Charles returns to Moira’s shock [estimated X3].
Yes, Moira should be a granny by now. But she’s gone from CIA to geneticist, so maybe in that time she’s been self-mutating. Also, I like to think that all humans (mutant and non) have a slower aging process in this universe. It lets everyone benefit from evolution at least a little.
The Charles thing is question mark because apparently X4 and X5 might just happen, so we’ll see how far in the future they set the plot. Like all of you, I have my own ideas about what I’d like to see go down. But who knows.
Again, all ideas herein are community property, so have at them if you like!
I hope it doesn't bother anyone too much that I'm posting a fresh version instead of updating the previous one. This thing is a beast. Link to previous post: http://loganandmarie.livejournal.com/248599.html
Short version
1962: X-Men: First Class
1970: Logan joins Team X
1984: Logan walks away
1986: Charles and Erik recruit Jean
1987: (Nov) Rogue is born
1990: X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Rogue lives with her aunt and uncle
2004: (Apr) Rogue manifests; (Aug) Rogue runs away and learns how to use her power
2005: (Apr) X-Men; (Oct) X2: X-Men United
2006: (Nov) X-Men: The Last Stand
2007: (Apr) The cure fades
Genesis Period (1845-1944):
A handful of mutants live in secret among a greater number of proto-mutants.
1845: Logan manifests [explicit XMOW].
1861-1865: Logan and Victor serve on the side of the Union during the Civil War [estimated XMOW].
1914-1918: Logan and Victor serve as Allied soldiers during the First World War [estimated XMOW].
1930-1944: Sebastian Shaw poses as a Nazi to gain more intelligence for his genetic research, but turns to atomic theory and the Cold War as soon as the bomb drops.
1939-1945: Logan and Victor serve as Allied forces during the Second World War on the European and Pacific fronts [estimated XMOW].
1944: Logan and Victor charge the beach at Normandy [explicit XMOW]; Erik manifests in a concentration camp in Poland, where he vows revenge on Shaw; Charles meets Raven when she breaks into the Mansion [explicit XMFC].
Atomic Age (1945-1974):
The children of the atom prepare for the future amid suspicion and fear.
1945-1954: Logan lives peacefully, for a time, in Japan, as a Buddhist and a samurai [adapted comics].
1949: Erik comes through Ellis Island [explicit X1].
1952: Charles meets Erik for the first time, but ultimately feels he must erase their friendship from the latter’s mind [stated X1; presumed XMFC].
The “I first met Erik when I was seventeen” line can only fit if Charles did meet Erik at that age (maybe in England; Erik must have received a classical British education), and then something happened that he had to erase the memory, but to keep Erik’s trust he plays it cool when they meet again in First Class.
1962: The backdrop of the Cuban Missile crisis forces Erik to join Charles and the CIA in their plan to thwart the Hellfire Club; Charles assembles and trains the first X-Men (sans Logan), Charles loses his ability to walk and Raven to Erik [explicit XMFC].
1962-1970: Logan dodges Division X and SHIELD [adapted comics]; The Brotherhood and X-Men battle it out [presumed XMFC sequels]; Emma is killed and subsequently cloned [presumed XMOW; adapted comics].
How can there be two Emma Frosts? With all these military scientists running around, and then adding Nathanial Essex/Mister Sinister technology on top of that, explanations like cloning aren’t too far-fetched.
1970: Logan and Victor are in Vietnam to serve with United States forces; Logan and Victor are recruited by Stryker to become a part of the black ops Team X [estimated XMOW].
Stryker says he’s been working with mutants for twenty years, and Team X seems to be his first real endeavor into that territory. Plus, he keeps calling Logan his “old friend” - one mission doesn’t cover that, but twenty years should.
Arms Race: (1975-2004)
Mutants, as they gain a voice, face identification and exploitation by opposing sides.
1970-1984: Logan, as part of Team X, serves as a black ops agent, while also moonlighting for SHEILD and Department H [presumed XMOW; adapted comics].
