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X-Men ’97 is back for a second season, and you may have missed the connection between the series and 2026’s biggest Hollywood success story, Whiplash. Michael Johnston, who played the expressionless protagonist (not hero) Bear in Whiplash, is also the voice of young Nathan Summers in X-Men ’97. Now rumors are spreading that one of his colleagues may also join the X-Men.
Inde Navarette, who plays Bear’s love interest Nikki Freeman and is transformed by his desire for her to love him, is the undisputed breakout performance of Whiplash. There are her expressive facial expressions, with frowns and smiles equal parts terrifying; the way “Freaky Nikki” moves as if she doesn’t know how to be human; her cry when something interferes with her new affection for Bear; Navarette charges for the fences in every scene and hits a perfect streak of home runs.
After Whiplash, the door is wide open for Navarette to pursue her wildest acting dreams. She spoke about some of them in detail in a new interview with Nylon. She wants to star in an action film and is also interested in appearing in the film adaptation of Rebecca Yarros’s romantic book series, The Fourth Wing. (By the way, /Film thinks Navarette would be perfect for the lead role of Violet Sorrengale.) One of the directors she dated? Jake Schreier, director of the upcoming X-Men reboot.
Marvel Studios is certainly planning for the X-Men to form the basis of their new Avengers: Secret Wars storyline. Choosing Navarette would be a good move for this. So who should she play? If there’s a superhero franchise with so many to choose from, it’s the X-Men. We’ve highlighted some X-Men roles that we think Navarette would be perfect for.
5. Robber
Marvel Comics
Let’s get one idea out: Inde Navarette would be a great Jean Gray, and perhaps even better as Jean’s clone, Madelyne Pryor/Goblin Queen (if the MCU’s X-Men ever gets around to Madelyne’s most famous storyline as a villain, “Inferno”). But it’s no secret that Sadie Sink will play Jean Gray in Spider-Man: New Day, which will allow her to play a major role in the X-Men reboot.
Don’t worry, because Navarette still has room to play one of the X-Men’s most important leading ladies: Rogue, a Southern belle with a life-draining touch and a power as strong as a freight train. There have been numerous casting rumors surrounding the MCU’s Rogue, suggesting she’ll be playing a role in Jake Schreier’s X-Men. Rumored actors ranged from Margaret Qualley to Odessa A’tzion, while several X-fans were also campaigning for Sophie Thatcher to play Rogue.
Personally, I would have liked to see Rogue be closer to the comics than Anna Paquin’s version; give her Ms. Marvel’s powers, abrasive attitude, and a checkered past. Rogue was a villain when she first appeared, a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Compared to the transformative performance she delivered as Nikki in Whiplash, playing a supervillain turned superhero is a range that Navarette could pull off in her sleep.
Navarette’s early scenes in Whiplash featuring Nikki before Bear’s desire corrupted her show us that the real Nikki was a friendly, confident, outgoing and kind young woman. Add a Southern accent and that’s Rogue.
4. Kitty Pryde
Marvel Comics
Speaking of Rogue, in the original X-Men films she played the role of Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) assistant. This left Kitty Pryde/Shadow Cat, the girl who can walk through walls and historically the teenage POV character in X-Men, with little left to do. Even when Kitty (Elliot Page) got bigger roles in X-Men: The Last Stand and much later in X-Men: Days of Future Past, she was a shadow of her comic importance.
Kitty could easily have been the main character of an early X-Men movie, in a way that condenses her storyline into writer Chris Claremont’s nearly 200 X-Men issues. Have her join the X-Men as a rookie and then grow from the team’s skittish little sister to a capable heroine in her own right. Navarette, now 25, is younger and looks the part. (Indeed, Whiplash’s main characters are Gen Zers, and that’s a key part of why it resonates.) This youthfulness is an important part of Kitty’s character, at least early on.
