WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fox's The Darkest Minds, in theaters now.

Fox's X-Men franchise hasn't always sat well with fans, with films like The Last Stand and Apocalypse earning criticism for deviating too far from the comic book source material, and fueling repeated calls for the rights to revert to Marvel (a longtime dream that's poised to become reality soon enough). However, while the studio continues to expand its X-Men cinematic universe, it has, in effect, quietly adapted Marvel Comics' "Decimation" storyline with The Darkest Minds.

That 2006 X-Men crossover spun out of the events of House of M, in which the Scarlet Witch, after suffering a mental break, created an alternate reality only to end it be decreeing, "No more mutants." With that, the Marvel Universe returned, only with 90 percent of its mutant population stripped of its powers; only 198 mutants remained in possession of superhuman abilities. Some went into hiding, others fled, and the rest fought not only to ensure the survival of the species but to find a way to restore those who were de-powered.

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Adapted from Alexandra Bracken's 2012 dystopian young-adult novel, The Darkest Minds essentially replaces mutants for teens in its story about a near-future America in which 90 percent of children are killed in a mysterious pandemic, and the survivors develop extraordinary abilities. Fearing this emerging threat, the U.S. government seeks out the youths, placing them in internment camps for testing and potential weaponization.

Protagonist Ruby (Amandla Stenberg) is effectively an omega-level mutant, a super-telepath similar to Professor Charles Xavier, who fights to save the other children and rebuild a world for them. The son of the U.S. president, Clancy (Patrick Gibson), turns out to be her equal in terms of abilities. However, while Ruby seeks to help the kids, Clancy wants to weaponize them for his own purposes, becoming a messiah-like figure akin Magneto.

The Darkest Minds

While these two factions go to war, some kids are being sought out by a resistance called the Children's League, and others are forced underground, similar to the Morlocks. But what stands out most is how desperately everyone is trying to ensure the depopulation metric doesn't drop below 10 percent. It's very much like "Decimation," where, no matter whether the party was a "hero" or a "villain," no one wants the mutant population to be further reduced.

REVIEW: The Darkest Minds Is a Violent, Predictable Patchwork of Better Movies

Everyone wanted mutants to survive, if for different reasons. That same desire drives The Darkest Minds as a survivalist story, in which super-powered teens are used as pawns by a nation that sees them as the next step in evolving into a global power.

Based on the book by Alexandra Bracken, director Jennifer Yuh Nelson’s The Darkest Minds stars Amandla Stenberg, Mandy Moore, Gwendoline Christie, Harris Dickinson, Skylan Brooks, Miya Cech, Patrick Gibson, Golden Brooks, Wallace Langham and Bradley Whitford. The film is in theaters nationwide.