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Know any good mutants? 

Kevin Feige and his Marvel Studios team are furiously working on what the mutant era of the MCU will look like. The building blocks you see - Wolverine in the MCU with Deadpool & Wolverine, Ms. Marvel being made a mutant, Beast appearing in The Marvels, and elsewhere - are just what you see as the public, with years (probably a decade) of advance planning we can't see. And with the final form of the X-Men in the MCU not yet set in stone, this primordial time is where changes (or advancements, I'll say) can be made.

And Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik needs to be in the MCU.

"Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik could give the MCU X-Men a much-needed rejuvenation to set it apart from the X-Men of the '00s most of the general public remembers."

While she's not a founding X-Men in comics or was in any interaction of the team in the 20th Century Fox era, Marvel Studios has an opportunity - much in the way Spider-Gwen was fast-tracked in the Sony Spider-Verse movies or Nick Fury was retconned into being the instigator of the MCU Avengers. Illyana Rasputin - and specifically, Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik - could give the MCU X-Men a much-needed rejuvenation to set it apart from the X-Men of the '00s most of the general public remembers.

How great Anya Taylor-Joy is as Magik

When 20th Century Studios' New Mutants movie was released, it was judged more for what it wasn't than what it was. Just judging the movie and its performances based on the movie and its performances, however  - I know, a novel idea - Anya Taylor-Joy's snarly and sarcastic Illyana Rasputin absolutely skewers us with her huge glowing magic sword inside a perfectly okay teen angst horror-tinged movie. Sure, it's not a superhero movie, it's a coming-of-age drama with a side of horror - take that for what it is, but you still want to come for Taylor-Joy's Illyana.

Much like Margot Robbie in 2016's Suicide Squad, Alan Rickman in 1991's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and 2019's Adam Driver in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, an actor's performance can exceed the movie they're in... and like all those mentioned, Taylor-Joy does it in New Mutants by leaps and bounds. It's not hurt with the character she's given - a fiery, wronged woman who can teleport (and teleport in huge weapons) and manifest her emotions through fiery CGI.

Anna Taylor-Joy understood the assignment for New Mutants, and lets her hair down (complete with choppy bangs) to really embrace the role - with a Lockheed hand puppet and all. 

How Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik could fit into the MCU

Marvel Studios has easter-egged the coming of mutants over the past five years across its movies and TV series, and for the when-not-if of the MCU X-Men no doubt coming at some point then Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik would be a perfect fit - even if she's not 21 years old as she was when filming on this film began. I'd kind of more like to see a 30-year-old Magik and how she responds to the trauma inflicted on her and how she comes out the other side of that.

With all of this, we're discounting a strong possibility: What if Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik came in via the magic side of the MCU alongside Doctor Strange? I'd certainly be fine if Magik's Limbo becomes The Dark Dimension roadmapped at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. One good line of dialogue could explain how Magik's portals are much the same as the magic portals Strange and friends are able to create - that she can do it without training or a sling ring would just be a positive.

When New Mutants writer/director Josh Boone pitched the movie to 20th Century Fox, it was intended to be the first in a trilogy culminating with a big-screen adaptation of the X-Men storyline 'Inferno.' What if we just do it in the MCU with a mix of magic and mutants?

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.