In short, Thunderbird offers the MCU more of a blank canvas, an opportunity to say something new with a character, rather than feel beholden to beats well-established in the comics. The television series The Gifted got to flesh out Thunderbird, where he was played by Blair Redford, but the movies could take it even further.
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Armor
Most mutants come to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters shortly after their powers manifest at puberty, which means that most of the people around the X-Men are teens and not adults. Every so often, a young teen, usually a female character, becomes a focal point for the story. First it was Kitty Pryde, then Jubilee in X-Men: The Animated Series, Rogue serves that role in the movies, and most recently, that part was played by the Japanese mutant Hisako Ichiki, a.k.a. Armor.
Armor can create red psionic suit around her body, an interesting twist on defensive-based heroes. Since her introduction in Joss Whedon and John Cassidy’s Astonishing X-Men, Armor has been one of the more popular new mutants, even serving as the lead of Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men.
Kate Pryde
Before Armor, there was Kitty Pryde, the 13-year-old who joined the team early in Chris Claremont’s run. An earnest girl with terrible fashion sense and a willingness to say what others won’t (sometimes with terrible results), Kitty quickly won over fans, whether she was calling herself Sprite, Ariel, or Shadowcat. Fittingly, Kitty did appear in the X-Men movies, played by Elliot Page in X-Men: The Last Stand and in Days of Future Past.
Those appearances dealt with Kitty as a teen, but the character has long since grown up and is now one of the leaders of the team. Kitty should absolutely appear in a new X-Men film, but we should finally get the adult Kate Pryde instead of the young teen. That means we should see her as a principled leader, someone who knows how to temper her passions with a little patience. And she should definitely have a female love interest, as in the current comics, not her original boyfriend, Colossus, or her one-time betrothed, Peter Quill.
Dazzler
All the X-Men are weird, but few are weirder than Dazzler, at least in terms of her origin. Dazzler was created as part of a collaboration between Marvel Comics and Casablanca Records, who would debut with a disco album along with her comics. Even though the album never materialized, Dazzler eventually made her way onto the X-Men, serving as a key member during the fan-favorite Outback era and appearing in the 1989 animated special “Pryde of the X-Men” and the brawler arcade game it inspired.