My Favorite X-Men

In the genre of superhero comics, the X-Men have always been my favorite.  There are so many fascinating elements to the mythology, especially for a teenager.  That you could one day, in the middle of class, gain the ability to see through walls.  Or fly.  Or maybe, through no fault of your own, become deadly to those around you.

Much has been made of the comic being a thinly veiled metaphor for the civil rights movement in the 60's, but mutants work very effectively as a blank slate where anyone who feels like an outcast can place their empathy.  They aren't heroes simply out of a sense of social obligation (though that does play a part of it), but because they're walking targets in a world that hates and fears them.  Spiderman is considered a menace, but he can go back to being Peter Parker by day.  Most of the X-Men have trouble hiding their true selves, and the whole point seems to be that they shouldn't have to.

The X-Men are a large enough figure in the cultural consciousness that even if someone has never seen a movie or read a comic, they could probably name at least three X-Men characters.  We've all been exposed to it, in one way or another.  But do you have a particular attachment to a certain era of the group?  I know a lot of people who got into the X-Men through the early 90's cartoon.  Several people first experienced them through the film series.  And there are a few who were first exposed to the X-Men in their purest form;  comic books.

The most critically acclaimed run on the comic series seems to be the Chris Claremont/John Byrne era, which included the classic Dark Phoenix Saga storyline.  Some people got into it when Grant Morrison took over writing duties in the 2000's, turning the school into more of a, well, school.  Joss Whedon fans gobbled up his brief run on the book.

My first issue?  Uncanny X-Men # 234, written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Marc Silvestri.

Yeah.  In a world of comics featuring larger than life boy scouts like Superman, this cover called out to me.  I'm like, "Who is that creepy freak with the demon face and the blades?!".  Little did I know, Wolverine would turn out to be a much more fascinating character than I could have imagined.  I pick it up from my local 7-11, most likely accompanied by a Slurpee and some sort of chocolate confection.  Once home, I nervously rifle through the pages.

I'm first introduced to Dazzler, who is apparently a "mutant" who can convert sound into energy weapons.  Neat.  Next, I learn that her group, The X-Men, is in the midst of battling a bunch of body snatching aliens called The Brood, who look scary as shit.  Also neat.  In short order, I'm introduced to the rest of the X-Men.  Storm, the leader, has weather controlling powers and a badass white mohawk.  Psylocke, who can read peoples minds.  Havok, who can shoot force blasts at people, but doesn't want to because he accidently killed someone recently.  Rogue, a chick with what appeared to be Superman-like powers.  Longshot, a cool dude who's power is "luck"(?!?!!).  The aforementioned Wolverine, who at the end of the issue skewers a guy through the head with his claws (Sweet!!!).  And last, but certainly not least, we have Colossus, a gigantic dude with metal skin!

I was blown away by this.  I'd read superhero books before, but this was punk rock, rebel superheroics.  People got killed!  The heroes were hated!  Everything about this book was extremely cool, and I was hooked for life.

Well. . .  "life" is a bit strong.  I needed to break from my expensive comics habit in the early 90's, so once Chris Claremont left the series with X-Men # 3, I left my favorite mutants behind for quite some time.  Later, I went back and reread the 90's issues;  I hadn't missed much.

I'm sure that nostalgia is a strong part of it, but when I say that I like the X-Men, I'm really talking about the Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee pencilled issues from the late 80's through the early 90's;  Uncanny X-Men # 218 through X-Men # 3.  Not to sound shallow by focusing on the artists like that, but I think that longtime writer Chris Claremont's work became better by bouncing his ideas off of two artists with a bit more edge than John Byrne or Dave Cockrum.  These X-Men were constantly losing, winning, and then losing again, barely holding their ground.  You had the Fall Of The X-Men, Inferno, their passing through the Siege Perilous, and their eventual journey into space to recover their lost leader, Professor X.  These were epic, dark stories, which often had dire consequences, and an omnipresent air of foreboding.

So, that's what I consider to be "my" X-Men.  The punk era, I guess you might say.  It was completely of it's place and time, and I've never seen that tone replicated in an X-Men comic since.