Once again, Nikki’s early scenes in Whiplash tell me that she could easily pull off Kitty’s famous bravery. If she were to stay with the character long term, know that comic Kitty wore several different hats; teacher, leader, ninja assassin, space traveler and pirate captain. Marvel Studios could have chosen any of these adventures for Kitty, and Navarette is up to the task. With Inde Navarette, we may finally get Shadowcat on the big screen, worthy of Kitty Pryde’s legacy as the character who most inspired Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
3. Magic
Marvel Comics
Some consider Whiplash to be a film about demonic possession, i.e. Bear’s wish created an entity that took over Nikki’s body, and consequently the real Nikki struggles to regain control of herself throughout the film. Speaking to CinemaBlend, Inde Navarette (quoting director Curry Barker) said that this is not the case. Rather, Bear’s desire imposed a “veil” that obscured Nikki’s own personality, causing her to become possessed by Bear.
Now, given that the film draws a clear line between the two Nikkis, whether or not this truly qualifies as a possession film is up for debate. But if Navarette wants to play an undeniably demonic character, look no further than Rasputin/Magic’s Illyana. The younger sister of X-Man Peter Rasputin/Colossus, she was kidnapped by the demon Belasco and raised in the hellish dimension “Limbo”. When she returned, she became a powerful witch and joined the X-Men as Magik.
Ulyana’s character is almost a mirror image of Nikki’s character. There is great evil inside her, sometimes physically turning her into the demon Darkchild, but she tries to maintain her human self and be a hero. Magik was last played by Anya Taylor-Joy in the quickly forgotten 2020 film The New Mutants, and she deserves a second shot on the big screen. Indée Navarette could be the actress to bring about this redemption.
2. Polaris
Marvel Comics
While the X-Men have about a dozen characters that you’ll see the most consistently, their ranks are legion. The MCU has the opportunity to bring attention to many, many characters that never appeared in previous X-movies. As such a possibility, I present Lorna Dane/Polaris, daughter of Magneto. Distinguished by her green hair and her father’s magnetic powers, Polaris has never appeared in an X-Men film.
Lorna had a role in the short-lived series Gifted, played by Emma Dumont, but she never made it to the big screen. This is a mistake considering how important Magneto’s children are to his character, so now is the time to set the record straight. Polaris is full of internal conflict; She is a hero, but her father’s legacy rests on her shoulders. She loves her father, but sometimes finds herself on the opposite side of the war against him. The drama won’t just establish Polaris as her own compelling character (which Navarette could make an acting fest out of), but it will also offer the films fresh material for Magneto.
Some of Polaris’ stories focus not only on her family, but also on her mental health. She canonically lives with bipolar disorder and its associated mood swings from depression to mania. One of Inde Navarette’s greatest strengths in Whiplash was the way she played Nikki’s mood swings, from tears to anger to frantic apologies. While it would be a mistake to equate Nikki’s… “condition” with actual mental illness, Navarette’s talent leaves no doubt that she could play similar mood swings in the story, drawing empathy rather than horror from them.
Polaris (voiced by Caroline Ravassa) recently appeared in the second season of X-Men ’97 as part of the X-Factor team. Perhaps this is the role that will raise her character’s profile enough for him to join the movie industry.
1. Mysticism
Marvel Comics
For all the hype about how transformative Indée Navarette’s Possession performance is, why not just cast her as a literal werewolf? Mystique is one of the most frequently appearing characters in the X-Men films. And yet, those same films rarely, if ever, got the comic book Mystique right. Rebecca Romijn as Mystique in the original X-Men films, where she was merely Magneto’s loyal henchwoman, was Fine. But after Jennifer Lawrence starred in X-Men: First Class and Mystique was later reimagined around Lawrence’s heroic on-screen portrayal of Katniss Everdeen, it was all over.
Even though Bear is the true villain of Whiplash, Freaky Nikki still scares us the entire movie. So, based on that, Navarette’s best Marvel cast might not be one of the heroes, but the X-Men’s most famous female villain. Throughout Whiplash, Nikki creates an eerie valley vibe even as she tries to be romantic to Bear. This is very important to Mystique, whose shapeshifting abilities allow her to feel like a chameleon in human form. Her entire design screams this; she is undoubtedly a beautiful woman, but in her most natural state she also has blue skin and yellow pupilless eyes.
These aforementioned abilities also mean that the Mystic does not age; she only looks like that if she wants to, but she is already well over 100 years old. Moreover, she is the mother of other adult X-Men characters such as Nightcrawler and Rogue. Navarette may be too young to handle this side of Mystique, but after Whiplash, betting on her acting range doesn’t seem wise either.