Common Knowledge / X-Men

X-Men

Individual Characters

• Despite being played by the very British Patrick Stewart in the X-Men Film Series, and being frequently portrayed with an exaggerated British accent in parodies and animated adaptations, Professor Charles Xavier is not British—he was born in New York City.^note For that matter, even the film series is rather inconsistent about whether he's actually British; X-Men: First Class shows him speaking with a British accent at some point before the age of 12, and it establishes that his mother spoke similarly, but the officially licensed novelization claims that he picked up the accent while studying at Oxford—possibly making it a case of Unexplained Accent.
  • It is also common knowledge that the Professor is an elderly man, at least in his 60s if not older. Of course, in real life, he would have to be at least in his 80s by now in order for his backstory to make sense, but in comic-book time he has only aged a few years since his debut. Xavier's actual age (as is the case with most comic-book characters) is unclear but in the early comics his face was usually drawn to look somewhere around 35 and his backstory as established in the '60s indicated that he was still an adolescent at the time of the Manhattan Project 20 years earlier, while in the New Mutants era and beyond he looks closer to 40 or perhaps 50 at the oldest, and his body has more than once been shown to be hale and youthful. It's only his status as a paraplegic man with no hair that made anyone think he was old, and now that he's been played repeatedly by Patrick Stewart (from his 60s to nearly his 80s), it's been solidified in fans' minds that Professor X is an old man.
• Magneto:
  • He did not give Professor Xavier the spinal injury that left him paraplegic. That was Lucifer, an alien warrior whom Xavier encountered during his years Walking the Earth before he founded the X-Men. It wasn't until many years later, when Magneto became established as Xavier's Evil Former Friend, that the idea of him being responsible for his paralysis became popular in adaptations. The idea that Magneto was the one who crippled Xavier was used in X-Men: The Animated Series, the Ultimate X Men comics and the X-Men: First Class movie, all of which likely contributed to the perception that this was true in the original comics as well.^note However, Lucifer did dress in a red suit with a purple cape and face-covering helmet, so it's not hard at all, even for an experienced reader, to mistake him for Magneto if you just look at the scene without reading the entire book in which it appears.
  • Because he's widely viewed as the X-Men's nemesis, many people are surprised to learn that he hasn't been a consistent villain since at least the early 1980s, when it was revealed that he was a tormented Holocaust survivor who viewed himself as a freedom fighter (a backstory that has held ever since, and is also Newer Than They Think - the character had been around for twenty years before it was established). Since then, most writers have portrayed him as (at worst) an antiheroic Wild Card, and he's actually led the X-Men more than once. His Heel turn was actually two brief periods in the early Nineties and New X-Men. But that period was bookended by the incredibly successful cartoon and film ^note However, in the 90s cartoon, he was only really a villain in his debut episode "Enter Magneto" and in the opening credits; in most of his appearances, he's an ally to the X-Men. Making it another misconception., which firmly re-cemented him in the public consciousness as the X-Men villain.
  • He was never associated with The Juggernaut. Despite this, fans have this perception that he has worked with him; adaptions where he does don't help this, to the point where in the Ultimate Marvel universe, Juggernaut works for him and is a mutant.
  • Similarly, Mystique has never been on the same incarnations of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants as Magneto, and would typically never willingly serve as a subordinate to anyone, despite being often portrayed in other media as his second-in-command.
• Wolverine:
  • Despite fan-shipping and a few adaptations that might lead one to assume otherwise, he has never been in a relationship with Jean Grey. While it's been long established that Jean has an attraction to Logan, and the two have kissed several times, she's pretty consistently stayed loyal to Cyclops. Even after she kissed Logan when her marriage was on the rocks, Logan quickly admitted that he and Jean would never work as a couple. Also, although many modern readers assume the love triangle dates back to the early days of Chris Claremont's run, in fact that period was Briefer Than They Think. At that time it was very clear that it was entirely one-sided on Logan's part, and only from the '90s onwards was Jean's attraction retconned in. It also only lasted a few issues, before Logan met Mariko.
