Fox has released two new X-Men: Days of Future Past promo images of Storm (Halle Berry) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) in case you forgot what the characters look like or who's playing them.  The story finds Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) having his consciousness sent back to 1973 in order to help Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and the rest of the X-Men: First Class crew stop the rise of the Sentinels—giant robots programmed to exterminate mutants.  I assume Fox is going to handle this like the Empire covers, so expect about 500 more of these.

Hit the jump to check out the images, and to learn why X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn didn't return to direct the sequel.  X-Men: Days of Future Past opens in 3D on May 23rd, and also stars Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Evan Peters, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, and Patrick Stewart.

In an interview with Empire, Vaughn says:

"It didn't excite me enough. The thing that was exciting about it was bringing all these actors together. What a cast! But I've worked with great actors and I just thought, 'I've got to do my own thing.'"

His "own thing" won't completely be an original story since he's adapting Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons' comic The Secret Service, but I understand what Vaughn is saying.  X-Men is a big franchise, and he could never really take ownership, although he breathed fresh life back into it.  He added:

"The script was great for X-Men, but I had Secret Service in my head. And this has always been Bryan's machine. It's come full circle."