THE X-MEN:
-So I've already posted the vast majority of the X-Men on here, all at different times, but I never re-posted my summation of the team.
All in all, I'd say the X-Men were my favorite superhero team, but I would say that begrudgingly and ignore most of the post-1994 world. In short, I'm a "Chris Claremont
X-Men Fan", and not so much a fan of what most other people have done to the book. Thanks to Claremont's run being so hard to beat, his era & team being so iconic, and the entire series being so ridiculously steep in continuity, it's been almost impossible for other writers to write good
X-Men comics. It's so difficult that even CHRIS CLAREMONT couldn't do it when expected to do so again!
THE X-MEN IN THE SILVER AGE:
-What was at one point the hottest book in the entire industry for decades was once a C-League forgettable Marvel book, odd as it may seem. In the 1960s,
The Uncanny X-Men was a pretty bare-boned, half-assed book meant to stand as a criticism of bigotry (mainly using mutants as a stand-in for blacks) with an entire squad of teenage heroes in cookie-cutter outfits and weaker powers. It's odd to look back on now, but a team of five teens and their weird, stern father-figure/trainer didn't exactly set the world on fire, even after Martin Goodman forced Stan to change the team name from
The Mutants since "nobody knows what that word means" (instead they are "The X-Men... for X-Tra Power!"). Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were the co-creators, but usually didn't throw out their REALLY good villain designs on this one- short of Magneto & The Juggernaut, you had a butt-load of weaker designs and your standard "Ugly Kirby Kretins" showing up as baddies (look at Lifter or Lucifer or whoever). Our team was the obsessive, jerk-y Professor Charles Xavier, the moody Cyclops, the strong but brainy Beast, the jokester Iceman, the whiny Angel, and the standard Weepy Stan Lee Heroine called Marvel Girl).
Unusually, the heroes had uncontrolled, lower-level abilities- young Marvel Girl had to work to carry a single person using her Telekinesis. They didn't interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe as much, got along with each other better than most Marvel teams did, and the villains were very one-note (early Magneto was basically a generic "BWAH-HA-HA-HA!" cruel guy, with none of his later characterization or backstory). Even the stand against prejudice was often little more than a bunch of pitchfork-wielding civilians (and where in the Hell did all these New Yorkers get PITCHFORKS? Is there an Angry Mob Store in Manhattan that I don't know about?). I mean, it's been a while since I read the
Essential X-Men collection of the early years, but it was pretty forgettable and often quite silly (they over-used Magneto very badly, to the point where they just threw their hands up and had him get kidnapped by a Generic Cosmic Entity in The Stranger, and wrote him out of the books that way). But the book still made an attempt to be political in the era of Civil Rights- while it didn't blame political parties exactly, you had obvious bigots like the Trasks and iconic Evil Jackbooted Thugs in the robotic Sentinels.
The book didn't do too great, but kind of ambled along. New creators took over while Stan & Jack focused on their more-important books, resulting in some great art by a young Neal Adams, and a couple of new X-Men (Havok & Polaris- Cyclops' long-lost little brother and Magneto's supposed daughter). But things didn't really work out, and the book was cancelled by the late 1960s (ending with
X-Men #66), one of very few Silver Age Marvel Books to suffer the axe (alongside Nick Fury's books and whatever book into which Hank Pym was stuck).
The X-Men was thrown into reprints, and the characters largely split off- Magneto would actually become a CAPTAIN AMERICA villain for a bit, using some forgettable losers in Mutant Force to do his bidding (he'd also show up in the
Fantastic Four Animated Series), Iceman & Angel would show up in back-up stories and later
The Champions, and The Beast would get a solo push of his own and join the Avengers in the 1970s.
