Given the trajectory of the X-Men franchise following Brett Ratner’s salting of the mutant earth in X-Men: Last Stand, it seems clear that Marvel and Fox weren’t entirely sure what to do with their marquee property.
Ratner killed major characters as if his salary increased every time a hero bit the dust; stripped mutants of powers with abandon; used bits of famous storylines to mediocre effect; and generally laid waste to the universe Bryan Singer had created so carefully in two prior films. As a result, Marvel and Fox were forced to look into the past.
First came the bloated and unwieldy X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That sub-par effort was followed by the far superior X-Men: First Class, a movie that reinvented Professor X’s merry band of mutants.
The Wolverine brings...