Five X-Men Who Should Never See The Big Screen

Being a mutant should be one of the best things that could happen to someone living in the Marvel universe. In a world where regular people share the sidewalk with super-powered god-humans who routinely leave cities with repair bills larger than all the money in Scrooge McDuck's vault/swimming tank could handle, it's safe to say you'd rather be standing side-by-side with the guy with lasers for eyes and knives for hands than aligned with the general populace, running away screaming in the general direction of way the hell out of there.

Yes, life sure would be sweeter if you could get yourself some of that mutant power goodness, for they are Homo superior, and we are crummy old Homo sapiens, with sapiens naturally being Latin for "sucks".

Most of the mutants from X-Men canon that make it to our movie screens make it seem that way, at least. Wolverine has metal bones and claws, heightened senses and a healing factor; Mystique can shape-shift convincingly into pretty much any humanoid skin she wants; Magneto could quite literally tear apart the world; Storm is a walking middle finger to the Geneva Environmental Modification Convention; Shadowcat, who is played by Ellen Page in Days Of Future Past, can phase through solid objects; Days... co-star Colossus can turn his skin to metal; and Darwin, despite the First Class writers' poor grasp of his powers, is impossibly awesome -- a constantly evolving mystery of the universe.

But then... there's these guys...

Longneck

Power: Having a long neck

Longneck is kind of an enigma -- a background character who first appeared as a student at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters back in 2003 (New X-Men #140) and consequently featured in a handful of storylines, most notably assisting X-leader Cyclops in disposing of space baddie Xorn and his head-black hole. Not much else is known about him - there's even argument over his real name: William Hanover, or the far more awesome (because something about the guy has to be) Jonah Van Helsking.

Then, just as we were getting to know the guy, Scarlet Witch manipulated reality and depowered the majority of Earth's mutants, including Longneck, who thus died unceremoniously when his stupid six-foot neck snapped under its own weight, robbed of its evolutionary strength.

DJ

Power: Energy manipulation determined by soundtrack.

The phenomenally unimpressive Mark Sheppard was another student at Xavier's school, where before his frankly inevitable death he was honing his skills in creating energy blasts that reflect the mood of the music he is listening to.

So, for example, should he have wished to conjure a mighty blast that will take down a wall, perhaps he would have thrown on some Slayer, or if he wanted to create a defensive shield he'd have to switch to something more sedate; a bit of Mozart, perhaps. He can even create his own personal mobile rave when listening to dance music and Gospel music lets him fly.

Which, OK, on its own, sounds like it could be pretty cool, if you were not a member of a team that had to routinely use their powers in combat settings. Put this kid in a battle situation and watch him fumble around with an iPod to switch up the playlist to crank the Beethoven's 9th every time he needs to block an incoming plasma beam from CannonBalls' dick, and you can imagine how quickly everything would start to fall apart.

Cypher

Power: Google Translate.

Cypher was part of the '80s wave of recruits to the X-Men, an era that featured the debuts of such other fantastically useless characters as Longshot (he's super lucky!) and Diamond Lil (she can take a pummeling!).

But unlike even the most banal of other mutants out there, Douglas Aaron Ramsey is literally pointless -- he can reflexively speak any language. So he's the X-Men's translator, which is kind of pointless since, in a universe where science has put aircraft carriers in the sky, it's hard to believe nobody has invented a little handheld translator for intergalactic diplomacy/mama jokes that probably includes all the Earthly languages, too.

And yet for some reason, fans suddenly cared about Cypher and got all upset when Marvel offed him in New Mutants #60 (1988).

I guess you could say he... spoke to everyone.

Pixie

Powers: Flight, hallucinogens

A graduate of the New X-Men: Academy series of the early 2000s, Megan Gwynn, aka Pixie, has the power of flight, which in the grand scheme of superpowers is like a regular person being able to ride a bike; it's entry-level stuff. Most people flyanddo something else. Storm, Rogue, Angel, Polaris, Banshee... all of these people can fly, and kill them with touch, or thunderbolt their face off, or scream them to death - and what does Pixie bring to the table?

Mothershitting pixie dust. Hallucinogens. Before you get all "Dude, sweet, party!" on me, remember that she is generally fighting hardened criminals who are probably no strangers to chowing down on shrooms or face-planting the odd coke mountain, so if anything, getting them high while they're already worked up into kind of a bloodlust is, at best, going to have no effect, or, at worst, only going to make them more effective killing machines.

The Norse did it with their men all the time; they were called Berserkers, and they would fuck you right up without blinking, because they were so damn tweaked. Now imagine the Berserkers could fly, and in order to stop them, your strategy is to fly around and throw more violence drugs at them.

Pixie, everyone.

ForgetMeNot

Power: Ability to be forgotten as soon as he is no longer being looked at.

That paunchy Joe Average-looking fellow in the fetching black-and-yellow jacket is ForgetMeNot, who possesses quite possibly the most depressing power of all: imperceptibility. If you are not looking right at him, you literally forget he ever existed. The Invisible Woman doesn't know shit about going around unnoticed in comparison.

Fans of Doctor Who will recognise this as a very similar ability to that wielded by creepy, bald suit-men The Silence, but the key difference is that ForgetMeNot is not a villain. He is a nice guy who just wants to help, but his teammates constantly forget that he's a part of the team. Could you imagine how frustrating that would be? What if he had some really important news to impart, and everyone just failed to remember it the second he left the room? What about his family? Do his parents ask who he is every time he goes home for Christmas? Do they even remember to invite him home for Christmas?

I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be some kind of metaphor for the virtue of doing good work without seeking credit, but having your friends and family forget you ever existed every time you're not in the room seems like a pretty rough trade-off for being a walking example of the world's crappiest life lesson.

Check out theMusic's adventures at Melbourne's red carpet premiere of X-Men: Days Of Future Past here.