These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: X-Men aka: X Men The Last Stand
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YMMVs for the X-Men comics:
Base Breaker: Two main ones, on opposing sides. You either think Wolverine's the most badass and complex creation to come out of comics and Cyclops is a douchebag boring whiner who would be better suited as a villain, or that Wolverine is overhyped, over powered, and a real dick, and Cyclops is mishandled, considerably badass, and one of the most complex characters in the comics. Now, combine that with Running the Asylum, and we get some truly Epic Fail stories and Out-of-Character Moment stories. Wolverine is actually listed as both an Ensemble Darkhorseand a Creator's Pet on This Very Wiki.
Amahl Farouk was a powerful mutant who made his living as a crime lord, using children as pickpockets or prostitutes. After being defeated by Charles Xavier and locked in the astral plane, he became far worse. Taking the alias "The Shadow King", Farouk became a being of psychic malice. Not content to remain on the astral plane, Farouk consistently possesses others with psychic energy, and then enacts a game of destroying them mentally. He often forces them to indulge in the sickest desires he can imagine, or that he finds in their subconscious, leaving them awareness to see that they are doing such horrible things, but that they even enjoy it. Farouk enjoys psychic torture as a hobby, and seeks to corrupt the hearts and minds of every human he can, with Mind Rape being both an art and enjoyable past time to him. Recently, Farouk was the one to reveal to the young boy who might grow to be Apocalypse that his life was a lie and he was the destined destroyer. Being Farouk, he mocked him the entire time about how his life was a worthless simulation, and showed utter glee in awakening the one to commit genocide on humanity.
Nathaniel Essex, alias Mister Sinister. A nineteenth century eugenicist who believed that people should be bred in order to produce superhumans, Essex was approached by Apocalypse, who granted him near-immortality, regenerative, and psionic powers. Betraying Apocalypse, Sinister struck out on his own. Recognizing his own genetic handiwork in some of the Morloks, a group of street-dwelling mutants, Sinister hired the Marauders to exterminate them, because he viewed their existence as plagiarism. Obsessed with Scott Summers' bloodline, Sinister cloned Jean Grey, and sent the clone, Madelyne Pryor, to have a child with Scott, so that he might then steal the child. He later tried to use the High Evolutionary space station in order to alter the genetics of the entire planet; failing in this endeavor, Sinister later sent out the Marauders to murder everyone who knew about the dark future where Apocalypse ruled the world. On another occasion he merged with the Dreaming Celestial and transformed the entire population of San Francisco into clones of himself. At another time, Sinister, then part of the Weapon X project, promised to free the project's prisoners from the concentration camp they were held in, only to turn around and use them as part of his own experiments. Concerned only with his mad genetic theories, Sinister has worked with everyone from Mengele to Apocalypse in the interest of furthering his research, and making himself the dominant life form on Earth.
En Sabah Nur, alias Apocalypse. An Ancient Egyptian shapeshifter with a Social Darwinist streak, Apocalypse is one of the oldest, and most evil mutants in existence. Believing that the strong must dominate the weak, Apocalypse aims to test humanity. Those who survive the process will be allowed to live as his servants, those who fail, die. Apocalypse has a history of granting powers to other unscrupulous individuals, transforming Nathaniel Essex into the mad genetecist Mister Sinister (in exchange for Sinister agreeing to unleash a plague that would exterminate most of humanity), and empowering terrorist leader Moses Magnum, in exchange for the latter winnowing out the strong from the weak. His other crimes include, infecting the infant Cable with a technorganic virus, turning Cable's clone, Stryfe, into the monster he is today, trying to force humanity to reduce its own population by ninety percent or face the wrath of another metaplague, and effectively killilng Stryfe by bodyjacking him. That's without getting into the Bad Future, where he rules most of the world and has effectively run it into the ground, or the Age of Apocalypse timeline, where he devastated North America with nuclear weapons, reduced the human population in purges, and gave free reign to likeminded psychopaths Sinister, Holocaust, and Mikhail Rasputin, effectively destroying civilisation. Believing wholeheartedly that those he conisders weak must be slain, Apocalypse is well-deserving of his name.