THE BRONZE AGE- THE X-MEN GET RENOVATED:
-Writer Steve Englehart re-created Hank McCoy, an early "Brainy Brute" subversion of the usual dunderheaded-strongman character, as a happy-go-lucky college student who was a big jokester and eventually turned gray and furry to give him a more dynamic look ("he discovered pot", sez Englehart, "though I couldn't show that in the book"). Iceman and the Angel joined the short-lived Champions of Los Angeles in a forgettable team-up book that really just collected some forgotten characters together. This happened alongside what would eventually change the whole industry, as Len Wein & Dave Cockrum decided all of a sudden to introduce a new team of X-Men in 1975.
Debuting in
Giant-Size X-Men #1, this new team was meant to reflect a more diverse background, and so we had new mutants from all over the place- Russia's Colossus, Africa's Storm, Canada's Wolverine (taken from a Len/Cockrum character created for
The Incredible Hulk in a weird bit), Germany's Nightcrawler, and the Native American Thunderbird. Joining them were previously-introduced characters Banshee (from Ireland) and Sunfire (Japan)- only Cyclops & Marvel Girl from the original squad stuck around, as the other originals bailed and creative saw no use for them. This new team (many of them collected from Cockrum's rejected
Legion of Super-Heroes ideas- Storm and Nightcrawler actually show up in some old
LOSH-hype) would help rescue the original X-Men from an outlandish foe (Krakoa, the Living Island), then form a new team.
Things would move along pretty quickly, as Len proved unable to continue on the series, and he'd be replaced by a young upstart named Chris Claremont, who at that point was the
Iron Fist/Marvel Team-Up guy. Sunfire's assholishness would get him booted in a hurry, and Thunderbird famously died by being an idiot in his third issue, making the team seem very dynamic. Cockrum's great character designs (he really doesn't get enough credit for this) would give the characters a great edge. The book would get a whole new mythology as well, as Chris basically threw out 90% of the prior crap the book had in the '60s and revamped itself completely (I often wonder what would have happened if comic fandom had worked like it does today- would people completely throw out this new book if it happened in the modern "Internet Age" because it used almost none of the original characters? Look at the reactions when teams go through changes like that TODAY!). Suddenly the X-Men were dealing with Space Pirates, future timelines, Cosmic Entities and Interstellar Superheroes, and Claremont just casually introduced a never-before-seen alien race that was nonetheless the most powerful one in the entire universe in the Shi'ar (again, could any writer pull that off these days? The Marvel Universe was still pretty young then, and you could actually establish new important features very easily- nowadays things like that all feel like bad retcons). Suddenly the "book about prejudice" that was mostly about supervillain fights was now mostly Space Opera!
More important than all the crazy stuff was an added sense of personality to the characters- Marvel's Silver Age was full of bombastic personalities and crazy people, but wasn't that realistic- Claremont's people were wordy (often to extremes), thoughtful, and communicative, often having long conversations with each other. We'd have "Slow Issues" where people would just chat about stuff (Claremont actually HATED the whole "Super Hero Fight" thing, and only did it as a genre convention to keep people reading). Interpersonal relationships became a major focus. All of comics would soon shift towards stuff like this, but back then it was new- only the X-Men, Teen Titans & Legion of Super-Heroes were really doing this.
CLAREMONT/BYRNE- THE ICONIC RUN:
-Cockrum would be replaced on art by a young Canadian named John Byrne, who would change the industry even FURTHER, going on an insanely-profitable run with Claremont- Byrne's glamorous, cartoonish characters were absolutely PERFECT for this medium, and he became an industry sensation. The pair had teamed up in the past for
Marvel Team-Up and
The Iron Fist, and only improved with time as their creative surges combined- reading this era in the
Essential collections is mind-boggling, because it NEVER SLOWS DOWN. One thing segueways so completely to the next that it's nuts- I remember them dealing with Phoenix stuff just while the locks on Kevin MacTaggert's cell on Muir Island break down and they have to fight the nigh-unstoppable Proteus, then immediately deal with some OTHER insane crap. New villains would get introduced, and old names like the Juggernaut would still show up. '60s foes like Mesmero would only be one-offs, while others were overhauled.