  • Everybody knows that his adamantium claws are his chief mutant power. Except they're not; his mutant power is actually a very powerful Healing Factor, as well as claws made of bone. All of his other "natural" powers (such as his heightened senses) stem from his Healing Factor. He only has adamantium claws because the military grafted adamantium onto his claws and skeleton, knowing that his healing powers made him one of the few people who could survive the process.^note Note that Continuity Drift is at least partly to blame for the confusion, as the writers were rather inconsistent about the nature of his claws for several years: first Word of God claimed that they were telescopic implants in his gloves, then it was established that they were surgically implanted in his hands by Weapon X, then (after Magneto ripped the adamantium off of his skeleton) Logan discovered that he'd had natural bone claws under the adamantium all along.
  • Because he has been played by Hugh Jackman for two decades now, quite a few fans have come to believe that Wolverine is supposed to be a handsome, brooding stud-muffin, and some even believe he's canonically The Big Guy. The reality is that while he's not hideous, Comic Wolverine is a scruffy, scrappy guy who's far from conventionally handsome, and mainly attracts women through animal magnetism rather than good looks. He's also very short; no taller than about 5'3". Another side-effect of this is that for whatever reason, newer fans think of Wolvie as being Australian, or at least having ties to Australia, despite Jackman eschewing his natural accent for Wolverine. Wolvie is, in fact, Canadian, though nearly any Shallow Parody of him in other media will have him played with a thick Australian accent.
• Mystique is widely believed to be Magneto's loyal right-hand henchwoman, largely because of the live-action films and other adaptations like X-Men: Evolution. In the comics, though, the characters barely know each other. Mystique was originally introduced as the leader of the second Brotherhood of Mutants, which was formed after Magneto's original Brotherhood was disbanded. Since then, she's been pretty consistently portrayed as a leader in her own right, and she doesn't tolerate being anyone's lackey. During one of the few times when Mystique and Magneto did meet (in the Brian Michael Bendis run), it was made clear that they hated each other.
  • The average casual comics fan believes that Mystique is a long-serving member of the Brotherhood of Mutants and a loyal follower of Magneto. In fact, Mystique originally began as a lone-wolf mutant terrorist; she didn't have any interaction with the Brotherhood until she founded the second incarnation of the group, which Magneto wasn't involved in at all. Even in the '90s cartoon, where she is shown working alongside Avalanche, Pyro and the Blob, Mystique is an agent of Apocalypse and both she and Magneto follow his orders in the season 4 finale, the 4-parter "Beyond Good and Evil", before turning against him. The idea of any deeper connection between them stems from the Fox film series and X-Men: Evolution. In fact, she only ever pushed a mutant supremacy agenda when she had something to gain from it. She feels zero kinship with mutants or humans... which is a nice throwback to the fact that, when she debuted as an antagonist of Carol Danvers, she was implied to be an alien scouting the planet for an impending invasion, and possibly even a Dire Wraith.
• Speaking of the Brotherhood, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are not as involved with both the X-Men and Magneto as shows like X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) like to portray them as. While it is true they were members of the Brotherhood of Mutants, it was only briefly in the first incarnation and both have been long time members of the Avengers. While they have made guest appearances in some X-Men stories, notably with Quicksilver as a member of X-Factor, it is nothing more than that, with Scarlet Witch never being more involved with an X-Team and Quicksilver being just as involved with The Inhumans. In fact, the reveal of the twins as Magneto’s children, ironically enough, was a retcon. They were originally meant to be children of Golden Age heroes the Whizzer and Miss America.
