Mutant mayhem descends on cinemas again this May as the X-Men return for the final installment of the movie trilogy. This time around Patrick Stewart’s X-Men must contend with a cure that could allow them to lead a normal life and the newly resurrected Pheonix (Jean Grey drowned saving her team mates in the last movie, keep up). Other highlights include a blue and furry Beast (Kelsey Grammer, TV’s Frasier), Vinnie Jones as the unstoppable Juggernaut and ‘the war to end all wars’, apparently.

Far from being just another thrill-a-minute, money eating blockbuster X-Men 3, like the previous two films, has a message behind all those flashy special effects. It’s a film about prejudice and tolerance and how we deal with being different, it’s no wonder the comic book born heroes have always drawn comparisons with us gay folk.

What is it that makes the mutants themselves the most gay friendly of Super Heroes? Well, it’s because they’re like us, no really, for one thing mutant powers first begin to show in the teenage years. Yes, waking up with the ability to shoot lasers from your eyes is a bit like one day realising that Steven Gerard is just as tasty off the pitch as he is on it, in other words it’s a bit like realising your gay.

Number two, mutants hide their powers, terrified that the people they love, and everyone else, will reject them. Again it is just like being gay, just like hiding your porn under the bed, never admitting to actually quite liking Girls Aloud and secretly really fancying your sister’s boyfriend.

Thirdly Sir Ian McKellen is in it. Sir Ian McKellen, the stately homo. Sir Ian McKellen the bigot bashing, gay rights activist and the best actor ever! Sir Ian (did we mention how great he is?) reprises his role as Magneto the master of magnetism, the revolutionary ying to Xavier’s peace loving yang and the villain of the franchise. Except villain isn’t quite the right word because the X-men universe isn’t quite as black and white as Hollywood might sometimes prefer.

The real villain of the piece, of course, is the cure, a scientific breakthrough that could alow the heroes to lead ordinary lives, eradicating mutant-kind for good. McKellen, like his on screen alter-ego, makes his feelings about such a thing very clear: ‘It’s abhorrent to me, as it would be if a person said I need curing of my sexuality’.

As X-Men creator and all round genius Stan Lee might say: ‘’nuff said’.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand opens 26th May.