The whole concept of "Prejudice" would show up again, but in a much bigger sense- Magneto would get a complete personality overhaul, dropping all the garbage and becoming a cynical but thoughtful Holocaust survivor with a VERY GOOD REASON why he didn't trust baseline humanity. This humanized him and made him Marvel's greatest villain, as he was now the "Malcolm X" to Professor X's "Martin Luther King"- someone who legitimately could be understood as believing he was right. The X-Men would take on SOME of their old enemies (Sentinels, Juggy, Sauron... mostly in one-offs), but also brawl with Black Tom Cassidy, Proteus, an all-new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, Canada's Alpha Flight, and the Hellfire Club. Both creators just COULD NOT STOP with the awesome! Within about 5 years, the X-Men had the strongest Rogues Gallery in comics, with characters they're still trotting out to this day. Even supporting characters like Moira MacTaggert were big stars.
Things would reach a head when Jean Grey would be reborn as the Phoenix (Claremont had only used the "Woman Gains Vast Cosmic Power" idea THIS ONE TIME at this point!) would go full-bore crazy, casually destroy a star in a throwaway panel, and require the entire team to stop her. Alas, Marvel's Editor-In-Chief, the notoriously-demanding Jim Shooter, would declare that this act of genocide (really meant to show off her power, but she killed FIVE BILLION BROCCOLI PEOPLE in so doing) had to be punished, and the creators were forced to kill off an actual super-hero. They kinda begrudgingly went along with it, but wouldn't you know this wasn't yet a MASSIVE CLICHE, and drew an enormous storm of attention-
The Dark Phoenix Saga would basically be held as an industry high-point for decades, and is probably still the most well-known X-storyline ever. Alas, poor Banshee was injured and missed this story, meaning that many fans would barely ever remember him being on the team!
Sales would rise ever-higher. Wolverine, once a forgettable Young Jerkass character, would be altered into a menacing-but-philosophical Samurai Bad-Ass and soon become the book's most-popular character by a landslide. Young Kitty Pryde would be added to the team, giving us a wonderful "Point of View" character who would be the idol for many teenage girl readers, and the crush of any teenage boy (I mean, we loved Jean Grey & Psylocke, but those were fiercely-strong ADULT WOMEN- Kitty might have actually dated us!). Every character would gain family members and a ton of backstory (especially Wolvie, who'd gain one of the iconic Mysterious Pasts), very personal foes, and more.
Days of the Future Past would be another big industry milestone- one of the first big Time Travel Stories with a Dystopian Future and all that- Sci-Fi novels had done it, but it was new ground for comics, and fans were astonished to see people like Wolvie & Colossus DIE in some freakish future. It drew a lot of attention, but would also result in Byrne leaving the book. Byrne was PISSED when Claremont, who'd annoyed him before by adding huge backstories so that no human being was EVER just a normal person, casually mentioned that this didn't FIX the future, but just turned it into a Potential Alternate Future, which would soon become another Marvel cliche. Though in a rare moment of self-awareness, Byrne notes that the book only got MORE popular after he left.
THE POST-BYRNE YEARS:
-Both creators would be fine after the split- Byrne was the industry's most-popular artist by a LONG ways, and everything he touched turned to gold for years (
ALPHA FLIGHT was a top-five book at this time. Friggin'
Alpha Flight!). The X-Men were the most popular characters in comics now, with sales rivaled only by DC's
Teen Titans (themselves taking a LOT of stuff from the X-Men- increased personal lives and interactions for the heroes, as well as a Writer/Penciler super-team) &
Legion of Super-Heroes. And soon they'd leave both THOSE books in the dust too, as DC's teen teams failed to keep up their momentum. New artists included a returning Cockrum, John Romita Jr., and Paul Smith. Claremont would help lead the industry into a new era as things got grittier and Punkier- Storm would get a famous haircut, lose her powers, and the team would have to deal with Cyborgs and junk. Ex-villain Rogue would join the team, alongside the
Days of the Future Pats daughter of Cyclops & Jean Grey (Rachel Summers), then another character beloved by Claremont- Betsy "Psylocke" Braddock. While I didn't care for some changes, this might have been part of what made the book successful- it was fluid and ever-changing, while so many other books were static.