• Rogue:
  • Several casual X-Men fans complained about Rogue not having her flight and invulnerability powers in the movies. This is because the Superman powerset isn't rightfully Rogue's in the comics, either: they're Ms. Marvel's powers; Rogue used her energy-draining abilities to semi-permanently steal them from Ms. Marvel (along with her memories and personality) when she was still a mutant terrorist in league with Mystique.^note She lost and replaced them with Sunfire's, then lost those and stuck to just her natural power set for a prolonged time, then regained her Flying Brick powers from Wonder Man.
    • A weirder example is the reason why Rogue held onto Carol's powers permanently has become twisted due to generational divide. Older fans state it's because Rogue held onto Carol much longer than normal; this is the reason Rogue herself gives during her first appearance in The Avengers Annual #10. Younger fans think that older fans are engaged in this, because this was retconned at a later date to being caused by a weird interaction between Rogue's powers and Carol's human-Kree hybrid genes.
    • A straight example of this trope in relation to Rogue & Carol is that Rogue tried to fatally drain Carol on their first meeting, which wasn't true. Rogue did try to kill Carol, but by throwing her from the Golden Gate Bridge after sucking her mind dry.
    • And anyway, the Carol/Rogue battle would never have been possible in the X-Men movies, as Fox never had the rights to Ms. Marvel (as she was known at the time).
  • Then there's Rogue's Can't Have Sex, Ever status. It's common knowledge that she's an eternal virgin, doomed to never touch another human being without sucking out their lifeforce. Except that there's numerous ways around her powers in-universe (power limiting technology, more powerful superhumans, the multiple stretches of time when she has, simply, had control over her powers...), and she's actually had plenty of sex over the years (mostly with Gambit, but also Magneto and, in a particularly unpopular retcon, The Sentry).
• Everybody "knows" that Jean Grey is the poster child for Death Is Cheap, with the writers regularly bringing her back from the dead whenever they run out of new ideas, and constantly changing their minds about whether any of her deaths really happened. In truth? In 50+ years as a Marvel character, Jean has been officially killed off and had her death retconned away exactly twice. And while it's technically true that Jean has died and been brought Back from the Dead several times (thanks to her connection to the mysterious "Phoenix Force"), all of those instances were simply plot points in self-contained storylines—not attempts at undoing her death to bring her back to full cast-member status after a long absence.^note In the original "Phoenix Saga", she was revived by the Phoenix Force after seemingly pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to save her teammates; in "Planet X", the Phoenix Force revived her again after Wolverine tried to pull a Mercy Kill on her when they were both trapped on an asteroid hurtling into the sun; in "Here Comes Tomorrow", the future X-Men encountered her incorporeal form several decades after her supposed death, and discovered that she had Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence; and in "Phoenix: Endsong", the Phoenix Force briefly resurrected her in a defense ploy after the Shi'ar tried to kill it.

  • A far more apt example would actually be Professor X himself, who has "died" and returned seven times in the comics, thanks to various contrivances like it not really being him who was killed, his being gifted a cloned body (twice!), time travel, etc. The most recent death occurred after Krakoa's Resurrection Protocols had been established, allowing him to return to life immediately. For that matter, Wolverine and Cyclops have both died at least as many times as Jean.

• Cable:
  • Nathan Summers is sometimes said to be Cyclops and Jean Grey's son from the future. This is basically true, but not quite. Scott is indeed his father, but his birth mother is Jean's genetically identical clone Madelyne Pryor— because Nathan was born during the gap between The Dark Phoenix Saga and Fantastic Four #286, when Jean was presumed dead. Nathan is, more accurately, the son that Scott and Jean might have had: the Stalker with a Test Tube Mr. Sinister tried to arrange for them to have a son so that he could use him as a Living Weapon against Apocalypse, having determined that their child was destined to become the most powerful mutant on Earth; after Jean seemingly died, he cloned Madelyne from her DNA so that she could serve as a backup to have Cyclops's baby. Nowadays, Cable is mostly considered Jean's son by genetic proxy.^note Scott and Jean did raise him together in the future, using cloned bodies, and they have had children of their own in a few different alternate timelines,: they had a daughter, Rachel Summers (the second Phoenix) in the Days of Future Past timeline, and they had a son, Nate Grey (X-Man) in the Age of Apocalypse timeline; the latter is Cable's alternate universe doppelganger, having been born in a timeline where Madelyne was never created, but rather Nate was directly made from Jean and Scott's DNA. In fairness to this one, Cable's backstory is kind of a mess.
