The X-Men: My favorite superhero team!

     Hi everyone, Hector once again! Hope you're all doing well. It's been a little bit since I posted anything as I've been busy with other stuff with life in general and other things I've been working on. Anyway, after my last post was a rant on probably one of the most dreadful things I had to sit through, I thought that the best option for my next post should be about something I love! There are quite a few options I could go with, but I decided to focus this post on one of my favorite things ever. And that is none other the children of the atom, the X-Men! 

    Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in September 1963, the X-Men are a group of superheroes that consists of various superpowered beings called mutants. These mutants live throughout the world that is complicated to say the least as many of the ones that are human are afraid of mutants due to their abilities and how different they are from humans, and what people don't understand, they give into fear and hate. Due to the hostility the many mutants face, some mutants like Magneto believe to be superior to humans and do whatever they can to conquer the world and show who reigns supreme. But some like Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, believes that mutants are simply a new species of humanity that simply exist and only want to live their lives in peace. Xavier created the X-Men to protect a world that fears and hates them, in order to show that there are many mutants who are good, honest, and willing to fight for what's right, no matter the cost. 

    If any of you know me, you know that one of my passions is the superhero genre! I've been into it for as long as I could remember, and I've came across many I adore throughout the years, especially Spider-Man (my favorite solo superhero). But with the release of X-Men '97 and Deadpool and Wolverine bringing the X-Men back into the public years after being neglected due to a variety of reasons, mainly movie studio politics with Disney and Fox (it's a headache to get into, trust me), as well as some discussions I had with friends and such, it made me realize how much I miss this team. Yeah, we got teams like the Avengers, Justice League, and such throughout the years, but while those teams are good, we never had a team quite as captivating as the X-Men! To me, aside from the teams like The Incredibles and Gargoyles, they're not only the best and most important superhero team out there, they're also my favorite, and I'll tell you why I adore this phenomenal group! 

    

    As mentioned earlier, the X-Men fight for a world that hates and fears them, as they're against the world and even outside of it to some degree as they would also come up against aliens on occasion. Clearly the X-Men are the heroes, but with the odds being stacked against them due to them being villainized in the public, it makes their conflict in the many storylines all the more engaging. Not to mention the struggles the X-Men and mutants go through are also relatable as many of us, though nothing as big as the world ending, go through many tough situations that test us in some way, shape or form. The X-Men have been used as an allegory for various people, ranging from repressed minorities to the LGBTQ community to people with feelings of isolation, and more. Coming from someone who is gay myself, as well as knowing friends of mine that deal with the various issues thrown at them, the way the X-Men handles that allegory is effective, emotionally resonating, and easy to understand.

    Despite the powers and fantastical elements, the X-Men are arguably the most believable and complex superhero team out there (at least in mainstream media). Not only do the X-Men struggle with prejudice, but they also struggle with their own powers, relationship and family drama, identity, difficult choices, and much more. A good example is Rogue, who is a powerful woman that has the ability to absorb anyone's life force, memories, skills, and powers through physical touch. She has this wonderful relationship with Gambit who is also part of the X-Men, but it gets difficult sometimes as she can't touch him without hurting him, which makes their relationship quite compelling to see. Not to mention she has this backstory where after her dad rejects her for being a mutant, her adoptive mom of sorts, Mystique, comes into her life and manipulates Rogue to gain whatever she wanted, and let's just say it gets messy! 

    There are plenty of other examples to go through, but the X-Men is one giant soap opera, and it gets insane, but in the best way possible! It gets emotional, even downright bleak at times, but when it really matters, even with all the heartbreak and struggles, we see hope and love truly shine through. The fight against overwhelming odds, racism, and oppression is never-ending, but as long as we stand strong and proud, the future will be brighter for us. 

   

     Because of the rich ideas and timeless themes, it's led into many excellent storylines throughout the comics and other media! From the time traveling adventure of Days of Future Past to the dark yet compelling God Loves, Man Kills to Schism, the equivalent of Civil War to the Age of Apocalypse, and much more! Not to mention the many backstories given to characters like Rogue, Wolverine, and Magneto are quite engaging and gave the characters and world a nice layer of depth. The world building and how the various mutants function in a certain area they live in is effective, as it shows how the many characters are trying to navigate their lives in an insane world. 

    I did touch on this a bit earlier, but what makes the X-Men amazing is the cast of characters! Throughout the years, there's been a lot of memorable characters in various comics, but save for some exceptions, I don't think they reach the level that the X-Men have as many of the team members are all given an important role to play in some capacity or are fascinating characters to read about. There are so many excellent members, such as Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Jean Grey/Phoenix, Colossus, Wolverine, Iceman, Jubilee, Angel, etc. Aside from their amazing and creative set of powers each member has, they're also full of personality and have compelling dynamics with one another! There's been other impressive team rosters, but when you have a goddess who can control the weather, a powerful woman who can stop you just by simply touching you, a man who has telepathy and telekinesis, and a man who can practically survive anything, how can you top that?! 