Selene, sometime Black Queen of the Hellfire Club is one of the few mutants to be older than Apocalypse, and one of the few who can match his evil. A psychic vampire, Selene survives by draining the minds of other beings into herself, a move which brainwashes those she only preys on a little, and kills those she drains completely. She's also possessed of a phenomenal god complex, and has repeatedly tried to attain godhood, and has forced others to worship her. Her crimes include trying to psychically devour the entire city of Rome, using mind control to force the citizens of Nova Roma to worship her as a goddess, trying to kill her own descendant, Magma, successfully killing her loyal servant Eli Bard, manipulating Wither, an otherwise good kid, into descending into omnicidal mania while pretending to love him, promising the Upstarts prizes if they committed enough murders, repeatedly trying to bodyjack Rachel Summers, and enslaving the souls of all Genosha's dead. A seemingly immortal parasite, Selene set the standard for all future Queens of the Hellfire Club to follow.
Fabian Cortez deserves a spot on this list. He was part of the defunct Upstarts, a group of rich, bored dilettante mutants that hunted and killed other mutants for points and bragging rights (the competition was set up by Selene to test possible recruits for the Hellfire Club). In his first outing, he puts together the Acolytes and seeks out Magneto in order to sway him back towards taking an antagonistic stance against humanity again. When Magneto is wounded, Cortez uses his own powers to seemingly heal him and boost his power at the same time whilst making Mags dependent on the “treatments” like a drug (and possibly making Mags more emotionally unstable, which would account for much of his behavior during “Fatal Attractions”). His machinations lead to the U.S. and Russia destroying Asteroid M with a plasma cannon, and the deaths of his entire first group of Acolytes (what makes that worse is that one of them was his own damn sister, and yet he never acknowledges that, nor does he show any signs of remorse or grief), whilst he flees with a triumphant smile on his face. When Magneto turns out not to be dead and he loses his top spot in the Upstarts competition, his response is to go to Genosha and inspire the mutants there to rise up against their oppressive human government, causing a bloody civil war. At the same time, he kidnaps Magneto’s infant granddaughter (and replaces her with a shapeshifting mutant suicide bomber in an attempt to kill as many of the Avengers as possible) so he can use her as a human shield against her parents and grandfather, the X-Men, the Avengers, and Exodus. When Magneto is given rule of Genosha, he grants Cortez a place on his cabinet in exchange for regular rejuvenating treatments (Magneto’s powers are in decline at this time). As soon as Mags learns of hidden technology in Genosha that can restore his power levels again, Cortez predictably betrays him again by amping up ex-Acolytes to send against him. Not only an extreme mutant supremacist, a terrorist, a coward, a user, and a backstabber, Cortez also committed his most despicable crimes to score points in a competition.
While Wolverine rejects the savage, animal side of him, another mutant embraces it. Victor "Sabretooth" Creed has reveled in his savagery ever since he was a boy, when he killed and ate his parents though it's later revealed that he not only spared his mother, but continued to visit and financially support her because she showed him kindness. Sabretooth became a mercenary after, though he commits multiple murders for his own pleasure as well as profit. Sabretooth is known for making a game of hunting down women and children before killing and eating them. One issue of Deadpool revealed that, after slaughtering a large group of people, he had a little girl locked in his closet as a snack for later. Sabretooth once joined X Factor, though he was revealed to be faking a Heel Face Turn to ensure a psychic dependence on an addiction was removed and promptly attempted to murder those he could. Most recently, Sabretooth found himself as an unlikely father figure to Wolverine's amoral son Daken. The reason? Sabretooth played off Daken's desire for fatherly affection and drove him towarda confrontation with his father solely to hurt Wolverine more after he was forced to kill Daken. Every affection he ever had for Daken was a lie: Sabretooth would have killed Daken himself, but wanted the death to be at Wolverine's hands for maximum agony. For decades, Sabretooth has reveled in his monstrosity. He mixes his sadism with a brutal cunning and intellect,and is revealed to remember every life he's ever ended because he savors every death he deals.
Omega Red. The man was a Soviet soldier stationed at a small town who started murdering from sheer boredom. His fellow soldiers shot him in the back of the head when they caught him. The Russian government learned he survived and recommended him for the Soviet supersoldier project, which he apparently only survived due to his evil and mean nature. To survive carbonadium poisoning, he drains the life forces of those around him, even when a cure is available. It was at one point implied that he was a pedophile, though thankfully, writers seem to have forgotten it (Red was, by this point, developing into too dark a figure). He later turned on and killed several of his employers working for the Hand for the reason that they irritated him. In his presently final issue, he ends up in a regular Russian prison and taunts a prisoner dying of HIV/AIDS by calling him worthless. He later casually kills Wildchild by impaling him through the chest and dumping him in molten lava before being stabbed by the same blade that killed Sabretooth.
