X-MEN: APOCALYPSE Ending The World In 2016

Bryan Singer, the reappointed mastermind behind the big screen X-Men franchise, took to Twitter this evening to announce X-Men: Apocalypse for 2016, which will, of course, feature Apocalypse, the millennial old mutant who is the X-Men's most powerful foe.   

Shortly after Fox confirmed further with a planned release date of May 27, 2016.

Singer and co. are currently in post on X-Men: Days Of Future Past for a release next summer. DoFP seems to be the franchise's attempt at a "Go Big Or Go Home" kind of X-Men saga. The kind we comic fans have been hoping for on the big screen since, well... film one really. 'Cause if anything the X-verse is a big place with some of the most operatic and out there tales in comic book history. So how do you top a time travel tale such as DoFP? Why by introducing one of the most notorious baddies in the X-Men roster; the one that basically unites and divides mutants like no other, because, well Apocalypse can fly, teleport, create force fields, heal himself using other's energy, and change his molecules to mimic most shapes and most other mutant powers... and then some. Basically, he's more powerful than Superman.   

The Age Of Apocalypse storyline from the mid 90s is one being touted by fans and online journos as possible source material for the film, which is interesting since, broadly speaking, AoA plays out in a similar fashion to DoFP, in that it is a alternate future/timeline where the world has totally gone to shit. Instead of Bolivar Trask and his mutant hunting Sentinels that send the X-folk into hiding, it's a world totally overthrown by the all mighty Apocalypse. In the ultra convoluted comics Beast and Cyclops are baddies, and Magneto leads the X-Men in honor of his fallen friend Xavier. Oh, and Wolverine has one hand. It isn't anywhere near my favorite storyline (and there are even more recent Apocalypse-centric stories that are even crazier), but I can see how DoFP could lead into the Age of Apocalypse. IE Apocalypse has been in the shadows this whole time orchestrating something sinister (ala Thanos in The Avengers) and one small fuck up to correct the X-Men timeline in DoFP actually alters it even further down the shit ladder.

But at this point, who really knows. Oh, Bryan Singer and the folks at Fox, that's who. Or let's hope they do.