Since everyone wants Gambit in their movie I decided to come up with a new X4/New Mutants pitch. Here goes:
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On a school campus in L.A., young Alex Summers is visited by Storm who is the bearer of bad news. His brother Scott is missing and presumed dead. He breaks down in her arms over the loss of his brother and asks if he can come back to the school now. (If you didn't catch that he's been to the school before but was kicked out.)
A cured Rogue heads home to visit her family but is shunned. She may be cured but the whole town knows she was a mutant and if they accepted her then they would become the target of mutant hate crimes. Rogue once again runs from home. She leanrs of a haven for mutants, cured and not-cured, called Genosha but realizes she doesn't have the money to go. She is evenutally captured by Weapon X who is capturing cured mutants. She learns from the lead Weapon X scientist Nathaniel Essex that the cure isn't as permanent as they thought and that her powers would more than likely return in a moment of extreme emotion like the first time. Rogue is destroyed by this piece of information but is consolded by a man who introduces himself as Remy who also took the cure and is waiting for his power to return. Other captured mutants include a Native American powerhouse name John. This is a perfect place to showcase a whole bunch of mutant cameos.
Back at the school, Alex is introduced to his classmates, Angel, Colossus, Iceman, Kitty, and Siryn, but is adamant about not becoming an X-Man after seeing what happened to his brother. He just wants to learn more about his brother he didn't get a chance to learn about while he was living because of their seperation while younger. Storm tries to convince him that with the state of the world after the war that his powers and leadership capabilites are going to be needed. He refuses to her anything she has to say.
Cut to a scene of the New York Morlocks(basically the 616 NY Morlocks sans Leech and Callisto) raiding the last Worthington Labs in New York. They're attacking because the cure killed some of their friends and family (think the Neo when they lost their powers). The New Mutants are dispatched to take care of the matter, which turns into a hostage situation similar to the incident in Munich during the Olympics, but as they arrive they realize their intervention is unneccesary. A new mutant task forces have been dispatched to take care of the threat called Freedom Force. Members of Freedom Force include Harpoon, Blockbuster, Vertigo, and Scalphunter. The Morlocks are destroyed in the process but one of the Freedom Force members is killed also. Storm and the rest of the students realize that the creation of Freedom Force is in retaliation for Magneto's attack on Alcatraz. If anything else like that happens the government is more than willin' to deal with it with deadly force.
Back at Alkali Lake, Remy and the rest of the cured mutants are planing an escape but Rogue is hesitant to join. Her argument is that how will they get past the guards with no powers. Remy's answer is if they get shot that should be good enough stress to bring their powers back. The mutants start to escape but the Freedom Force are unleashed on them their missing member replaced by Riptide.. Essex explains that only certain mutants serve a purpose and the ones he kidnapped were only meant to be test rats for his horsemen. With these killing machines under his command, and more to come, only the strongest mutants will survive and the ones who took the cure are the first to be destroyed. A girl is violently killed and the rest of other's powers come back as they watch her die. A mutant who calls himself Caliban is captured by Scalphunter and dragged off. John attempts to kill Riptide single handed but is wounded and lands on Rogue. She can't move his weight off her and sucks out the last of his life and power. Remy nearly suffers the same fate but Rogue's persona breaks through John's and she picks him up and flies off to the school for help. Essex sends his horsemen to the New York sewer tunnels where they will have the upperhand because they know the terrain. The X-Men are sure to follow them there.
Rogue and Remy arrive at the school and they explain everything they witnessed at Alkali Lake and how the Freedom Force's purpose is to kill mutants. Its being backed by a crazy mutant scientist and the governement has nothing to do with it. It's all Essex plan to wipe out cured and weak mutants. They realize that Essex goal is to eventually wipe out Genosha. Storm is adamant against sending the new mutants to take out Freedom Force before they are released on Genosha but Havok hijacks a X-Jet and leaves with the rest of the New Mutants. Storm is kicking herself for bringing Alex back to the school after the professor first kicked him out.
In New York, the New Mutants realize the scope of their fight when they come across Freedom Force except with a new member in Caliban who has been augmented by Essex. The New Mutants have broken up to search the tunnels, a bad idea, and Angel gets harpooned and Colossus gets ripped to shreds by Riptide. Havok gets into a fight with Scalphunter who teases him with the fact that his brother isn't dead but being tested on by Essex. He quips that Essex found him confused, near death, and weak but once he goes through the same process he went through he'll be unstoppable. The same goes for Alex's friends that survive the fight. That pushes Alex over the edge and he blows a hole through Scalphunter. He saves the rest of the New Mutants and takes on Essex who reveals his true mutant form pale skin and all. Havok nearly destroys him but he pulls a bond villain and escapes just in time. With all Essex's maruaders killed call this one a lost and immediatly start to help the injured. They find Colossus and help him but can't find Angel. Instead they find the same spot on the wall where he was harpooned, harpoons still intact, but with bloody stains smeared across the wall and footprints of him walking away. They lost one of their own to Essex.
Scene after the credits: A wingless Warren is wrapped in bandages on an operating table. Essex walks up to him holding a needle, simliar to X3, asking him questions about his mutantion. Warren is barely conscious and can't answer. Essex doesn't mind and injects him anyway saying that just like the cure took away powers he can give them.
Notes
-The Freedom Force is basically the Horsemen of Apocalypse and the Marauders rolled together. Angel is going to become Archangel in the next movie along with three other new horsemen.
-Sinister and Apocalypse are basically thrown together also. I'm not a big fan of Apoc so I don't really want him in any of the movies. A derranged scientist makes a lot more sense to me than a centuries old Egyptian mutant. Thats my own bias, sorry.
-Remy stays at the school after all this but is too old to become a student.
-Rogue has her Ms. Marvel powers after all this, including flight, but she got them from Thunderbird.
-During Havok's fight with Scalphunter nearly all the mysterys surrounding Essex will be revealed. He'll explain that Essex has been working at Alkali Lake since it's creation and was part of the group of scientists that sired Wolverine and the other members of Weapon X but he's moved onto bigger and better things. After injecting himself with mutant genes from the files at the Lake, he decided to recruit mutants to help him furthur his cause of only the strong survive.
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Okay, so we got Gambit, Sinister/Apoc, Mutant Massacre, and Havok. What does everyone think?