1984: After a buildup of suspicions surrounding frequent memory loss and an inside assassination attempt on Stryker, Logan is allowed by Stryker to walk away from the team for a time [estimated XMOW].
The way the team reacts to Logan leaving and the emphasis Wraith keeps placing on what “we” did, give me the impression that Logan isn’t as innocent of Stryker’s sins as he believes. Stryker seems to know one hundred percent that Logan’s memories won’t “grow back” (which is…not science, but what in this movie is?), so I think he might have been messing with Logan’s memories for awhile, probably through a combination of drugs and brain trauma. This also makes Logan’s angst much more compelling - all we see in Origins is him being a good guy. So what’s does he need redemption from?
1984-1990: For six years, Logan lives as a lumberjack deep in the Canadian Rockies, not knowing that his live-in girlfriend is a Team X handler [estimated XMOW].
I don’t think Logan even tries to hide from Stryker. I think he goes back to a cabin he’s had for a while, daring Stryker to come get him. So Stryker makes the base at Alkali Lake close to where he knows his Weapon X is and starts plotting.
1986: Charles fails at helping Jason Striker [presumed XMOW, X2]; Charles and Erik firmly and finally establish the School by proactively recruiting mutants like Jean [presumed X3].
In X1, Charles tells Logan that Jean and Scott are some of his first students. Obviously, First Class shows this isn’t the case. However, in the comics, the Mansion is never a school the way it is in X1. So maybe Jean is one of the first students recruited for the current incarnation of the school.
Also, in the comics Charles loses and regains the ability to walk all the time, so the eighties must be a good time for Charles legs-wise.
1987: Anna Marie is born in November.
Now, in the comics Marie doesn’t really have a last name because she’s an orphan raised by her aunt because her parents are swept into “the other side” after trying to contact the Adversary - a far cry from the upper-middle class thing she’s got going on by X1.
In my personal canon, Annie D’Ancanto runs away from home at 16 and joins the carnival as “Pricilla,” where she meets rodeo cowboy “Owen Smith” (actually James Hudson - a mutant on the run from Department H and the son, presumed dead, of that nice old couple and real owner of Logan’s favorite jacket). The two get pregnant.
1990: Bradley is killed by Victor at the carnival; Logan undergoes the Weapon X procedure; repeat Three Mile Island incident; Charles brings Scott, Emma and other young mutants to the school [estimated XMOW]; Logan, with his fractured memories, goes to Canada for answers but is met by Dr. Carol Hines (Frost), who finishes the memory-wipe out of pity and Dr. Cornelius, who is turning Sabretooth into a monster at his own request [presumed X1].
A lot of the continuity problems of Origins rests on the idea that the Three Mile Island setting means the movie has to take place in 1979. Maybe the filmmakers intended that, but nothing in the movie definitively states it. So Stryker could vey well have gotten control of the facility after the meltdown (since no one else wants it because of the radiation, as Gambit mentions).
So why does Logan think he’s Canadian? Because he remembers enough to go back there, but Dr. Frost/Hines grants him the favor of giving him a new life by suppressing his memories with drugs as a thank you for saving her “daughter” Emma Frost and because her stepdaughter, Kayla, loved him. Logan wakes up in the Canadian wilderness, utterly alone.
1990 cont.: Marie’s parents, living in a Canadian commune dedicated to contacting “the other side,” get their wish when everyone dies; Marie, the only survivor, goes to live with her aunt and uncle - but grows up thinking they are her mother and father [adapted comics, presumed X1]; Logan travels to Japan in an attempt to regain his memories, falling in love and battling the Silver Samurai [presumed XMOW sequel].
In the comics, Maries parents fall into a different dimension, angering the Adversary - an American Indian spirit character a lot like the “trickster” in that story Kayla tells Logan about the moon.
Here’s hoping that The Wolverine doesn’t completely mess this timeline up!
1996: Next class of X-Men have first missions [adapted comics]; Emma regains her old consciousness and betrays the X-Men [adapted comics]; Warren III manifests and tries to cut off his own wings [estimated X3].