Grittiness would continue as the Morlocks- side characters all- would be massacred by the Marauders, and several key X-Men would be injured. Kitty Pryde & Nightcrawler would join Rachel in a spin-off book
Excalibur, taking advantage of Claremont's love of the U.K. The X-people were so popular that spin-offs were demanded by upper management- Claremont was willing to create and write
The New Mutants by himself (creating some of the best teen characters ever in the process, and creating an even MORE personal book than
The X-Men really ever was), but the terrible
X-Factor was a down-side. The book was horribly written by X-editor Louise Simonson, and had a god-awful concept- Cyclops, who'd been booted out of the X-Men by Storm, had abandoned his wife and infant son to hook up with the resurrected Jean Grey and his Silver Age teammates, and pretend to hunt mutants as a public bigot, while actually helping them. Wolverine would soon get his own Limited Series, then a solo book, as claw-based characters came out of the woodwork to mimic him.
Annual Crossovers became a thing with
The Mutant Massacre coming first, followed by
The Fall of the Mutants. Marc Silvestri and a new group of people later responsible for The Image Era would take over the art chores on many X-books- Rob Liefeld basically rescued a tired, crappy
New Mutants book with his crazy weird pencilling and band of "Sketchpad Characters" (ie. people just throw down from ideas on his sketchpad), turning it into a hot seller once again. The X-Men would drop some more cast members and form The Australian Era of punk-dressed bad-asses hanging out in the Outback, with Havok, Longshot & Dazzler joining the squad. We'd find Genosha, a South Africa stand-in full of racist guys who enslaved mutants. Enemies now included Apocalypse, Stryfe and a legion of Jobber Teams. Jubilee, a replacement for Kitty Pryde as Fan Insert Character, would join them, and date the book terribly with her "rad" style of talking and dressing. Bad-ass Trenchcoat-wearing Gambit would change the fashion sense of the entire industry. Once
The X-Tinction Agenda was finished, X-Factor (whose concept had long-sine been dropped, and they were instead just some guys on a ship with a team of teen mutants with them) would rejoin the X-Men, resulting in a huge team.
THE IRON AGE- CLAREMONT LEAVES & THE IMAGE ERA TAKES OVER:
-Jim Lee became the industry's new huge superstar artist circa the early 1990s via his work on
Uncanny, continuing the trend that the top book would always get the top-tier artist (he would be the only guy as lauded as Todd MacFarlane). To appease Lee and the other artists, Marvel gave them more credits than Claremont, leading to the shock of all shocks as he QUIT THE BOOK, ending a legendary sixteen-year run! Lee was given his own X-Book by adding all the characters he liked to draw to that one, while the "uncool" ones remained on the old book- THIS was the era into which I became an
X-Men reader, with the Blue & Gold Strike Forces on smartly-drawn books. Jim Lee had turned Psylocke Asian and made her a ninja because that was kewl, and she became the resident Sexpot and someone the industry would rip off multiple times in the next few years, and Lee's redesigns would set the standard for the team's appearance for a decade (his trademark "Leather Jacket Look" would infiltrate nearly every other comic in the meantime)- both the 1990s
X-Men animated series and the
X-Men Fighting Game by Capcom would use them. Rob Liefeld would gain command of
X-Force, spinning off his old book with new bad-ass Cable as the leader, skimming off most of the old New Mutants in favor of bad-ass Iron Age icons like Shatterstar & Feral. Bad-ass gun-wielder (and Cable knock-off) Bishop joined the uncool Gold Strike Force to amp up their Iron Aginess.