  • Due to him being one of the Trope Codifiers for the '90s Anti-Hero and the Superhero Packing Heat, many people think Cable is just a musclebound bruiser who fights bad guys with guns and his bare hands. Actually, due to inheriting Jean Grey's genes, he's also one of the most powerful psychics in the Marvel Universe; he just doesn't always get to use his full psychic powers, since holding back Apocalypse's techno-organic virus drains so much of his telekinetic energy. When at his full strength, though, he's strong enough to burn out stars with the power of his mind, and he can even hold his own against the likes of the Silver Surfer.
• Cypher, of the New Mutants, is often stated to be the most useless mutant, as his only mutant powers are an innate ability to understand languages. He frequently appears on "Worst X-Men" or "Worst Mutants" lists, despite the fact that his ability has saved the team's bacon more than once, as it means that alien languages, ancient, dead languages used to cast spells, computer encryption or secret codes were easily solved by him, among other things. He also was the team's primary technological genius, being able to understand mechanics, computer languages, and the like, with no effort. Being "useless in a fight" does not make one utterly useless as a teammate, as Cypher repeatedly proved. Some even try to say that he was so useless that the writers killed him off. In fact, his death was a heroic act that saved one of his teammates and it only came after his being a member of the team for years. And since his resurrection, he's a competent fighter as well, able to understand body language and immediately learn opponents' fighting styles. Jonathan Hickman proceeded to hammer in just how useful his power is with the opening issue of his X-Men run: Cypher's ability enables the mutant population to live on their own country, and it was thanks to him that the nation's computer language formed allowing everything to hold together. He also creates a unique visual language that only mutants can understand. To put simply, without Cypher's powers, it's a lot harder to imagine them having their biggest status quo shift in decades.
• People who aren't familiar with Cypher usually cite Jubilee as the most useless X-Man, on the grounds that her powers are just sparkly lights and therefore useless. In fact, Jubilee's powers are devastatingly powerful — she's just extremely reluctant to use them to harm people. On the rare occasions where she's pushed to cut loose, large buildings tend to cease to exist. And then she stops to give first aid to her enemies. It's also been noted by Wolverine that she could easily set off a small explosion inside a person's skull; thus far she's only done this once, to a Prime Sentinel, but there are very few characters who could shrug off having their brain explode.
  • As of X-Terminators, Jubilee is capable of mimicking atomic bombs. She is literally avoiding nuking people.
• Cyclops:
  • Everyone knows he "shoots lasers from his eyes", which is not true; he projects beams of concussive force, which (unlike lasers) don't radiate heat. Also, many people assume that his inability to control his optic blasts is an inherent curse of his mutant powers because he was never given the Required Secondary Powers to control them, which is also untrue; it's because of head trauma that he suffered after jumping out of an airplane as a child, which damaged the part of his brain that would have enabled him to control the blasts.^note Though a story by Joss Whedon suggested that it's actually because of deep-seated emotional issues; Scott may or may not have convinced himself that it was physically impossible to control his powers because he didn't trust himself to muster the willpower to keep them under control, though this hasn't been proven true since.
  • He's commonly seen as little more than a boring Standardized Leader who's good at barking orders at his teammates, but can't hold a candle to them in combat; except he's been established for years as a skilled martial artist and tactician, he's beaten supervillains like Apocalypse and Mr. Sinister in single combat (as well as entire armies of Sentinels), and one memorable story had him battling all of his teammates at once and winning. He's also knocked Wolverine on his ass more than once without resorting to a single blast. Much of this comes from the cartoon and the live-action films, where he generally comes across as kinda stuffy and incompetent, especially in the latter because he's demoted relative to the movies' star Hugh Jackman.
