Trivia / X-Men

Trivia with Their Own Pages

• Referenced By
• What Could Have Been

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Comics

• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: A common and repeated criticism of Cyclops' behaviour post-AVX is that he seems to always hide behind the excuse that the Phoenix made him kill Xavier, or blames everything on the Avengers, instead of accepting blame. In the actual comics though, he is actually shown to be feeling a great amount of guilt over what happened, even becoming a Death Seeker. His current motivation is that he wants to make up for what he did by saving the mutants now in danger, but at the same time, he resents the fact that he is held accountable to everything that happened. It seems people ignore the former point in favour of criticizing him for the latter, which becomes pretty unfair given that the Avengers and Wolverine's side of the X-Men (save for Captain America, slightly) have all refused to accept any blame in the mess.
  • A lot of people not aware of the comics only regard Cyclops' power as your token ranged attacker, i.e. the eye beams are similar to a laser gun or bazooka. His brilliant tactics and melee combat skills are often untold and undermined. The film trilogy didn't help, either.
  • Many things in his Never Live It Down entry are this.
    • His leaving his wife is summarised as him being a deadbeat who immediately abandoned his family when Jean came Back from the Dead... which is literally what happened, and his behaviour is appalling. But Madelyne was at fault as well for giving him an "If you leave now then don't bother coming back" ultimatum and for never trying to contact him either in the weeks leading up to her disappearance (even though she did know where he could be reached in New York). And he does at least try to come clean to Jean several times about being married, but keeps getting interrupted. Plus, a later retcon blamed Scott's actions on Mister Sinister's telepathic influence.
    • Having an affair with Emma Frost while married to Jean Grey, then kissing Emma in front of Jean's grave. Usually summed up as Cyke being a horny jackrabbit. However, Jean herself contemplated having an affair with Logan while Scott was in the middle of an emotional breakdown, which Emma took advantage of. Emma was Scott's therapist at the time, and she told him that the best way to deal with his problems was to have psychic sex with her. So basically, he was raped and is hated for it. And Jean actually used her abilities to force Cyclops into loving Emma via Mind Rape. So he was actually raped by two women, and those two are either treated like saints who could do no wrong and had a crappy husband (Jean) or are rewarded for their unethical behaviour (Emma).
    • Going nuts with the Phoenix Force and killing Xavier. Cyke actually tried to make the world a better place, albeit in the worst possible way (he basically told the entire human race that they had no choice but to live in the paradise he was building, regardless of whether or not they actually wanted to live in his idea of paradise, effectively turning the world into a police state) and it was his teammates who were losing their shit, at least quicker than he was. Furthermore, he never attacked the Avengers even though they repeatedly antagonised him. The only reason he killed Xavier is because Xavier outright said that he was going to Mind Rape Scott. This is something he has done previously, to the point where he actually did Mind Rape Scott of the knowledge of one of his brother's existence. Scott was acting in self-defense, even though by this point he was pretty much losing his shit. About half the fanbase seem to blame Wolverine, Captain America, and Iron Man for this one, but Cyke is still, in-universe and out, considered the one responsible, and is so far the only one to get any blame for it.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Writer Sina Grace is unhappy about his time at Marvel writing the Iceman book and what he says was a lack of support from Marvel while he dealt with online bullying as well as a lack of support and promotion for Iceman itself. Grace talked openly about Iceman’s success outside of the direct market with a new audience reading the book in trades, despite his editor telling him that Iceman would be “DOA if too gay” and that most solo X-books don’t last a year anyway. He also mentioned Marvel’s initial willingness under Axel Alonso to give the book a chance to succeed in this format, which eventually led to another volume of the book after the first's cancellation. Grace says things changed when Alonso was replaced by C.B. Cebulski as Marvel Editor-in-Chief.
  Grace: Between Iceman’s cancellation and its subsequent revival, Marvel reached out and said they noticed threatening behavior on my Twitter account (only after asking me to send proof of all the nasty shit popping up online). An editor called, these conversations always happen over the phone, offering to provide “tips and tricks” to deal with the cyber bullying. I cut him off. All he was going to do was tell me how to fend for myself. I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. “We’ll keep you in mind.” I got so tired of that sentence.
