In Future X, Professor Xavier mentally projects himself into the past (or present, depending on how you want to look at it) to discuss his predicament with Wolverine. The episode centres around Bolivar Trask’s mysterious “Master Mold” project, inexorably linked to the creation of the evil Sentinels. As the future Professor X is captured by the Sentinels, he witnesses the theft of Cerebro and is thrown into a mutant prison camp. There, he encounters familiar faces from X-Men lore, including Bishop, Firestar, Hellion, and Marrow.

While the episode revisits the dark future reality in more detail, Wolverine’s present-day team makes brief appearances, and Professor X arrives at a place different and more interesting than his previous status quo. Future X tantalizes with its techno remix of old favourites, promising intrigue and unexpected alliances in a world where Sentinels hunt mutants…

Wolverine contacts future Xavier to ask if he knows anything about “Master Mold”, something he’d seen at the Trask Lab. Xavier doesn’t even start his investigation when the giant Sentinels find his hiding place in the rubble of the old X-Mansion. They take him and the entire Cerebro Chamber to their facility.

In the prisoner’s yard there are many other mutants being held powerless by Inhibitor Collars. Xavier uses his mind control powers to keep the cybernetic Colonel Moss from activating his collar. The other mutants are impressed and have heard about him from Wolverine who trained them as his X-Men. Xavier asks for their help to get back the Cerebro, explaining its power to locate and track mutants all over the world. Without it he cannot communicate with Wolverine in the past who is their only hope at stopping this war before it starts.

They sneak into the facility and find that the Sentinels are using the captive mutants to mechanically reproduce their powers under the direction of Master Mold. They are evolving! A major battle ensues between the future X-Men and Sentinels. The mutants work together to escape with Xavier and part of the Cerebro. From a safe place Xavier manages to power-up the Cerebro enough to contact Wolverine and warn him that he must stop the construction of Master Mold before it starts.

In the X-Men episode Courage, Sentinels capture Charles from the grounds of Xavier’s Mansion. The camp is teeming with familiar faces: Thunderbird, Artie Maddicks and Firestar make cameo appearances, while Domino, Bishop, Berserker, and newcomers such as Vanisher, Marrow and Hellion have more prominent roles, the latter three appearing in animation for the first time.

Kamal, capable of assuming the physical properties of anything he touches, is one of Magneto’s Acolytes and made his debut in Magneto #1.

The uniforms that the camp residents are compelled to wear in the future resemble the one Bastion forced Xavier to wear while he was a captive in X-Men #65, which was itself inspired by the attire from the original Days of Future Past storyline in Uncanny X-Men #141-142.

Colonel Moss becomes a Sentinel at one point, a nod to the Prime Sentinels who take over their human hosts in the comic books. These Sentinels are also able to adapt to mutant powers, similar to those in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

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