  • Everybody knows that Cyclops is one of the worst husbands in the history of comics, having cheated on one wife after abandoning his previous one. That is, at best, technically true. He "cheated" on Jean Grey when Emma Frost gave him telepathic sex dreams while posing as a therapist during a period when he was struggling with PTSD and unable to be physically intimate with Jean, with his consent and understanding of these encounters being questionable at best. Likewise, he "abandoned" Madelyne Pryor when he left to visit his old teammates during a period when their marriage had fallen apart, only to find that Madelyne had inexplicably vanished when he returned. He's not winning any "World's Greatest Husband" awards any time soon, but his actions weren't quite as reprehensible as many people have claimed.
    • Due to Values Dissonance, the issue of Cyclops' "affair" with Emma has gotten worse over time, as it's generally now agreed by many fans to have been a case of Double Standard Rape: Female on Male; Emma was posing as Scott's therapist at the time when she initiated the affair, under the false pretense their sexual encounters were a form of therapy, while claiming to be a licensed therapist. Even under the best interpretation, this is sexual exploitation of a patient under her care, but would also fall into Rape by Deception. That many fans and newcomers are instead under the assumption he merely cheated on Jean makes things extremely uncomfortable as time goes on.
• One of Nightcrawler's distinguishing characteristics is his blue skin. Except not really; while he's blue-skinned in many adaptations, the comics are quite explicit that his body is covered in blue fur.
• Everyone knows that Deadpool is Marvel's Alternate Company Equivalent of Deathstroke. In reality, it's a little more complicated than that. Rob Liefeld has pretty consistently maintained that he didn't intentionally base the character on Deathstroke, and co-creator Fabian Nicieza came up with his name ("Wade Wilson" being a play on "Slade Wilson") as a joke when he realized that their costumes looked similar. He has also maintained that Deadpool was based more on Spider-Man and Wolverine than Deathstroke; his bright red costume (complete with big white eyes) and talkative wiseass personality were inspired by Spider-Man, while his antiheroic role, use of katanas, and past as a Weapon X test subject were supposed to mark him as a Shadow Archetype of Wolverine.^note In terms of his role in the story, Taskmaster is arguably much closer to being Marvel's true Alternate Company Equivalent of Deathstroke. Tony Masters was also created by George Pérez, he's generally portrayed as a Crazy-Prepared, Consummate Professional killer-for-hire, and his serious personality is much more comparable to Slade Wilson (although he's still somewhat quirky, and much more of a Punch-Clock Villain). It doesn't help that DC themselves have leaned into this, at one point featuring an Antimatter Universe counterpart to Slade clearly based on Deadpool.
• Colossus is the most Russian Russian to ever appear in a comic book, and therefore has a strong Russian accent, right? Early on in the comics, this was the case as Uncanny X-Men 109 has James Hudson notice that Colossus has a Russian Accent. Later, however, he would only pepper his speech with the occasional Russian word or expression, and Chris Claremont had people mistake him for an American based on how he spoke, on at least two occasions. However, multiple voiced adaptations have given him a Russian accent (or at least a generically foreign one).
• Those critical of Storm's controversial marriage to Black Panther will frequently claim that Marvel cynically paired the two off for publicity (as they are two of Marvel's most popular black superheroes) despite them having no prior connection. In reality, Storm and Black Panther having a shared past with lingering romantic feelings was established way back in The '80s by Chris Claremont, Storm's Real Daddy, in the Marvel Team Up series. While it's true that the relationship wasn't pursued in the X-books, it did come up in Christopher Priest's landmark Black Panther run in during the '90s. Of course, in Priest's run their "romance" was treated as an unrealistic-but-cathartic childhood fantasy that would never actually work in any real way, and included Storm explicitly comparing Panther to Magneto. It was the 2000s Storm flashback miniseries which retconned Storm and T'Challa's relationship to actually being treated seriously.