However, Marvel would STILL fail to appease these new creators totally, and soon they abandoned Marvel to form their own company at Image. Their arrogance was pretty astounding (Marvel gave them a TON, and they proceeded to rip on them publically while immediately ripping off their Marvel characters in a new company), but it'd end up being better for the industry to have somewhere that offered full creator rights. But in the meantime, comics would go through a huge Boom, then a massive Crash- Image books would sell like hotcakes, but their X-Men rip-offs would soon falter and books would become late, and a huge speculator surge would basically crack the whole industry in two as people bought numerous copies of soon-to-be-worthless #1 issues, then soon realized that printing millions of one thing made them all worthless.
I found Fabian Nicieza to be pretty tolerable on
X-Men and
X-Force, but Scott Lobdell was awful on
Uncanny, merely turning everyone into jokesters, and filling the books with terrible storylines and even worse villains (he populated Magneto's Acolytes with a dozen horrible characters). Peter David had some luck with his "Island of Misfit Comic Book Characters" series
X-Factor, and would soon fall in love with side-character Jamie Madrox. Looking back, I was only collecting for a very short time- I spent about three years getting most of the X-Books before abruptly quitting comics and not getting back into them for another five years after discovering the WizardWorld message board and finding out all of the "Classic" Trade Paperbacks out there that I'd never read nor heard of in the "only buy CURRENT" stuff 1990s. The Crossovers would get out of hand, and fans would care less with each one-
Operation: Zero Tolerance was REALLY bad (and ended on a huge anti-climax). They'd get a hot new artist once again with Joe Madureira, who'd change the designs around again and add a bunch of new terrible characters to the team before leaving for a legendarily-deadline-missing books of his own creation. Generation-X would form, effectively being a copy of the New Mutants, but with worse characters. TONS of characters (Bishop, Gambit, Cable, etc.) would get their own solo books based off of how bad-ass they were, and most were god-awful.
THE MODERN ERA (post-2000 because I am old):
-The X-books stopped having any kind of consistency, as writers would come and go every few months- Chris Claremont would return to MUCH hype, but would have such a mediocre run that people immediately gave up on him as a writer (his introduction of the next phase of mutants in The Neo went over like a fart in church) and branded him a hack, especially once he started diving into his own cliches (he'd always had a thing for rebellious, powerful women, but adding Rogue, Sage & others into EVERY SINGLE BOOK HE WROTE made him seem like a delusional pervert). The teams would go through a complete line-up change and overall something like TEN TIMES as a new writer would take over and institute an entirely new roster. Grant Morrison, a crazy drug-using weirdo, would actually help revitalize a flagging book by adding a ton of crazy characters, wiping out a lot of the excessive mutant population, and sticking Emma Frost onto the team. There'd be an
X-Men movie series that'd do incredibly-well, but the books would kind of falter nonetheless. They'd rip off the New Mutants AGAIN for
New X-Men, spin off a ton more books (
Exiles, multiple solo runs- Deadpool, a villain from
X-Force, would get a long-running bunch of books), and go through some SERIOUSLY-bad runs with Chuck Austen and others that threatened to doom the concept.
The X-Franchise actually got kind of a rep for being a book that always SELLS well, but often ends up being very weak. Some VERY good writers would have poorly-received runs, making it seem like a book that was nigh-impossible to write for. To be honest, it makes sense- very few comics have ever had the kind of in-depth continuity that the X-Men have had, and there were dozens upon dozens of characters for whom almost every type of storyline was exhausted- Claremont and his successors absolutely dove into people's backstories, making them ever-more-elaborate, and it resulted in a book full of stagnant characters- someone like Gambit, once extremely popular, just became BORING. No matter which roster you chose, the characters were kind of "set" and had been used and abused to the point where people didn't care as much. People like Matt Fraction could barely maintain an interest. You can tell things are F'd up by reading Wikipedia bios and ending up with 20+ years of comics summed up as "_____ joined 4-5 X-Rosters but didn't do anything important on any of them".
