Imagine you’re a mutant who just got your powers. Now imagine your powers make you so physically repulsive that you can’t survive in normal society. That’s the problem faced by the Morlocks in X-Men comics, a group of horrific looking mutants who will appear in Logan. What’s more, it appears the Morlocks will also appear in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men TV series, though there’s no word whether the group leader, Caliban, will follow the story from Logan and onto television.
Matt Nix and Bryan Singer’s as-yet-untitled Fox X-Men drama has recruited Blair Redford to play Sam, the “strong-headed Native American leader of the underground network.” That phrase “underground network” is key here, and it tips off Marvel fans to Morlocks.
It’s already been said that the untitled drama — originally developed by Burn Notice creator Matt Nix, with direction and executive producing from X-Men mainstay Bryan Singer — will focus on two parents with mutant children who are forced to go on the run from hostile government oversight. They join up with an underground network of mutants, which already sounds a lot like the Morlocks or even the Omegas, the group of mutants living in sewers in X-Men: The Last Stand. The Omegas, in all fairness, were just an adaptation of the Morlocks anyway, especially considering a character named Callisto leads them. Caliban is also almost always associated with the Morlocks; his frighteningly pale complexion fits right in with the wayward freaks that are often members of the group.
The Omegas as they appeared in 'X-Men: The Last Stand'
The mutants in the world of Marvel’s X-Men have long been an allegory for persecuted groups striving for civil rights; the Morlocks represent the intensely persecuted minorities — often with physical mutations or crazed minds — who are quite literally forced underground by pogroms against their kind. Matt Nix and Bryan Singer’s drama will follow that same plotline through the eyes of concerned “normy” parents.
Nix tells IGN that “[the show] definitely exists in the same general kind of universe” as other X-Men shows and movies, while, in the same breath, pointing out the many continuity errors in the movies.
The Morlocks as they appear in a fan film from Throwback Studioz.
We can’t expect to ever see the heavy-hitting A-listers of the X-Men-verse like Wolverine to show up in this show, but you never know if a character like Caliban might show up in the Morlock camp with some nervous parents and their newfound mutant children.
Logan hits theaters March 3, and Marvel’s X-Men series is currently in development.
