X-Men
The Last Stand
Film · 2006 · 104 minutes · Original Trilogy
A pharmaceutical company develops a "cure" that suppresses the mutant gene, dividing the mutant community over whether to accept it and igniting a political and moral firestorm. Jean Grey, presumed dead since the Alkali Lake incident, resurfaces alive but consumed by a darker, near-omnipotent personality: the Phoenix. Early in the film Jean, in her Phoenix persona, kills Professor Xavier, and shortly after also kills Cyclops, leaving the X-Men reeling and their leadership passing to Storm. Magneto seizes on the cure's threat to mutantkind to rally a militant Brotherhood and wage open war on humanity, drawing the unstable Phoenix into his ranks, and the X-Men mount a desperate defense of Alcatraz Island where the cure is being weaponized. Wolverine ultimately confronts Jean directly, forced to kill her to stop the Phoenix's rampage. The film closes the original trilogy with the X-Men shattered, several core members dead, and a mid-credits scene revealing Xavier's consciousness survived by transferring into a comatose body.
Follows on from
- X2: X-Men Uniteddirect-sequel — Continues directly from X2's Alkali Lake climax, where Jean Grey sacrificed herself to save the team and was seemingly killed — setting up her resurrection as the Phoenix here.
Leads to
- The Wolverinedirect-sequel — Set years after The Last Stand; Logan is still consumed by guilt over having killed Jean Grey, which drives his self-imposed exile and haunts him throughout the film via visions of her.
- X-Men: Days of Future Pastcrossover — The 2023 future segments feature the surviving original-trilogy X-Men (including a returned Professor X) and reference the deaths and fallout from The Last Stand, which this film's ending ultimately erases/alters.