Ok you superhero comic book afficionados (especially those familiar with the expansive X-Men universe) – I'm going to need your help with this one. 

It's been revealed this morning that the sequel to last year's blockbuster X-Men: First Class will be based on the "Days of Future Past" storyline, seen in a pair of Uncanny X-Men issues published in 1981.

The story, which sounds really cool…:

… alternates between present day, in which the X-Men fight Mystique's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and a future timeline caused by the X-Men's failure to prevent the Brotherhood from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly. In this future universe, Sentinels rule the United States, and mutants live in internment camps. The present-day X-Men are forewarned of the possible future by a future version of their teammate Kitty Pryde, whose mind traveled back in time and possessed her younger self to warn the X-Men. She succeeds in her mission and returns to the future, but despite her success, the future timeline still exists as an alternative timeline rather than as the actual future.

I'm no X-Men pro, but all that sounds intriguing enough that I'm in! Although I'm sure it means much more to those of you who know more about this particular universe.

And if you fall into that group, here's where your input is needed: My research tells me that in this storyline, there are at least 2 (I guess we could refer to them as) "mutants of the African diaspora" (for lack of a better term) featured – Storm (who was played by Halle Berry in the first X-Men trilogy of films in the early- to mid-2000s), and Bishop, the son of Aborigine mutant refugees, whose powers include energy absorption and redirection, as well as superhuman physical attributes, and the ability to instinctively know his present location.

And worth noting, when Professor Charles Xavier offered him a place within the X-Men, he was placed under Storm's tutelage.

There might be others worth mentioning here, but there are so many characters, and teams, that I don't know how you folks keep up with them all. 

But these are the two I could immediately identify (their character photos above); and so my first question for those who know more about this than I do is: are there any others we should know about, and how involved is each of them in this storyline? And secondly, who should be cast to play these 2 characters, and any others of significance – assuming the movie stays somewhat true to the series?

In my research, I found a few fanboy suggestions that Michael Jai White should play Bishop; others mentioned Idris Elba. As for who to play Storm, not much; what I found a lot of were folks complaining about the fact that Halle Berry was cast in the first trilogy.

In the interview below, producer Bryan Singer confirms the above storyline for the sequel, but also adds that "It deals with aspects of that comic, but also some very new things." 

What those "very new things" could be aren't yet known. So let the speculation begin.