The books would go through numerous shake-ups- various characters would die, the Mutant population would be largely depowered except for the popular characters (the infamous "Decimation"), Joss Whedon would prove that the characters COULD be awesome once again with a great (but often late) run, and we'd get a whole reconstruction with CYCLOPS as a brand-new mutant leader. Wolverine & Cyclops were made the mutant leaders (Cyke as the revolutionary army-leading Malcolm X- With MAGNETO beside him!- and Logan as the new Professor X "Open Hand"-type mutant trainer). I actually collected these books once again, and found Jason Aaron's
Wolverine and the X-Men run in particular to be excellent. A highly-comedic turn that was very self-aware with comic book tropes. Brian Michael Bendis wrote a really controversial, criminal-tinged Cyclops, but made it clear just what kind of oppression the X-Men were facing from the government. I'm actually collecting the books once again, and I hadn't done so for more than a decade- even BENDIS, a writer I usually despise, has been doing some good work! And things got weirder once Hank McCoy time-travelled the original Silver Age kids into the modern era, leading them first to Logan's school, and then CYKE's!
Ultimately, things became kind of a mess, though. The "Original X-Men" seemed like they were supposed to be a one-off, but just... never left. I called it "The Best Book That Has No Reason To Exist", as the writers actually did a good job with them, had them act out appropriately (in that they were confused, scared kids worried about what Xavier would do to them if they returned to their own time). Ultimately, they found that they'd been "split off" from the original X-Men and were their own people, thus "justifying" keeping them around. Nothing ever really became of it, though- the dozens and dozens of new X-characters created over the years kind of left a huge pile of unused ones, and few people maintained real staying power.
You'd thus get a lot of stuff like the
Young X-Men with Hellion, Rockslide, etc. being major characters... and then a new creative team takes over and those guys are just seen in the background of other books, never to be important again. Wind Dancer led the new New Mutants, only to be de-powered and never matter again. Whole new teams of Young Mutants are created six or seven times over 20 years, and all of them are ignored after a point- remember Hope Summers and her Lights? GONE. Goldballs and the other recruits to Cyclops's team, including the Time Travel Girl that Bendis CLEARLY adored but forgot to actually create a unique personality and hook for? GONE. The Wolverine-School team actually had a bit more staying power (Idie went to the "Original X-Men" book, and Broo showed up in Aaron's
Avengers), but also mostly GONE. Who knows what will result from the current "EVERYTHING CHANGES" run of Hickman? Not that I trust him after he kind of just burned down the Marvel Universe to tell a pretentious story with 100 characters too many.
And thus, like the Legion of Super-Heroes, you get that uncomfortable notion that whatever you're reading right now doesn't matter- the characters will be scrubbed out and in five years none of this will be referenced or important. So why bother reading if it never matters, to a point? You can enjoy stuff "in the now" (a few one-off books are rad), but for the most part, it's bleh.
THE X-MEN- COOL CHARACTERS:
-Claremont's run kind of hit upon something that'd been missing from earlier runs and usually gets missed later- the notion that the X-Men are some cool, edgy, "other" thing. Like a lot of opressed minorities suddenly creating a culture that others emulate (like poor, urban blacks in the U.S. creating rap music and changing pop culture that way), the X-Men found an appeal in being renegades from normal society. Mutants became big for the reason that Harry Potter's Wizards became big, too- what's a bigger fantasy for young pre-teens and teenagers than getting to belong to this oustanding, cool collective of powerful, dangerous outsiders with their own set of customs that make them live "outside" the regular world? It's something very universal in appeal, especially to the young. And when you combine that outsider nature with the open rebellion of many of the X-Men, complete with dangerous-looking outfits & powers? Yeah, we're sold.
The "Mutants As Minorities" thing also has various other effects, and renders the book permanently relevant- initially more akin to Civil Rights and black people being unable to go to the same schools and the like, the fact that prejudice is such a core element to the X-franchise means that the book stays accurate to modern times simply by shifting the narrative of which minority you're emulating. A Post-9/11 world was reflected through the notion of mutant terrorists being dangerous, and mutants even shifted into being more analogous to gay people, as gay rights became a bigger focus. So long as there is prejudice and "other"-ing in the world, the X-Men will maintain a permanent state of being on the razor's edge of culture. And the power of that cannot be overstated.