• Iceman's known to the general public for having ice powers. While this isn't wrong, per se, this is just one aspect of his abilities. In fact, the fundamental nature of his abilities is to decrease thermal energy, which can be used in a wide variety of different ways.
• Everyone "knows" that Laura Kinney, a.k.a. X-23, is an Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine. However, her creator/mother Dr. Sarah Kinney actually used some of her own genetic material to complete the damaged DNA sample from Wolverine. This means Laura isn't a clone at all, but rather the biological daughter of Logan and Sarah Kinney.
• Contrary to popular belief Lucas Bishop isn't African-American; he's an Aboriginal Australian (although a few issues have implied that he might have some multiracial heritage).

Miscellaneous

• It's often assumed that being a mutant (as in, "homo superior") is a prerequisite for being a team member, ally, or villain in an X-Men comic (with the exception of anti-mutant humans) and that almost every long-running character that's part of the mythos is one. While the vast majority of X-related characters are indeed mutants, there are also a surprising amount of non-mutants who've been involved (granted, with the sheer amount of characters the mythos accompanies, it was inevitable there would be some exceptions). This includes Juggernaut^note human with mystical powers, granted by the god Cyttorak, Longshot^note interdimensional being, specifically from the Mojoworld, Spiral^note human mutated by the Mojoworld, Mimic^note human mutate, Corsair^note Badass Normal human gunslinger and Cyclops' dad, Lilandra^note alien, the princess of the Shi'ar and one of Xavier's most famous loved ones, Warlock^note alien, specifically a member of the techno-organic Technarch race; considered a "mutant" in a sense, as he's different from the others, Hepzibah^note alien, specifically a Mephitisoid (skunk-like humanoids) that was part of the Shi'ar Empire, Fantomex^note artificial human mutate/cyborg, several members of the X-Club^note normal human scientists, Lockheed^note alien dragon, Lady Deathstrike^note cybernetically-enhanced superhuman, Cloak & Dagger^note both mutates; though it was ambiguous if they were mutants for many years until it was confirmed by Doctor Nemesis that they didn't have the X-gene, Doop^note artificially-created being, Bastion^note cyborg, Mr. Sinister^note mutate; powered by Apocalypse and gained further abilities via experimentation, Sauron^note human mutated by Savage Land dinosaurs; a mutate/vampire/pteranodon with a Jekyll & Hyde complex, Lorelei^note human mutate; artificially mutated by Magneto, the Children of the Vault^note a species of human that evolved separately, Captain Britain^note human wielding mystical artifacts; though his more famous sister is indeed a mutant, Omega Sentinel^note human/sentinel hybrid; particularly notable, considering she was originally programmed as a Sentinel to kill mutants; that's about as un-mutant as you can get, Danger^note robot; the physical manifestation of the Danger Room, Ink^note baseline human with Power Tattoos, Broo^note alien; member of the Brood race and like Warlock, is a "mutant" in the sense that he can feel compassion, Deathlok Prime^note interdimensional cyborg, Kid Gladiator^note alien; part of the Strontian race that belongs to the Shi'ar Empire, Warbird^note alien; part of the Shi'ar race and a warrior that protects Kid Gladiator (not to be confused with Carol Danvers), Daytripper^note magical witch, Puck^note mystically-empowered human and, surprisingly, Deadpool^note human mutate; his healing factor did come from Wolverine, though. It causes a bit of Fridge Brilliance; if their goal is to create equality between mutant and humankind, it'd be rather hypocritical if the X-Men didn't allow non-mutants into their ranks.