  Even after a year of the new editor-in-chief saying I was talented and needed to be on a book that wasn’t “the gay character,” the only assignment I got outside of Iceman was six pages along, about a version of Wolverine where he had diamond claws. Fabulous, yes. Heterosexual, yes. Still kind of the gay character, though.

  • Grace also says that he doesn’t view his treatment as discrimination, but rather “general ineptness,” and concludes:
  Grace: It is my belief that if we are telling stories about heroes doing the right thing in the face of adversity, wouldn’t the hope be to embody those ideals as individuals? Instead of feeling like I worked with some of the most inspiring and brave people in comics, I was surrounded by cowards.
  • Grant Morrison was not happy with the Executive Meddling decision to kill off Jean Grey in their run, which is among the reasons why they left Marvel after this.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Current Superstar and X-Book writer, Jonathan Hickman listed Monet as one of his top 5 favorite mutants.
  • Chris Claremont really, really, really likes Storm. Not that this is necessarily bad. Just that it's incredibly noticeable.
• Defictionalization: There are now actual weapons called Dazzlers that actually use light to temporarily blind or disorient people.
• Development Hell: The planned Gambit feature film has suffered frequent delays, numerous script issues, and the loss of multiple directors. It's actually made Deadpool's journey to the big screen seem like smooth sailing by comparison. It was supposed to have entered production by 2016, but by February, 2017 no further headway has been made, and many fans now doubt the film will even happen. However in October 2017, the film's preproduction has begun and was confirmed for a February 2019 release, so only time will tell if this doesn't result in another delay. In January 2018 director Gore Verbinski, who was set to direct it, left the project due to scheduling conflicts. In September 2018, it got a new release date of March 13, 2020. In January 2019 the film was reportedly scrapped, likely due to Disney buying Fox and resulting in the X-Men characters becoming part of the MCU. Disney proceeded to remove the film from Fox's release slate, along with several other Marvel projects from them, a few months later.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Prior to Disney's buyout of 20th Century Fox, Marvel actively tried to devalue the X-Men due to the rival studio owning their film rights. Part of this was done by actively diminishing their focus in the comics, pushing the Inhumans as Marvel's new superhuman minority and retconning Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from mutants and Magneto's children into mutates with no relation to him. This ended due to the aforementioned buyout bringing the X-Men's film rights back to Marvel, the Inhumans push largely failing to gain popularity and Ike Perlmutter, the former Marvel Entertainment CEO who came up to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans in the first place, losing a lot of creative control in the company.
  • Matthew Rosenberg originally planned to kill off the new Jamie Prime in Multiple Man (2018) after having him alive for one page. His editors wouldn't allow him to do this, so Jamie Prime became a recurring character. Rosenberg would eventually get to kill the new Jamie Prime, however, in the final issue of his Uncanny X-Men run.
• Follow the Leader: Rachel Summers was the very first "character sent from the future to change the past". She was followed by numerous others, including fellow X-Men characters Bishop and Cable which have similar initial origins (born in a dystopia of sorts, sent back to change it, sticks around afterwords).
• Fountain of Expies: Dazzler. The concept of a popular singer with a secret identity as a hero would later be copied by Jem and the Holograms and Hannah Montana.
• Hypothetical Casting:
  • Even before a movie was announced, Patrick Stewart was the fans' only choice for Professor X.
  • Chris Claremont's ideal choice for Wolverine was Bob Hoskins, largely based on the film Lassiter, specifically the scene where he threatens Tom Selleck. He also envisioned Angela Bassett as Storm.
• Troubled Production:
  • Following the abrupt departures of Joe Kelly and Steven T. Seagle in 1997, X-Men and Uncanny X-Men spent several years with a revolving door of creative teams.