    

    The X-Men also has my favorite superhero (save for Spider-Man and Superman) and one of my favorite characters of all time, Henry Hank McCoy, or if you prefer to call him by his friendly nom guerre, Beast! One of the founding members of the X-Men, Beast is everything I love, as he's intelligent, charming, caring, and when necessary, fierce! Not to mention he has an amazing design, as he's a big, hairy, blue, muscular man with the appearance of an ape or feline (depending on which version). What makes Beast stand out and what I love about him is despite his unconventional look that may scare some people, he is a good friend that you can have a lovely chat with and is respectful of you, as well as a hero that relies more on his brains than brute strength in order to save the day as he's usually the doctor of the team tending to others, though he will fight if absolutely necessary. Beast genuinely believes in the coexistence of human and mutant, making him a reliable friend and arguably one of the most important members of the X-Men! 

    

    Keeping on topic with great characters, the X-Men has one of the best rogues' galleries in comics! Much like the heroes, they're memorable, have intriguing backstories, and personalities that clash with the various heroes and other characters in incredible ways! They're genuine threats to the X-Men and the world they inhabit, but they're also layered, well-written, varied in their abilities and motivations, and dare I say, fun to watch. We have villains such as Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth, William Stryker, Lady Deathstrike, Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, Juggernaut, Bastion, Bolivar Trask and his legion of Sentinels, I can go on. Every great superhero needs a great villain, and the X-Men have some of the greatest ones ever! 

     The X-Men has been heavily influential in movies, TV shows, and various pieces of media! One of the most notable ones is X-Men The Animated Series from the 1990s as that not only introduced the audience to this iconic superhero group and adapt many classic storylines, but it was also one of the first animated shows to do serialized storytelling as opposed to the traditional episodic format, as well as having a more mature tone compared to most other cartoons airing at that time for the young demographic. Not to mention it was one of the first comic book/superhero inspired shows to start a shared universe of sorts as after the success of the cartoon, it led into the 90s Marvel Animated Universe that consists of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic 4, Incredible Hulk, and more. Its success also inspired Fox to produce a live action adaptation of the X-Men, which would be released in the summer of 2000.

    Back in the 1990s, superhero movies were in a bad state as the film, Batman and Robin, nearly killed the genre. However, it would see a resurgence as in 1998, Blade would reignite audience's interest in the genre, and shortly afterwards in the 2000, X-Men would keep the train rolling (As well as Spider-Man in 2002). While the first movie was lacking outlandish comic book elements and yellow spandex, which people prefer, the movie did a brilliant job on adapting the comics and its themes in live action thanks to its decent script, effective world building, some solid special effects, and an unstoppable cast of talented people in front and behind the camera! It was a critical and commercial success, launching a series of films that varied in quality, but when they hit the mark, they were truly great, like X2 X-Men United, X-Men First Class, Days of Future Past, Deadpool, and Logan. It would also make Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine, a superstar in Hollywood, who would continue to play the role for over 20 years, including 2024's Deadpool and Wolverine! 

    

    While some aspects of the X-Men cartoon and films are rough around the edges, they proved that superheroes, let alone ensembles on the big and small screen can be entertaining and thought-provoking. X-Men would be a huge influence on many superhero movies, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kevin Feige's career started with X-Men as an associate producer. Due to the success of X-Men and Avi Arad being impressed with Kevin's knowledge of the Marvel Universe, Kevin would be involved with many Marvel films afterwards, like Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, etc. Sometime later, Kevin would be more hands-on as him and Avi Arad would make their own movie studio, Marvel Studios, starting with Iron Man. Iron Man would also become a major critical and commercial success, leading into the highest grossing and biggest franchise ever, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, consisting of the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. Regardless of how you feel about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there's no denying how successful the franchise has been, and a good chunk of it was thanks to the X-Men.

    

    The X-Men also paved the way for some of Marvel's best video games, most notably the Marvel VS Capcom and Marvel Ultimate Alliance franchises! Starting with the fighting game series and one of the most popular arcade games ever, Marvel VS Capcom, its fast-paced gameplay and stunning visuals were strongly established in the first game of the series, X-Men Children of the Atom! As for Marvel Ultimate Alliance, an action role-playing game, its foundation was laid out by the X-Men Legends games as both the first game and Rise of Apocalypse had you control four of your favorite X-Men members (also the Brotherhood in Rise of Apocalypse) and come face to face with many characters and famous locations set within the X-Men universe. This formula would eventually lead into Ultimate Alliance being possible and would gain popularity within the Marvel and gaming community. To this day, both gaming franchises are still seen favorable by many fans, thanks to their strong foundations and excellent use of the Marvel and X-Men lore. 

