Next year’s X-Men ultra-sequel has officially cashed in on the Killing Kennedy craze. Just one week after bookshelves and TV schedules were flooded with memorials for the 35th president of the United States, Days of Future Past has just released a new video offering a new theory: Maybe Magneto did. The video proffers the idea that Magneto was present on the grassy knoll on November 22, and that he used his powers to “bend” the bullet. This ridiculous idea still makes more sense than anything in Oliver Stone’s JFK, so watch the video below:
Now, here’s where things get fun. The video links to a website called TheBentBullet.com, which features an assortment of video mock-ups and faux-materials documenting the half-century of Kennedy investigation in the X-verse. It’s surprisingly fun, and when you dig in, there are actually some intriguing revelations about Days of Future Past…not to mention an intriguing tease about who really killed Kennedy. Minor Possible Ambient Spoilers For Days of Future Past Follow:
-The materials claim that, by 1963, dawning awareness about the rise of homo superior had led to a rise in human-mutant violence. Kennedy was planning to speak about the mutant problem in his speech in Dallas, asking Americans to accept all their fellow citizens no matter what their differences “of race, creed, or genetic background.” So could it be that Kennedy was actually killed by anti-mutant forces?
-A fake article about the Kennedy assassination, “The Bent Bullet,” features a contemporary interview with a professor named Kelly Seagle, a mutant in the modern-day. Things aren’t so hot for mutants in contemporary X-Men America: Seagle has to wear an Inhibitor Collar, and she’s also assigned to an internment camp. (Fun fact: The name “Kelly Seagle” seems like a combination of past X-Men authors Joe Kelly and Steven Seagle. The report also mentions a prosectuor named Brian M. Wein.)
-The report clearly establishes that, by the time of Kennedy’s death, Azazel and Tempest were dead. You remember them from First Class, right? Red Nightcrawler and Winged Zoe Kravitz? No? Well, they’re dead now.
-Magneto was found guilty of killing Kennedy, and was imprisoned inside of a plastic cell. That was 1964. We know — or think we know — that Days of Future Past takes place in the ’70s. That’s a long time behind bars.
-Here’s where things get interesting. The report claims that there may have been an “Oswald Double,” another Lee Harvey Oswald running around Dallas in the days leading up to the assassination. It also claims that Jack Ruby, the man who killed Oswald, later couldn’t remember anything about that day. It seems clear, then, that Kennedy was actually killed by a shapeshifter. Was Ruby’s mind controlled by a telepath? Which shapeshifter? Which telepath?
-The report finds an older Magneto — Ian McKellen, not Michael Fassbender — back behind bars. It would appear that he’s been there for a long time. So maybe he went back to prison sometime after X-Men: The Last Stand, or maybe that movie was never a thing that happened at all, hooray! At one point, Young Magneto is quoted as saying: “I did not shoot your president. But I know who did, and you’ll never find her. She has a way of hiding in plain sight.” Old Magneto echoes these statements: “Whoever said that was Oswald in the warehouse? And whoever said the killer was a man? And whoever said I wanted Kennedy dead because my brothers and sisters were being killed? Humans.”
-Reading between the lines here, it’s clear that Magneto was at the grassy knoll that day to prevent Kennedy’s assassination. Someone — a former ally, with the ability to shapeshift — was imitating Oswald. Magneto wanted to save Kennedy’s life, maybe to promote peace between humans and mutants. His former ally wanted to incite further war, or maybe just wanted vengeance. It seems very likely that the former ally in question is Mystique.
-Therefore, in the X-Men universe, Jennifer Lawrence killed JFK.