• On the flip side, it's often thought that being a mutant automatically means being a character in an X-book as opposed to a non-mutant book. Like the above, it's mostly true, but not without some notable exceptions. These include: El Aguila^note Power Man and Iron Fist Friendly Enemy, Bushwacker^note Daredevil villain, Firestar^note New Warriors/Spider-Man, Franklin Richards^note Fantastic Four, the entire Great Lakes Avengers^note all of them mutants, but they didn't know at first, Kraven II^note Spider-Man villain; son of the more famous one, Mentallo^note Marvel-wide villain, Molly Hayes and Klara Prast^note Runaways, Namor^note Various, most notably the Defenders, Namorita^note New Warriors, Night Thrasher II^note New Warriors; his brother and founder Dwayne is a baseline human, Outlaw^note Deadpool side character, so tangentially related to the X-verse, but never to the X-Men themselves, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch^note Avengers; for most of their history they've been heavily involved with this side of the universe as opposed to the X-side, Ricochet^note Slingers; themselves loosely connected to Spider-Man, Shriek^note Spider-Man villain; Carnage's girlfriend, Skein^note Thunderbolts, Vance Astro/Justice^note New Warriors/Avengers, Whirlwind^note Avengers villain, and Wiccan and Speed^note Young Avengers.
• Giant-Sized X-Men #1 has lead to the mistaken impression that Havok and Polaris were X-Men during the later years of the original comic before it was canceled. While it is true that Polaris and Havok were supporting characters in the book, they never went out with the X-Men on missions. This is the case in the Thomas/Adams strips (which introduced Havok), as well as the interim strips published in other magazines (such as the Defenders issues where Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants are reduced to infancy, and the Giant-Sized Fantastic Four issue that introduced Multiple Man). Likewise they (technically) aren't part of the team in The Hidden Years.
• Excalibur, despite what the name suggests, and what it's commonly associated with, is not strictly a British team (unlike Alpha Flight being strictly Canadians). It's actually a Multinational Team that's based in the United Kingdom, much in the way that the X-Men are a Multinational Team based in the United States. The membership is very diverse. True, the leader has always been the aptly named Captain Britain, and his love interest Meggan is a co-founder that's also British (though Romani), there exists a multitude of characters from Great Britain who've been members for the series like Pete Wisdom, Feron, Micromax, Wolfsbane, Moira MacTaggert, Kylun, and Psylocke (Captain Britain's twin sister), as well as the multidimensional versions of Captain Britain, and of course the comic has very British themes like Otherworld and the titular sword. That said, the other founders include Kitty Pryde (Jewish-American), Lockheed (alien dragon), Nightcrawler (Roma-German) and Rachel Summers (American; from an alternate future). Other members include Americans Douglock (blend of a human and techno-organic alien), Black Knight, Juggernaut, Dazzler, Nocturne (also the interdimensional daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch), Gambit, Rogue and Jubilee. Other non-British/non-American members include Colossus (Russian), Widget (extradimensional robot), Cerise (yet another alien race), Daytripper (Roma-German sorceress), Sage (Balkan), Rictor (Mexican) and Apocalypse (Ancient Egyptian). The British characters tend to be more associated with Excalibur than the non-British ones, for obvious reasons, but it is far from being just a British team.
• Fan sources sometimes refer to Magneto's first wife Magda as "Magda Maximoff", due to her being the biological mother of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (and presumably because the Alliterative Name sounds cool). This is actually incorrect: Magda has never been given a canonical family name; the twins' surname comes from Django and Marya Maximoff, the Roma couple who adopted them after their mother's death.
• Everyone knows that adamantium—the indestructible metal alloy that Wolverine's claws are made of—was created for the X-Men comics. In actuality, the metal is quite a bit older than Wolverine: it first appeared in an issue of The Avengers, and it was originally the metal that Ultron's body was made of.^note This misconception is actually widespread enough that 20th Century Fox exclusively owned the film rights to "adamantium" for many years, since the metal was legally considered to be part of the X-Men mythos; this is why Ultron's body is made of vibranium in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

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