"Days of Future Past" is a storyline in the Marvel Comics comic book The Uncanny X-Men issues #141–142, published in 1981. It deals with a dystopian future in which mutants are incarcerated in internment camps. An adult Kate Pryde transfers her mind into her younger self, the present-day Kitty Pryde, who brings the X-Men to prevent a fatal moment in history that triggers anti-mutant hysteria.
The storyline was produced during the franchise's rise to popularity under the writer/artist team of Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin. The dark future seen in the story has been revisited numerous times, and was the basis for the 2014 similarly titled feature film X-Men: Days of Future Past, wherein Wolverine is sent back in time. In 2001, fans voted the first issue of this storyline as the 25th greatest Marvel comic.
The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005 gave the numerical designation for the original "Days of Future Past" timeline as Earth-811 in the Marvel Multiverse.
Plot
The storyline alternates between the present year of 1980 and the future year of 2013. In the future, Sentinels rule a dystopian United States, and mutants are hunted and placed in internment camps. Having conquered North America and hunted all mutants and other superhumans, the Sentinels are turning their attention to the rest of the world. On the eve of a feared nuclear holocaust, the few remaining X-Men, while making a desperate attempt to stop the Sentinels, send Kitty Pryde's mind backward through time, to possess the body of her younger-self and to prevent a pivotal event in mutant–human history and the cause of these events: the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly along with Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggert by Mystique's newly reassembled Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Working with the present-day X-Men, Kitty Pryde's future-self succeeds in her mission and is pulled back to her own time, while her present-day-self is returned with no memory of any interim. The world of 2013 is not shown again in this story arc; the present-day X-Men are left to ponder whether their future dystopia has been averted or simply delayed.
Background and creation
John Byrne devised the plot for "Days of Future Past", since he wanted to do a story featuring the Sentinels and his collaborator Chris Claremont had no interest in coming up with one. Years later, Byrne said, he realized that he had unconsciously lifted the "spine" of the plot from the 1972 Doctor Who serial Day of the Daleks.
Sequels
Though Byrne had intended "Days of Future Past" to be a completely self-contained story, with the future world seen in the story no longer existing even as an alternate timeline following the conclusion, a number of stories have revisited this future and even acted as outright sequels.
Rachel Summers, a character seen in the future segments of "Days of Future Past", later travels through time to the present day and joins the X-Men. A supervillain, Ahab, follows her to the present in the "Days of Future Present" crossover. In this story, Ahab kidnaps the children Franklin Richards (son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman and, in the future timeline, Rachel's lover) and Nathan Summers (son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor) but is defeated by the X-Men, X-Factor, the New Mutants and the Fantastic Four.
Rachel joins the European mutant team Excalibur, whose series twice revisited the "Days of Future Past" timeline. The first time was in a story by Alan Davis entitled "Days of Future Yet To Come", in which a time-traveling Excalibur and several Marvel UK heroes overthrow the Sentinel rulers of future America. This storyline also reveals that Excalibur's robotic "mascot" Widget had been possessed by the spirit of the future Kitty Pryde.
A similar but distinct reality is seen in a vision by her teammate Captain Britain. This story, "Days of Future Tense", reveals the final fate of that timeline's Excalibur team.
A prelude to "Days of Future Past" was produced in a three-part mini-series entitled "Wolverine: Days of Future Past". This three-issue mini dealt with ramifications between the catalyst for the creation of the alternative future up until the main storyline in Uncanny X-Men 141–142. The prelude explains why Logan leaves for Canada and why Magneto is in a wheelchair in the main two issue story.
Another view of this reality was presented in the second issue of Hulk: Broken Worlds. A short story, "Out of Time", examines the life of Bruce Banner (the Hulk) in a Sentinel prison camp.