  • The Astonishing X-Men ongoing series took full four years to complete a 25-issue storyline. As a result, Shadowcat being Put on a Bus was spoiled by Messiah Complex: since its events couldn't take place before it, Kitty was nowhere in sight. The series is notoriously hard to fit into Marvel continuity, as it appears to take place over at most a few weeks, but the second arc is set prior to House of M (Xavier and Magneto are hanging out on the ruined Genosha), the third is set after Secret War (Maria Hill has taken over from Nick Fury as director of SHIELD), and the final arc includes a dialogue reference to Civil War having happened! The series was first written by Joss Whedon and then Warren Ellis continued the trend. The reason is the same.
• Un-Canceled: The original X-Men title was canceled after seven years of horrible sales and no popularity (it was revived nine months later, but only published reprints of earlier issues). It was basically seen as a poor-man's version of the Fantastic Four. Then it was rebooted with all new characters like Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus, along with minor Hulk antagonist Wolverine. Under the skilled writing of Chris Claremont, it became Marvel's flagship title throughout the '80s and '90s.
• What Could Have Been:
  • During the battle against the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, Wolverine's costume is destroyed, whereupon he takes that of his opponent Fang for himself. Cockrum intended him to keep it, but John Byrne found it ugly, so he had Logan quickly peel it off as soon as he got home.
  • Claremont's original endgame for the Scott/Madelyn saga was for Scott to actually retire and settle down permanently.
  • Madelyn Pryor was originally intended to be just as she appeared - a woman who looked exactly like Jean, but nothing more. However, when plans were started to resurrect Jean to reform the Original X-Men for the 25th anniversary of the title, a major problem presented itself - Scott and Maddy had married and were happy. That's when the Summers marriage fell apart. Hence the twist that she was a clone engineered by Mister Sinister, her becoming the Goblyn Queen and her death during Inferno.
  • Before Inferno (1988) and the entire clone retcon was ever even cooked up, Claremont and artist Marc Silvestri toyed with elevating Madelyne Pryor into a gun-wielding Action Girl who would serve as a Badass Normal member of the X-Men... really! But editorial (and Louise Simonson) wanted Cyclops whitewashed and that Pryor be eliminated and erased out... permanently.
  • Mister Sinister's origin was originally very different: he was a young rival of Cyclops who couldn't age. By the time Cyclops was an adult, Kid Sinister was still stuck as an 8-year-old (physically and mentally), and he used his mutant powers to change his appearance into that of a gaudy, over-the-top supervillain: an 8-year-old's vision of a cool supervillain. When considering that origin, Mr. Sinister's corny appearance, unimpressive name, and stereotypical supervillain demeanor actually make sense. It also explains his minions: The Nasty Boys (a name an 8-year-old would be far more likely to pick than a mad geneticist) earn their name by being filthy ultra-slobs, living in conditions akin to the X-Men: Evolution version of the Brotherhood. In other words, they never take baths or clean their space - part of an 8-year-old's idea of perfect freedom.
  • Sauron was originally supposed to be a vampire. Also, Claremont considered bringing him into the X-Men full-time as their resident doctor in the 1980s.
  • The story with the X-Men facing Krakoa in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May, 1975) is familiar. But it was only the second concept for the reintroduction of the team to readers. The original one was rejected. According to Dave Cockrum, the original story would feature figures from Aztec Mythology. "It was something to do with sending the new team down to South America to rescue the old X-Men and finding a whole bunch of Aztec gods walking around and raising hell and having to combat the Aztec gods who would wind up to be the original X-Men dressed as Aztec gods." Cockrum disliked the idea and convinced writer Len Wein to dismiss it and start working on another one.
  • One early version of the story in Giant-Size X-Men #1 would have the original team be in no real danger. Instead of an actual mission, the entire dangerous situation would turn out to be an elaborate entrance exam. Testing potential X-Men for the proper skills to actually join the team. And there would be those who flunked the test and be rejected. The obvious candidates for Len Wein and Dave Cockrum were two already established characters: Banshee and Sunfire. Originally they were supposed to be the only ones. Then the creators decided to also have one of the new characters fail. Choosing Thunderbird, whose flaw of being anti-social would make him unsuitable. The duo of creators started having second thoughts about letting Banshee and Thunderbird go, which resulted in them scrapping the idea of the exam.