    
    One of the first things I recall getting into as a kid was X-Men, thanks to the original X-Men trilogy and the underrated cartoon series, X-Men Evolution, as those did a brilliant job on exploring the X-Men lore and characters. I should note that Evolution introduced me to my favorite X-Men member, Beast (which I may discuss that particular subject in a future post one day). I also had quite a few of the toys and played some of the video games like X2 Wolverine's Revenge and the fighting game, X-Men Next Dimension, which was awesome to play! I also recall dressing up as Cyclops on Halloween a bit after the first X-Men movie was released. The X-Men was such a big deal back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, along with some other popular stuff like Spider-Man and Star Wars, and looking back on it, while it's the nostalgia speaking, I can't help but miss those times. 

    Going back to the movies for a moment, I've been into the Marvel movies for as long as I can remember, and I have quite a few to choose as my favorites, most notably Spider-Man (2002), Blade, Avengers Age of Ultron, and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, just to name a few, but one movie in particular stands out to me: X2 X-Men United! I do recall enjoying it as a kid, but despite the movie being over 20 years old and going for a more grounded approach compared to other superhero movies we see nowadays, X2 is still hugely entertaining and one of my favorite movies of all time! It's everything I could want from an X-Men movie, though if this one had Kelsey Grammer's Beast (introduced in The Last Stand), this would be the best movie ever made, aside from the Incredibles! Taking inspiration from God Loves, Man Kills, it has a great story that is paced well, action-packed, an intimidating villain, and captures the heart of the X-Men wonderfully! I'll save more of my thoughts on X2 another day, but I can happily say this movie is a work of art and Marvel's best movie or at the very least, one of the best (in my opinion). 

    For a while, the X-Men have been ignored for some time mainly due to Fox owning the movie rights to the X-Men, which messed up many things from the comics to video games and other media related products. Recently though, things have been on a turnaround lately for the mutants, as we got a bit of a glimpse of the X-Men in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness with Patrick Stewart reprising his role as Professor Charles Xavier, despite him more or less retiring the character in Logan. More than a year later, we had Beast played again by Kelsey Grammer again (wise decision) in The Marvels, which was beyond exciting! And most recently, in Deadpool and Wolverine, we had quite a few X-Men characters in it, most notably Hugh Jackman as Wolverine once again, but decked out in yellow spandex! Along with him, we got Pyro, Colossus, Toad, Sabretooth, X-23/Laura, Gambit, and a couple of other X-Men related characters! 

    Not only that, but we also recently got the release of Marvel VS Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics that brought together all the Capcom Marvel games going from X-Men Children of the Atom to Marvel VS Capcom 2 in one package. It's significant for two particular reasons, as not only did they finally rerelease the popular fighting game series for the current generation of consoles, it also was bringing back the X-Men in the public eye as X-Men Children of the Atom, which was mentioned earlier, laid the foundation for the Marvel VS Capcom series, and the promotional artwork of the game collection clearly shows X-Men characters like Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine. But the most noticeable event that shows that the X-Men are back is the amazing, animated show, X-Men '97, the continuation of the classic 1992 X-Men series! 2024 seems to mark the "official" return of the X-Men in the public eye, and I couldn't be happier about that! 

    A bit out of nowhere to mention, but bear with me as it relates to another reason why I love X-Men, and it's that one of my favorite shows of all time is Gargoyles! The show focuses on a group of Gargoyles that wake up a thousand years later in modern New York who are stone by day, but at night, they're warriors who fight off many threats that dare to threaten New York and the world! Despite the Gargoyles being heroes, the people fear them for looking different and monstrous in appearance, and their appearance in New York had quite an effect on many as while some have become allies to the Gargoyles (like Elisa Maza), many have become enemies to them, like The Pack, The Quarrymen, and even one of their own members, Demona, who in some ways, is very similar to Magneto in regards to their beliefs and methods! The show takes a lot of inspiration from Shakespeare, but it also shares a lot of similarities to the X-Men with its themes of prejudice, isolation, and identity, as well as having effective world building, being a soap opera of sorts, and memorable storylines! While different in their approaches, both are similar on a thematic level, and it makes me appreciate both franchises so much more! 

    There's been a lot of superheroes I loved and gotten into for many years, some resonating with me more than others. Spider-Man will always have a special place in my heart and is still my favorite solo superhero, along with Superman, but if any of you ask me what the best superhero thing is out there, I have to say X-Men! Full of diverse characters, a fascinating lore, themes and ideas that are timeless and relevant, creative action sequences, phenomenal villains, sharing similarities to an excellent show, and has my favorite superhero in it! Not to mention it did so much for the superhero genre in many parts of the entertainment industry, as well as myself growing up, and giving many people a voice of sorts. Seeing the X-Men come back with a vengeance in 2024 has made me beyond excited, and I cannot wait to see more of this amazing team in the near future! 

  I hope you enjoyed my piece regarding my favorite superheroes! Thank you so much for your time and stay tuned for future posts. We'll see what the next one will be, but either way, it's exciting!