Legacy: Future (2029)

The Legacy Future era covers Logan (2017), set in a near-future 2029 where the X-Men are gone, mutants are nearly extinct, and an ageing Wolverine cares for a deteriorating Charles Xavier on the US-Mexico border. The film is a standalone Western-inflected character study — technically set in a timeline that the MCU's multiverse framework has since made non-canonical as far as the main continuity is concerned, but essential viewing for understanding who Wolverine is.

Logan is widely regarded as the finest X-Men film and one of the best superhero films made. Director James Mangold treats the superhero premise with the same seriousness applied to prestige drama, and Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart give career-best performances in roles they had occupied for seventeen years. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) explicitly honours Logan's ending by making its Wolverine a variant — a different version from a different timeline — rather than a continuation. Watch Logan before Deadpool & Wolverine to understand what's being preserved.