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Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

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Empire Magazine’s ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ Covers Are Here: Let’s Speculate!

Empire Magazine has unveiled 25 X-Men: Days of Future Past covers for their March 2014 issue, and what kind of comic book site would we be if we didn’t rampantly speculate on a movie five months away based on nothing but a photoshoot?! We break down the covers looking at potential story details and discuss how terribly good (or just plain terrible) they are.


Wolverine (in scuba costume…also the future)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Let’s start with Wolverine, since he’s the one putting butts in seats after all. What we have here is a metal clawed, grey haired and rather covered up Logan. Maybe he’s lost his ab definition in the future? Clearly this is the future version, since he’s all special ops decked out like future Magneto and Xavier. Obviously from the trailer we’ve seen he’s donning this costume in the future where mutants are fighting constantly against sentinels.

It’s important to note he’s got metal claws, which he, spoiler alert, lost in The Wolverine which can only mean this version of Wolverine is not of the same dimension (or timeline) of the current movie canon Wolverine since it’s the future. It is however odd he’d have body armor at all. What does he need it for unless he has lost his healing factor? HAS HE LOST HIS HEALING FACTOR?!


Xavier (of the future)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Talk about awful; from the mini jet packs on his wheelchair to his too long and turtle-like body armor. What good is body armor if you can’t even get out of your chair? Let’s just be thankful those kneepads are iron, because he could easily take a tumble out of that chair of his.

No matter how you cut it though, his brain is what’s important, so you might ask what does the chair even matter? Everything, in the future! The look is everything!


Magneto (of the future)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Seriously, is black leather the only material in the future? Cows should rise up and take out these mutants in the third one.


Bishop


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Now we’re getting into the fun stuff: Bishop! How many fanboys are going nuts over this image? I think they nailed the look with the eyes and red blanket cape, minus the aisle five knee pads. And who doesn’t like a good ribbed shoulder pad?


Warpath


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

And then this. What the hell is this? Where’s the red in the costume? Why the raccoon eye shadow? …Is that a vagina on his chest? This is so terrible he’s obviously going to either die in the first few minutes or he’s got such a small part they didn’t even bother sweating the aesthetic details. This is a prime example of producers using too much black leather and a “dark” look to get into the brooding mood.


Storm


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Because buckles!


Blink


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Heyyyyy. Blink isn’t so bad, though she does obnoxiously share the cover with Warpath (who in turn gets obnoxiously covered with a text blob). The eyes, hair and textured jacket all work toward giving her that cute elf look. I do take umbrage with the costume, which isn’t much of a body armor. Sure, her powers allow her to jump through space and time, but why give Xavier all the good chest armor when he’s probably doing absolutely no hand to hand combat like Blink will be doing?


Iceman, Rogue, Colossus, Kitty


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

No that’s not a typo, Kitty is grouped here but her picture is not above. Why? Because she’s wearing a god damn leather jacket and nothing looking remotely like a costume. What, she can’t get any sweet body armor?! Way to not try at all costume department.

I’m lumping these other three together because yawn. First off, it’s already been confirmed Rogue has been cut from the film. Second off, look at these boring costumes. Iceman and Colossus could swap clothes and we wouldn’t notice the difference. Look, I know what you’re thinking, Iceman’s long sleeve sock arms are rad, but he really just looks like a homeless guy. Where’s his actual armor? Then we have Colossus with some armor on…the one hero who doesn’t need armor (save Wolverine). Why?! And why is Rogue the only one in all white? Is she symbolic of some innocence? I guess she deserves some credit since she’s the only hero who has the courtesy of giving us a butt shot.


Wolverine (in the past)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

You can’t have too much Wolverine when it comes to selling your X-Men film. Somebody give me the number of Hugh Jackman’s steroid provider, because holy veins Batman! This can’t be real; it must be some digital trick, because those are some gnarly veins. You could probably send Noah’s Ark down those tubes. Sheesh.

Joking aside, we’ve got some bone claws to look at, which pits him pre Weapon X. That’s a relief, as we’ll get a hell of a lot less “grumpy sad Wolverine” and more “badass soldier Wolverine.” Or at least we can hope.


Quicksilver (in the past)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Oh hey look, more leather, but this time it’s super cool 70s leather! Absolutely no difference compared to future leather though, so I guess mutants are just drawn to black leather. Also what’s the deal with the cyberpunk look? He looks something like this:

Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

So obviously Quicksilver is a punk type kid as the headphones are always a signifier of counterculture. This is the 70s so a costume isn’t necessary but I appreciate the touch with the hair as it hearkens to the blue of his comic book costume.


Toad (in the past)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

This guy has had a major change of look, eh? Why couldn’t they get Ray Park to reprise his role, because this dude is mad ugly. He’s also incredibly boring to look at in this image. How about have him swing around or use his tongue so it’s more obvious he’s a mutant and not some lame janitor?


Sentinel (in the past and future)


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

Many folks have hated on the 70s sentinel (right) but man, I think it looks cool. Sure, its chest vent could be a major flaw considering Magneto could shoot a footlong piece of metal straight into it, but it’s a neat bit of design. The purple is a must of course, but it’s also neat to see it being made. This is the beginning, they are saying.

Then we have the future Sentinel (on the left) which looks so futuristic it couldn’t possibly be manmade. This screams, “the machines have taken over” and I love it. The checkered exterior makes it look almost as if it has skin and the light protruding from his ribs imbues a sense of power. It’s also creepy how human the hands look.


Xavier, Havok, Mystique, William Striker, Trask, Magneto, Beast, Sunspot


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

I’m grouping the rest of these because, blah, boring, boo, hiss. Xavier, Beast, Havok Mystique, and Striker are all boring. Obviously they’re in average everyday clothes and don’t need costumes, because they either are average citizens or aren’t in any team, but they make for a boring cover. Mystique looks great as always, although I wonder how much work they did to make Jessica Lawrence skinnier. That’s no diss on her, but she’s a more full figured woman than this conveys.

Trask is a bit meh, but it’s nice that they reflected his small stature by giving him such a small amount of the page. Magneto is also meh, but that’s because the costume doesn’t do anything for me. The scratched up helmet is a nice touch, but the ribbing on the thighs and enormous front plated armor is silly.

Finally we have Sunspot who is a boo, mostly because most of us were expecting the Asian character Sunfire; way to go Fox, throw away your one Asian connection.

All 25


Empire Magazine's 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Covers Are Here: Let's Speculate!

So as an entire group you can see we start with the Sentinel of the 70s and end with the Sentinel of the future. Nice touch there, planner of magazine covers! Of course most won’t even notice or care considering you’d have to actually piece this together or note the numbers of the Sentinel covers, but it’s cool that they begin and end with the real enemy of this movie. I also dig the theme of the background transitioning from safe and whole Washington D.C. to blowing it all to hell. To have director Bryan Singer as the transition cover between the two is a neat way of showing it’s his decision to blow it all up. Let’s just hope this isn’t Superman Returns caliber blowing up.

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