The upcoming X-Men: Days of the Future Past has so much packed into it that it’s almost difficult to keep everything straight. Aside from having most of the cast from the 1970s-based X-Men: First Class present in the movie, this upcoming film, from previous X-director Bryan Singer, also includes members of the franchise’s present, such as Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, and Ian Mckellen’s Magneto to name a few. Among these old favorites, the film will also be bursting with new mutants who have yet to see the cinematic X-verse.  Collider thought this would be the perfect opportunity to walk you through some of these characters and give you a crash course on the new mutants you’ll be seeing in Singer’s epic time travelling mutant extravaganza!  Hit the jump to make introductions.

QUICKSILVER

x-men-days-of-future-past-quicksilver

Wait a minute, isn’t this one of the new heroes appearing in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, as I mentioned in the article I wrote up a few months back?  It is!  Quicksilver is one of those Marvel characters who actually falls into several camps when it comes to what teams he’s been on.  Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver’s real name) is a mutant with the ability to move at super speed and has the reputation of being one of the biggest a-holes in the Marvel Universe.  Pietro also happens to be the son of Magneto and the brother to the Scarlet Witch, who may or may not also be appearing in this movie.  While Quicksilver’s costume has been revealed to much skepticism, I believe that if Singer can hold true to the basic elements which make up the character, we’ll have a winner.  Quicksilver is brutish, short-tempered, and too fast for his own good.  Over the course of his comic book career, Pietro has butted heads with just about every character in Marvel’s stables, and its those interactions that I’ll be most excited to see, not only from Evan Peters’ portrayal in Days of Future Past, but also Aaron Taylor’s in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Both actors, ironically enough, can also be seen in the faux-superhero movie, Kick-Ass.

BISHOP

x-men-days-of-future-past-bishop

Lucas Bishop is a mutant cop from the future who has the ability to absorb incoming energy into himself and then redirect it as energy of his own.  He also happens to be a bi-product of the illustrious time of comic books known as “The 90’s”, where pouches and big guns were king.  Bishop had been a mainstay of the X-men for awhile now, until recently when he happened to become a villain looking to save everyone by any means necessary, and then subsequently switched back into joining an off-shoot of the X-Men called “X-Force” (comic books, what are you gonna do?)  Played by Omar Sy in the upcoming film, Bishop also has a large “M” tatto’ed over his right eye, a byproduct of being herded into concentration camps created by the nefarious Sentinels (giant robots created by humanity to hunt and kill mutants who act as the film’s antagonists).  Bishop is calm, cool, and collected and probably the closest to his comic book counterpart based on appearance alone.

BLINK

x-men-days-of-future-past-blink

Of all the mutants that you’ll be seeing on screen for the first time in Days of the Future Past, Blink is probably the one with the strangest history in comic books.  Blink’s powers include teleportation and the ability to create energy daggers that she hurls at her opponents.  In one of Blink’s earliest appearances, she died.  That’s right, Blink bit the bullet in one of her first stories as part of the X-Men.  The Blink who became popular and gained her own fan following was one who was introduced in an alternate reality called “The Age of Apocalypse”.  This reality found itself ruled by the X-Men villain, Apocalypse (who will be the main antagonist in the rightly named X-Men: Apocalypse movie, following Days of Future Past, announced by Singer) and had vastly different versions of every character.  Blink, in this reality, was one of the premiere X-Men and helped fight the age old villain with the help of teammates Magneto and Sabretooth.  From here, she was plucked out of her timestream and placed onto a team of reality hopping superheroes dubbed “The Exiles”.  It’s a lot to take in, as most comic book storylines are, but I can’t recommend Exiles enough as it’s personally one of my favorite comic book superhero stories.  Thanks to her popularity, Blink was resurrected in the main universe and is currently travelling the world after joining yet another off shoot team of X-Men called The New Mutants.  In the upcoming film, she’ll be played by Fan Bingbing, a popular Chinese actress.

WARPATH

x-men-days-of-future-past-warpath

To start with Warpath, I need to go back to the origins of the X-Men themselves.  Originally the team was made up of 5 teenagers in the form of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel, and Beast, led by Professor X.  During a mission, these five were captured and a new team of mutants were brought together to save them in the form of Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Sunfire, and Thunderbird.  Much like Blink, Thunderbird was an X-Man who died in one of his first appearances, only to be later replaced by his brother, James Proudstar, aka Warpath.  Warpath is notably Native American and much of his origin is linked to Apache tribes.  Warpath, like many other X-Men, has bounced from team to team, but one of his most notable appearances was being a part of “X-Force”, a team of X-Men created to put down their enemies, permanently.  James has superhuman strength and brandishes two large knives that he uses to take down his opponents.  In Days of Future Past, he’ll be played by Boo Boo Stewart.

I think one of the biggest hurdles in introducing all of these characters into the X-franchise is the ability to give them enough to do, and develop their characters outside of brief appearances or cameos, ala X-Men 3, but I’m looking forward to seeing what director Bryan Singer can do with them.