  • Some of the new X-Men were loosely based on character concepts Cockrum had unsuccessfully pitched to DC earlier (as "The Outsiders"). Most prominently, that pitch included an Anti-Hero called Nightcrawler who ultimately got to keep both his name and appearance.
  • The main villain in the "Mutant Massacre" arc was supposed to be The Fury, an unstoppable cybernetic Hero Killer. The main villain in the subsequent "Fall of the Mutants" arc was supposed to be Reality Warper Mad Jim Jaspers. Both of these villains were created by Alan Moore during his run on Captain Britain, but Moore had quit Marvel by that time, upset at Marvel for using his creations without being compensated for their use. Marvel chose not to use Moore's creations, leaving Claremont to create Mr. Sinister and the Marauders for the first arc, and the Adversary for the second.
  • Casablanca was going to produce a movie and album to coincide with Dazzler's comic book. The movie was going to have Bo Derek in the title role and feature other Casablanca artists such as Cher, KISS, Donna Summer and Robin Williams. The album and movie got canceled right before the first issue was published.
  • Originally, Dazzler was to be modeled after Grace Jones, but a redesign was ordered after Casablanca wanted Bo Derek to play the role, so Dazzler instead became a blonde white woman.
  • Dazzler was going to be a regular character in an X-Men cartoon produced in the 80s. A pilot for Pryde of the X-Men had Dazzler as part of the main team, voiced by Alexandra Soddart. The idea was later retooled into the more familiar X-Men: The Animated Series. Dazzler would later appear in an episode adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga.
  • Bryan Singer intended for her to appear in X-Men: The Last Stand played by country singer Beverley Mahood. When he left the project to direct Superman Returns, she was dropped.
  • Kieron Gillen made a tragically unused pitch for a Dazzler story involving the Inhumans and Celestials called "Big in Attilan". Gillen posted the full pitch on Tumblr. In his own words, "It didn’t go anywhere for reasons that will become immediately obvious - in part that Attilan had just moved off the moon, in part that it was patently apeshit".
  • Claremont's intended backstory for Gambit was that he was a "proxy" for a villain who had fallen for Rogue and was using him to draw her to him. In Claremont's version, Gambit would develop his own humanity after falling for Rogue. This was tied in with Mr Sinister's original backstory of being a perpetual little kid who created a villain persona, hence why Gambit has red eyes just like Sinister.
  • Monet St. Croix was not originally conceived as Muslim. From her creation in 1994, she wasn't connected with any religion but was shown to celebrate Christmas and her last name is French for Holy Cross. It was during Peter David's X-Factor run in 2011 where a Muslim heritage became a part of her character.
  • John Byrne had an idea about Wolverine killing Kitty that was never used. "The definitive Wolverine sequence is he's sitting at the breakfast table, eating a bowl of cereal, and Kitty comes in and says, "Hi!" in exactly the wrong tone of voice, and Cyclops comes in, and there's Wolverine eating his breakfast cereal, and Kitty lying on the floor disemboweled."
  • According to Claremont on the 100th episode of "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men," his romantic endgame for Kitty was that she'd end up with Rachel Summers.
  • According to showrunners of X-Men: The Animated Series, Kitty was actually the first choice for the "kid" character, but having already been used in the failed 1989 Pryde of the X-Men pilot^note pitched to NBC, and later used as the basis for the X Men arcade game, executives said no, so Jubilee was used instead.
  • Mekanix was a miniseries that took place during Kitty's hiatus from the X-Men when she was attending university in Chicago, and a few issues of X-Men Unlimited chronicled her time there as well, including briefly dating a cop who looked like the dead-at-the-time Colossus. Sadly, none of this panned out into an ongoing series starring Shadowcat as Chicago's own superhero.