The notion of Anti-Mutant Hysteria in the comics is interesting, too, because you can see all sides- even the antagonists are somewhat understandable. With Senator Robert Kelly, you had a person who saw mutants as legitimately dangerous, and had no lack of proof as to why and how. Many mutants received abuse and scorn, and this turned them hard- you can see the point of a reactionary oustider like Callisto, a mutant supremacist like Magneto, or even a secret society of powerful, hidden mutants like the Hellfire Club- everyone could fit into that strange world and have their reasoning be clear and understandable.
And it creates interesting stories for the HEROES, as well- guys like Wolverine kind of reveled in being outsiders, while most of the New Mutants longed to belong with regular people. Nightcrawler seemed to enjoy being a mutant, but was occasionally confronted by his decisions to hide within a holographic disguise in civilian form (he was the member seen chased by a literal pitchfork-swinging mob in his debut). The Beast was interesting as a jovial, likeable, FRIENDLY mutant, one that even normal humans tended to like (he had Avengers cred), could make for some complexity- it was clear that not EVERYONE hated mutants, or that they'd find some acceptable (Freedom Force were called "Tame Muties" by some bystanders once).
Even modern, controversial takes of the X-Men kind of "fit". Cyclops and his band became EXTREMELY reactionary and anti-government under Bendis's writing, and people hated the take, but I kind of saw their point. You had the government creating literal Sentinels (a HUGE symbol of racism), and these guys were like "Screw that" and they acted as a dangerous band of rebels because of it. But ultimately this was a poor decision on their part, and caused a lot more damage. But even other current runs play up this "outsider" nature with Mutants forming even more secret societies that make them "outside" other humans. You begin to ask yourself just how much of the mistrust and dislike mutants receive... earned? It's nuanced, is what I'm saying, though sometimes writers don't entirely clue in to that, because they're too busy maing it Hogwarts or having everyone be cool renegades.
THE X-MEN & PREJUDICE:
-The neat thing about the X-Men as a concept is that since they're about bigotry and prejudice as a general concept, they are eternally relevant. At first, they seemed to be more about persecution of blacks, and maybe religions- but they could easily add Holocaust-based stuff to it once that became okay for comics to talk about. Nowadays, the books is actually most-relevant when talking about GAYS, since that's the cause du jour in modern times- a lot of the debate about the "Mutant Cure" in Whedon's work came off as a deliberate commentary on that, as did some of the more recent stuff in
Uncanny Avengers, with regards to mutants choosing to have labels or an identity placed upon them. As long as there's some group that feels disenfranchised, Marvel's Mutants will be relevant.
Hell, a HUGE part of what makes the book so resonant with others is the whole "outcast" nature of it. With mutants coming into their powers around puberty, it's ALSO a huge metaphor for puberty and being a teenager, and the fact that most of the X-books have been made up of angry rebellious people just made it EVEN MORE EXCITING for teens! Fans could live vicariously through Wolverine, Gambit or other bad-asses who did stuff THEY never could. The Australia "Punker" era was huge for this- these characters are HUGE outsiders, often being forced onto the fringes, which a lot of angry, bitter teens can relate to.
The X-Men as a whole contain some of the best, well-rounded characters in the industry- they held relevance for longer than DC's Teen Titans, and didn't have the ponderous roster of the Legion of Super-Heroes until much later. For years they were UNQUESTIONABLY in a better book than the Avengers or the Justice League. Some of them were over-used and tired as time went on (especially the post-modern bad-asses of the '90s), but quite a few managed to stand the test of time. And the fact that some can still be relevant NOW after something like THIRTY YEARS of ultra-convoluted, bizarre storytelling lets you know how great some of them are.