Kit Connor is Cyclops. That’s not a rumor anymore — Deadline broke it, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed it, and with what we know so far, Marvel is clearly going the young route with this new X-Men cast.

The confirmed pick

Marvel Studios’ ‘X-Men’ movie has cast Kit Connor to play Scott Summers aka Cyclops in the latest installment. Director Jake Schreier and Marvel president Kevin Feige met with a number of candidates before sources say the studio ultimately landed on Connor last week. Connor is 22 years old, and while most people know him from Heartstopper, he’s already shown range — he’s caught the eye of director Alex Garland, who cast him in his A24 war film Warfare.

That’s the actor stepping into the role James Marsden originated in the original trilogy and Days of Future Past. Big shoes for someone barely old enough to rent a car.

He’s not alone

This isn’t an isolated data point. Samara Weaving has been eyed for the role of Emma Frost, and Sadie Sink has joined the MCU as Jean Grey, as revealed in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Line that up next to Connor and the pattern writes itself — Marvel isn’t chasing veteran X-Men energy, it’s building a cast that skews young across the board.

All signs point to Kit Connor’s Cyclops, Sink’s Jean Grey, and Weaving’s Emma Frost being joined by Storm, Rogue, and Beast, along with their leader, Professor X — a classic line-up evocative of the main team on X-Men: The Animated Series. Notably: so far, it doesn’t appear that Wolverine is going to be a part of this X-Men reboot.

What it means

A younger Scott Summers changes the whole shape of this team. Cyclops has always been the tactician, the guy who’s seen the worst of what mutants face and leads anyway — that reads different at 22 than it did with Marsden. It also tracks with how Marvel’s been building lately: young leads, long runways, characters who can grow across a decade of movies instead of aging out of the role.

We don’t have a full roster yet, but three pieces are locked: Connor, Sink, Weaving. If this is the tone for the rest of the announcements, expect Storm, Rogue, and Beast to skew just as young when those names drop.

Marvel’s building an X-Men team for the next ten years, not a nostalgia lap for the last twenty. What’s next: the Professor X and Wolverine casting news — and whether Marvel keeps the young streak going or finally brings in some grey hair.