  • Chris Claremont actually originally wanted to retire Cyclops' character from the X-Men comics. His original endgame was for Scott to settle down and start a family with a de-powered Jean Grey after The Dark Phoenix Saga – then when Jean was killed off instead by editorial mandate his plan changed to have Scott settle down and start a family with Madelyne Pryor. The idea was for Uncanny X-Men to have Long-Runner Cast Turnover with the characters moving on to other things, and Scott's story would be the "symbol" of a character graduating from Xavier's School. Then the series X-Factor was greenlit without his knowledge or approval, and what we got instead was Scott eventually attempting to abandon his family for the resurrected Jean Grey - and then it turned out Madelyne was an evil clone of Jean.
  • At one point of time, Cyclops was on Captain America's list of potential recruits for the Avengers. Yes, you read that right.◊
  • Jean's costume from 1967 onwards consisted of a revealing green mini-dress, yellow boots, gloves along with a belt, and a facemask in the same color. When it was time to reintroduce Jean in 1975, the costume was thought outdated. Dave Cockrum was asked to come with a more modern design. His costume design included a yellow headband, a black, tie-to-the-wrists cape, a revealing, light green bathing suit, and blue boots with yellow trimmings. The design was rejected because it made Jean look more like a go-go dancer than a super-heroine.
  • In Uncanny X-Men #94 (August, 1975), Jean quits the team and departs. The character was Put on a Bus and was not intended to return. However, Chris Claremont changed his mind as she was one of his favorite characters. So she returned in issue #97 (February, 1976). If not for this decision, Jean would not be revamped to Phoenix.
  • The Phoenix revamp of Jean included a new distinctive costume. It consisted of a green body suit with a black neck area, long opera gloves, over-knee boots, and a sash. The gloves, boots and sash were made of some golden fabric that almost looked like liquid metal. The clip of the sash as well as the logo on her chest were stylized Phoenix symbols. But Dave Cockrum, who came up with this design, previously considered other candidate costumes. One left the right shoulder and right hand uncovered, while the rest of her body was covered with a light blue suit. The suit had a series of white markings, forming a line from her left shoulder to her right thigh. Another was more like the final Phoenix costume but colored white. It ended up being used years later for the White Phoenix look. The costume can be seen in Classic X-Men #43 (January, 1990), X-Men Forever #3 (March, 2001), and X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong #5 (June, 2005).
    • The White Phoenix costume was originally rejected due to how it would look in the printed page. In 1970s, the paper quality and printing process didn’t allow for a full white costume. The text or images on the other side of the page would have shined through, always making the costume look dirty.
    • Cockrum later reused the idea of the blue suit with the white markings. The design was kept, but the colors changed to light purple with light grey markings. It was used for Oracle of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.
  • Psylocke's infamous Race Lift was only supposed to be temporary, and she was supposed to have reverted to her original Caucasian appearance at the end of Acts of Vengeance. However, her Asian makeover became so popular that it lasted nearly two decades^note plus another ten years that she spent either dead or as a side character.
  • When Claremont killed her off, his original intention was to have her revived fairly quickly. His plan was to have her resurrected without any of her Crimson Dawn powers or tattoos, and possibly revert her to her original Caucasian form as well. However, Marvel had taken a stance against resurrecting characters at the time, so she didn't return until several years later.
  • When Dave Cockrum started working on the idea of a black female member for the X-Men, the results were not at like Storm. The character had a different codename, different powers, and a slightly different look. The character was going to be called the Black Cat, and she wore a collar with a bell on it. The rest of her costume consisted of a black bikini suit and black thigh-high boots. Her power was that she could turn into any cat, from a house-cat to a panther, and she could also half-transform into a humanoid cat. However, as in the meantime several other female feline characters had been introduced (for example Tigra in 1974), the Black Cat didn’t make the cut. He and Len Wein decided to keep the African features and the costume design, and they went back to the drawing board.
  • Storm serves as a Composite Character between the Black Cat (see above) and two other characters that Dave Cockrum created but never managed to sell. One was Typhoon, a male character with Weather Manipulation powers. The other was Quetzal, a green bird-woman of unknown origin. She was rather tall, had hollow bones and feathered wings which grew out of her arms. What was kept from her were her long flowing hair and beautiful facial features. Black Cat's catlike eyes were kept, as they sort of matched the shape of Quetzal’s hairline and looked quite good together.