This is added pretty much because I really like the idea of the Scott-Emma-Jean triangle. And it adds some sympathy to Jean’s character - maybe her flirtation with Logan is a bit of revenge because she was the “Scott” of a previous love triangle with Emma.
2000-2004: Irene Adler/Destiny and Raven conspire to take Marie from her family to be raised by the Brotherhood, but it doesn’t work out so Marie lives comfortably in Meridian with her aunt and uncle [adapted comics; presumed X1]; Worthington Labs begins works on the cure [presumed X3].
Another shout-out to Marie’s comics history. Why wasn’t she raised by the Brotherhood this time around? Because Destiny put her on a completely different path. It also answers how Erik new about Marie and where to find her - Destiny, who always took an interest in Rogue in the comics, kept a watch on her.
Apr 2004: Marie manifests her powers after kissing the neighbor boy [estimated X1].
Apr-Aug 2004: Erik begins to perfect his machine, sends in Raven to push a research clinic to Marie’s family to get Marie [estimated X1].
I like the idea of Marie having a few months to really become disillusioned with her home life before she takes off. It makes her social anxiety more compelling.
Aug 2004: Marie succumbs to the pressure and runs away from home, unknowingly dodging Erik [estimated X1].
Aug 2004-Apr 2005: Marie lives out on the streets, learning that even among mutants her powers make her an outcast [estimated X1].
Marie knows how to use her powers to steal mutant abilities, so somewhere between Meridian and Laughlin she fell in with other mutants. There are lot of ways to go with this one, but I really like the idea of Marie ending up as small-time mutant asset for the Thieves’ Guild in New Orleans. And maybe having some interaction with a certain Cajun. Also, this is an eight-month period, as stated in the deleted scene in X1.
The X-Wars (2005-2034)
Ideologies collide in an onslaught of violence that threaten the peaceful hopes of many.
Apr 2005: Marie and Logan meet in Laughlin City and fall in with the X-Men; Erik kidnaps Marie to sacrifice her, the X-Men thwart the Liberty Island attack; Logan leaves Marie with his tags [estimated X3].
Apr 2005-Oct 2005: Flooding hides the base, giving Logan a chance to get his head right in the wilderness; Marie settles into the school; Jean’s powers leap forward [estimated X3].
X2 hints that the Liberty Island incident was a month before, but everyone’s changed so much by X2 I wanted to give the characters a little time to settle and grow.
Oct 2005: Stryker sends Kurt to stage an assassination attempt on the President; Logan finally makes it to Alkali Lake, which seems abandoned; Stryker invades the Mansion; Freak Out; Logan walks away; Jean sacrifices herself, Marie and Bobby join the X-Men [estimated X3].
Oct 2005-Nov 2006: The government is shaken up as it tries to take a positive pro-mutant stand, giving Hank a job and Charles’ school protection; Kurt leaves the school; Logan does some clean ups and pick ups; at some point Logan and Storm probably hook up; the young X-Men begin training; Marie probably almost puts Bobby into a coma; a year after Jean’s death, the Phoenix starts haunting Scott.
A lot of stuff probably went down between X2-X3, these are just some general ideas.
Nov 2006: The Cure is announced; the Phoenix returns to kill Scott and the Professor; Marie takes the cure, Alcatraz; outcome is strangely peaceful [estimated X3].
Apr 2007: Magneto and the world discover that the Cure isn’t permanent [estmated X3].
?: Charles returns to Moira’s shock [estimated X3].
Yes, Moira should be a granny by now. But she’s gone from CIA to geneticist, so maybe in that time she’s been self-mutating. Also, I like to think that all humans (mutant and non) have a slower aging process in this universe. It lets everyone benefit from evolution at least a little.
The Charles thing is question mark because apparently X4 and X5 might just happen, so we’ll see how far in the future they set the plot. Like all of you, I have my own ideas about what I’d like to see go down. But who knows.
Again, all ideas herein are community property, so have at them if you like!