i feel as tho i've come to a sort of zen place in my love of comic books. as stands, i basically just love the medium; if the subject matter or genre is well done, and does not pander or insult my/our intelligence, i tend to enjoy them. same with film. superheroes, indie nerd stuff, biographical comics, etc; it's all good. but that's not really what this entry is about.
In case you've been living under a rock, or perhaps aren't all that bright, one of the more popular comic book franchises of the late 20th-century-to-current-day is the X-Men. even those who have never picked up a comic book (shame on you!) have no doubt seen them either on the TV, in a film, or perhaps some new-fangled video game. maybe you've even just seen them walking through a department store at some point. some of you may even be able to name an X-Man or two (probably Wolverine). heck, i'd go so far as to say a couple of you may have even asked someone (maybe even me) "hey, is that what the comic is like?" upon seeing one of the films or sommat. it's not unheard of.
well, like with many things, The X-Men and i have a long and complicated relationship that may seem arcane to those who either a)are not in the know, b)don't give a crap. understandable, but if you've read this far, might as well go a bit farther, wot? good.
how it all began.
the X-Men for me represent all that is best and worst in comics as a medium. when done well, in certain peaks of their long-ass run, they've been incredibly imaginative, thought provoking even. some point out the (often heavy handed) racism metaphor. the X-Men, you see, are "mutants": born with genetic defects that set them apart from humanity as a whole, they are scorned, hated, and even some times maltreated through institutionalized brutality similar to the Nazi treatment of European Jewry (like all great comics properties, The X-Men was created by two Jews) . like most superheroes, who are in some way "better" than us, despite being outcast from the great society, they have sworn to protect it, hoping one day to show "normal" people the error of their ways. this was a theme that was heavily grabbed on to in the 1990s (the height of my X reading days), with simplistic comparisons between Professor X's "Martin Luther King Jr" and Magneto's "Malcolm X" (no pun intended? perhaps...). the dichotomy is made further ironic by the rather patrician Protestant upbringing of Charles Xavier aka Professor X, who faced almost no prejudice in life, versus Magneto, a victim of the Nazi Holocaust, who lost his whole family to the Death Camps.
sidebar: this is where one's comic book history becomes tricky. Magneto is now seen as a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, as stated above. this is depicted in the comics as well as practically all the films (played rather well in the most recent "prequel" X-Men: First Class; which may for my money be the best X film). however, i think when Magneto stopped being merely the "big baddie" and was being more fleshed out in the 70s/80s, he was depicted as a "gypsy" or something like that. still a victim of Hitler's horrible policies, but not specifically a Jew. read your history: the Nazis targeted many groups for extinction, including the mentally challenged/ill, homosexuals (which is where we get the pink triangle; it is a re-appropriated symbol), so-called "gypsies", and even Jehovah's Witnesses (huh? weirdly enough, it's true: look it up). anyway, i'm not sure if it's more powerful to make Magneto Jewish or not. it is what it is, and i for one don't mind it. end of sidebar.
these elements aside: the X-Men at its best created a rather huge world that was off-putting to those on the outskirts, but quite rewarding for anyone who took half a minute to find out the backstory. i read it all through the 90s, which may have been the height of X-Mania. at that point, the arcaneness of the X-world was troubling to some, but clearly not enough to stop it from being one of the most popular comics on the stands. this is also where they started showing up on TV in the form of cartoon (not well produced by the by; i sure did watch them, tho), and various video games, mostly bad. although the Arcade game is fucking great. if you have Xbox 360, they released in for Xbox Live as a downloadable game, and it's well worth it. i digress. towards the end of the 90s run, however, is where the X-Men start to exemplify the worst of comics as a business. oversaturation was the name of the game, and it showed. the plots, already heavy with soap-opera bathos, became even more byzantine and, well, often time just plain sappy. there were almost no "joyful" X-Men, and really, that's never been what the comic has been about. but frankly, for a time, it became almost too much to handle. this is also when the yearly crossover events began to take over, and a self-contained X-Men adventure became nigh unheard of. the mercenary aspect of having to buy 6 or 7 extra comics for an entire summer was problematic for yours truly. this was also when i was starting to discover the more mature themed indie type comics, and i pretty much had to let the X-Peoples go by the wayside.
back in the super funky 90s...
