Between speculation of Jesse Eisenberg chopping off his curly locks for his role as Lex Luthor and the fact that after two movies, Professor Charles Xavier has managed to keep his hair, despite the stress of fighting for mutant civil rights over a couple of decades. Not since the heyday of Michael Jordan has there been such attention on bald heads.

It seems that writer Simon Kinberg and director Bryan Singer are not breaking canon, but building to it cinematically. In X-Men comic book history, Xavier going bald was a physical manifestation of the strain his mutant powers had on his body…and possibly male pattern baldness. However, how he lost his hair isn’t as relevant as the fact that he is bald. While the loss of his hair in the comics is vaguely defined and something left usually to his backstory. It is as defining a physical trait as Wolverine’s wily mutton chops, Storm’s white hair or Cyclop’s visor.

X-Men: Apocalypse, the next installment and sequel to the vastly successful Days of the Future Past will feature one of the X-Men’s most formidable and god-like foes in Apocalypse. So there will certainly be enough on Kinberg and Singer’s plate, but that doesn’t mean that the details of the franchise have to slip by. And it doesn’t seem that they intend to let that happen…

Actor James McAvoy has gotten an update from Kinberg on his character and this is what he had to say to the Huffington Post .

“I’ll be older in this one,” McAvoy, who plays Professor Charles Xavier in the “X-Men” franchise, told host Alyona Minkovski. “[And] I think I’m losing my hair finally. And, yeah, that’s kind of all I know…I got an email from the [producer/writer Simon Kinberg] who informed me he was getting dead excited about stuff, but he didn’t want to divulge anything for a couple of weeks, so I really don’t know,” he said.

McAvoy also added that we can expect the 2016 film to be “fairly apocalyptic,” which makes sense given that it’s titled “X-Men: Apocalypse.”

“It seems fairly global, if we’re talking apocalypse,”

Clearly this installment will have the most epic feel of any X-Men film. Even in the post-credits scene in Days of Future Past, we glimpse a young En Sabah Nur, Apocalypse, in Ancient Egypt showing his advanced skills in Tetris by creating the pyramids telekinetically. The villain has to make his way to 1980’s and create havoc, Magneto is a fugitive and could be any where in the world and Mystique has Wolverine in a military encampment of some sort. There will be a lot of loose ends to tie up globally and surely as McAvoy alludes to… the villain will certainly have to live up to his name.

Why are we taking the time to write an article about hairstyles? Why does fashion matter?

 

No, P.O.G. isn’t turning into a fashion website, but this progression does have significance. When X-Men was rebooted with First Class there were many deviations from the source material to keep things fresh for an extraordinarily informed audience. It was set in a new time period and most glaringly featured only one of the characters known for actually being in the first class of Xavier’s school, when the comic book was created in the 1960’s. Characters such as Cyclops, Angel and Jean Grey were no where to be found. The only original members included from canon were Xavier, Hank “Beast” McCoy and arguably Magneto.

The fact that we are finally going to see Xavier’s trademark look signifies that we may be getting the X-Men in a more recognizable form, with recognizable faces. After the time-altering events of Days of Future Past, we should see a new “first class” as Xavier rebuilds his life and school that is a safe haven to mutant youth. The sequel will be set about ten years later in the 1980’s, so Xavier’s advancing age could be the culprit. However, it would be a missed opportunity to not include a significant plot point as to why he has such a dramatic hair loss. Particularly with the foreshadowing in previous installments. Bets should be placed on Xavier straining his mind to such an extent that he comes out the other end all Picard-like.

What does this ultimately mean for movie goers and comic book lovers? We will likely see the most true interpretation of the characters, along with a new iteration of the X-Men’s origin that will bookend the failed start of the students in First Class. By having Xavier give up on his school and ultimately having Logan reawaken his passion. The filmmakers have given themselves a fresh start on their origin story. However unlike most origins, we will have had fifteen years of canon (and erased canon) as backstory so they have the freedom to just jump into the action. Funny how something as seemingly inconsequential as a hairstyle can end up shaping the outlook of a franchise. With that being said, I’m about to go get a trim. You never know what it might be saying…

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Source: Huffington Post