When Hugh Jackman retracts his claws for the last time in Logan, it marks the end* of his time with that character. Over the past 17 years, Jackman has prevailed as the king of comic book characters, staying in the role while we have seen the world cycle through Chris Evans as two different cornerstone Marvel characters, three Spider-Men, four Infinity Gems, five presidential terms, six movies revolving around The Baggins Family and a ring, and seven Scientology-approved girlfriends for Tom Cruise.



But during this streak, the X-Men movies have gotten sloppier with continuity than Don Cheadle introducing himself as Rhodey in Iron Man 2. There’s been restarts, retcons, time travel, and an on-screen version of Deadpool so bad it took them seven years to fix it. The story is so out of whack, Thelma Schoonmaker herself couldn’t make sense of it. And with three different extended universe or direct sequels in the works, an 'X-Force' television series and a continuity adjacent Legion currently airing on prestige television powerhouse FX, the supply chain shows no sign of stopping.



So it’s up to us to make sense of what we have now. To do so, I first reflected on what I could remember from the series; I did some research, and then spent sleepless nights with a whiteboard and markers, corkboards and strings of thread. Finally, I strapped in for the 19 hours of viewing required and made sense of the order I had found.



I present to you my notes. They are varied and often nonsensical, but I’ve made about as much sense out of them as Bryan Singer has made out of this universe for me.