another sidebar: the above image was the cover for a comic book called X-Men #1. now, some of you are no doubt saying, "the X-Men started in the 1960s! how can this overblown pin-up from the 1990s be X-Men #1? don't try to kid a kidder!" firstly, calm down. second, i'll explain. the X-Men comic title that carried over from the 60s was actually The Uncanny X-Men. no one really ever called it that, but that was the whole title. in the 90s, it was common for popular characters both at Marvel and DC to get multiple titles. Superman once had 5 separate titles. these were usually differentiated by adjectives. if the book already had an adjective, a new title lacking one was usually the designation, hence X-Men #1 in the 90s. that's not the interesting part, however. for me at the time, this was the first occurrence of so-called "variant" covers. that's right, one issue of a comic would have multiple covers. the contents of the inside where all the same, but the covers would be different. you could buy your favorite, or better yet (in Marvel's eyes) collect them all! the variants for X-Men #1 were basically that cover split into four panels, and then the fifth was a "deluxe" edition with the entire image above as a GIANT FOLD OUT!!!! crazy, man! i initally bought the cover that featured Cyclops and Wolverine, and that was it. several years later, i end up going to a comics warehouse sale, where they were attempting to jettison all the crap they couldn't sell, and they had literally hundreds of copies of each variant copy marked down to a quarter. i saw guys buying whole boxes of the supposedly "deluxe" edition. instead, i simply bought all of the variants, plus 2 deluxes, and ripped the cover off of one to use the deluxe cover as a poster. hilarious! this is why i tell people "no comic coming out today will be worth any money!" and i mean it. at free comics day this year, Phantom had piles of these 90s "adjectiveless" X-Men books they were giving away for 1000% free. this was the comic that people were buying in the 90s hoping to send their children to college. wowzers. end of sidebar.
like Batman, the X-Men of today are almost unrecognizable. also like Batman, the X-Men continue to be "favorites" of mine, despite not really reading any X-Men comic from probably the last 10 or so years. when a film comes out, like say your X-Men: First Class, i definitely get excited, and have every intention of seeing it. and yet, if anyone asked me "hey, do you read X-Men? i liked the movies, should i check it out?" i would have to respond "hell, no!" (admittedly, i've read waaaaay more recent Batman comics than X-Men, primarily because one of my favorite comics writers, Grant Morrison, has written several series of Batman in the last dozen or so years. true to form "diehard" superhero comics fan-boys "hate" them as they consider them "too weird". all the more reason to love them, as far as i'm concerned. interestingly enough, Grant Morrison also wrote an X-Men series, dubbed "New X-Men", which is very weird, and very great. highly recommended! and, as with Bats, often maligned by mainstreamer nerds. oh well). if i were to recommend anything to potential X-Readers, it would have to be the "essential" collections, which are phone book sized paperbacks that reprint older marvel comics, usually from the 1960s and 1970s. they are in black and white, which bugs some people, but this keeps them affordable, and personally, i think you get a great read with these collections. huge chunks of old school comic-bookery. but even so, again, these may be a bit esoteric for the average reader. one might do well to just skim a wikipedia entry for the back story, then see if any of the many story arcs interest you. perhaps not a best place to start, but some of my favorite runs are "Dark Phoenix Saga", "Days Of Future Past", "Inferno", and "Fall Of The Mutants". most of those are from the 70s and 80s, but whattayagonnado? that said, the aforementioned Morrison's New X-Men is awesome, but it's also very nerd-centric. a lot of inside references to that which has gone before, seen through an almost jaundiced eye (which is why i, ever the cynic, appreciate it so much). it's a sticky wicket; i think someone who really was interested could get something out of the various X-Men story arcs, but where to begin? alas, i probably don't have a very good answer. comic book readers are often able to just pick up in the middle of something and go from there. it's a gift, i suppose. the 30 year backstory that preceded my dalliance with the X-Universe didn't impede me, but as i said, i'm a comic book reader. we're used to jumping on in media res. there it is.
so that's a glossing of my feelings on the X-Men, sorta. i intended to get into the most popular (or for some people's money (mine included) most overly exposed to the point of annoyance) X-Person, but i may have to save that for another time, as this entry is overlong as is.
on a final note: X-Men: First Class takes place in the 60s, which is rad. they mixed James Bond, Madmen, and, well, X-Men, to make a fantastic, poppy, over-the-top mix. it was fantastic, and if you've not seen it, i can't recommend it enough. i assume due to the success of the film, they plan to make more. one can only hope that they do one that takes place during the 1970s, and finish it off with one in the 80s (since everything has to be trilogies these days. it's my hope that as they showed lesser known characters like Havoc and Banshee, they'll expand it even further, and maybe we'll even see Dazzler (shut up), Long Shot, Polaris, and Storm with a mohawk. here's hoping!
totally rad, dudes.
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