  • Storm's black, tie-to-the-wrists cape with yellow trim, held together by a gemstone, was originally intended for another character. A created but unsold character called Trio. Dave Cockrum then toyed with the idea of using the cape for a re-design of Marvel Girl. Before settling to using it for Storm.
  • Storm's iconic white hair were almost never used. Dave Cockrum liked the idea, but Len Wein thought that she would end up looking like a grandmother.
  • Claremont & Byrne intended for Sabretooth to be Wolverine's father, as well as his superior. After Claremont fell out with the X-franchise, the idea was still played with before being proven false with blood tests by Nick Fury. Later, Claremont returned to the X-Men & wrote X-Men Forever, which functions as a What Could Have Been story, where Sabretooth really is his father, and wants to avenge his son's death. He works with the X-Men and slowly becomes a member of their team, and having a budding relationship with Daisy Duggan. The story is now looked at as an alternate universe tale, like Age of Apocalypse.
  • Things Bunn said or promised regarding Sabretooth, during his Uncanny X-Men (2016) run.
    • He would've had a long story dealing with his struggle with redemption.
    • Going further on the previous, he notes Sabretooth's fall back to villain would've been a very horrific & tragic story that would've served as a metaphor for Alzheimer's, which he lost his own father to.
    • He joined Magneto's team for a specific purpose, but would've come to see the team as family later.
    • Describes Sabretooth as penitent when asked to describe his cast in one word.
    • He wasn't in a hurry to start reverting Creed back to his evil self.
    • There would be an issue with him & Psylocke.
    • There'd be a lot of tragedy and even romance waiting for him. He confirmed the romance would not be with Psylocke, and when asked about Mystique, he confirmed that he can't imagine them being on good terms.
    • Following up on the promised romance, it appeared to be Monet. Bunn says a few times that he liked writing them together, and just recently confirmed them as a a torturous love, cementing that they had romantic feelings for each other during his run.
    • When asked if he'd considered Daken for the series, he says he felt Sabretooth offered more character work to build on.
  • Stan Lee toyed with the idea of making Professor X and Magneto brothers.
  I always wanted Magneto to turn out to be Professor X's brother. If I had stayed with the book, that's what I would have done. [...] I figured that I could come up with an explanation when I needed it: I always did. But I thought it would be fun if Professor Xavier and Magneto were brothers.
• Word of Gay:
  • Marjorie Liu confirmed that she wrote Bobby as closeted in her run of Astonishing X-men. Scott Lobdell also confirmed that he wrote Bobby with closeted themes and subtext in his run of Uncanny X-men.
  • Things Cullen Bunn has stated regarding Monet in his Uncanny run.
    • He had much longer plans for her Emplate possession and her descent would've mirrored Sabretooth's descent back into villainy.
    • He is asked to describe his cast in one word for the series journey and Monet he states is "angry."
    • He agreed that she & Mystique would not get along.
• Word of God: According to the answer in the #61 letter column, Nate Grey is not the father of Threnody's baby. Which makes the identity of the father a complete mystery since there wasn't any other obvious candidate.

Other

• The fourth step on the Sliding Scale of Leadership Responsibility is named after the film version of Magneto.
• What Could Have Been: Multiple X-Men attractions were proposed for Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure park during its development phase in the early/mid 90's. The first one would've had guests venturing inside of the Cerebro chamber and witnessing a big battle between the X-Men and Magneto's forces. The attraction would have utilized a moving theater that would've been surrounded by a giant 3D dome screen. The second proposal, which almost made it into the park, would have been an interactive dark ride where guests would be able to shoot at targets and score points. This fell through due to the extreme budget cuts the park received as a result of The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and Jurassic Park River Adventure going heavily over-budget. The third and final proposal was a stunt show, which too ended up being a victim of further budget cuts. An X-Men ride did finally come to park in 2000, though in the form of a small teacup ride called Storm Force Accelatron.

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