Sinister MinisterWilliam Stryker, the founder of the Purifiers. The Purifiers are an organization of religious fanatics who believe mutants are an affront to God. Their first appearance opens with them gunning down a nine year old girl and eleven year old boy. Stryker's crusade began when he killed his baby mutant son...and then broke his wife's neck for giving birth to a "monster." He tries to brainwash Professor Xavier so he'll kill every mutant on the planet and murders his second-in-command when it becomes clear she has the mutant gene. His own guards even turn on him when he tries to kill Kitty Pryde on live TV.
Donald Pierce, the cyborg leader of the Reavers. Pierce was a member of the Hellfire Club for a time, but is really a psychotic, raving bigot who's also a serial killer of mutants. His hatred motivated him to turn people into Cyborgs to kill more mutants. What makes Pierce the worst, though? Pierce knows if he goes after guys like Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto, or Havok, he's going to get his ass kicked...so he targets baby and child mutants who can't fight back like they can. Pierce is a vile, spiteful, cowardly bully so filled with hate, his last words before Cyclops kills him is to say he's just sorry he won't be around to see the Mutant Race destroyed. The one time he went after Wolverine it was with the help of Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers; they ambushed Wolverine, beat him down, then crucified him in the Australian desert and tortured him. If not for Jubilee, Logan would surely have died; as it was, the ordeal severely taxed his healing factor and screwed up his mental state for months of Comic Book Time (but years of our time). Pierce can actually claim to be among those who have come closest to killing Wolverine, and in such a horrific way that the son of a bitch belongs on this list.
Die for Our Ship: Every corner of the Emma Frost/Scott Summers/Jean Grey/Logan love square has its shippers and detractors. Same for Rogue/Gambit and every relationship here.
Jason Aaron, the writer of Wolverine And The X-Men, has been accused of doing this recently. After turning Colossus into the Juggernaut, resulting in Kitty breaking up with him...for some reason, he had Kitty, when she joined Wolverine, get together with Iceman, despite them never being depicted that close in the main comics. Likewise, when he broke up Black Panther and Storm in Avengers Vs X Men, he had Storm migrate to his book and recently had her get together with Logan (though, at least this one made some sense).
Dork Age: Everything from the end of Onslaught through the start of the Grant Morrison run. Austen's run as well and Claremont's second, third, and fourth run on the franchise and the Whedon run, not because of its quality (which was awesome), but because it came out too slow and created chaos for the other writers who were unable to use the main cast outside of Emma Frost (and who said "fuck it" and ignored Whedon's possessed Emma plotline.)
In recent years, the writers have a tendency to take a shine to a particular X-kid and promote them to the main cast or recurring character status. For Mike Carey, it's Trance. Warren Ellis has Armor. Craig Kyle and Chris Yost have Elixir and Loa. Because she was Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction's pick, Pixie ended up not only on the Uncanny X-Men, but with her own miniseries.
Doop was a fan-favorite in X-Force and X-Statix, and his return in Wolverine and the X-Men was much-appreciated.
Family Unfriendly Aesop: Frequently, Rogue gets forced into keeping her powers despite how mind-numbingly horrible they are.
Fanon Discontinuity: A lot of stuff is contested by fans, and let's just leave it there.
Fan Preferred Couple: In terms of sheer fan works, there's no more popular of a couple than Gambit and Rogue, but they currently are together. There's a fairly large, vocal fanbase for current couple Magneto and Rogue, as well as a Hatedom for both pairings with ample Die for Our Ship.
Hilarious in Hindsight: 1968 saw issue #48 and an encounter with Computo, an artificial intelligence that could create his own cybernetic mooks. They were called Cybertrons - a term put to more extensive use in a different franchise, one that included a Marvel comic.
In the 1960s, several stories had Scott Summers reject offers by Magneto to join the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants citing his preference for Xavier's coexistence beliefs and even foiled a plot by Magneto to create a new generation of artificially made mutants. Present day, Cyclops is now, constantly, being compared to Magneto due to his more extreme methods of protecting mutants.
The original X-Men stories in the 60's featured a pretty clear power ranking for the team members by continually referring to individual members as "the strongest X-Man", "the weakest member", "the second weakest member" and so on. The members seemed to be ranked as such (from strongest to weakest): Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl (Jean Grey). Fast forward to modern day: guess which two members of the original team are now Omega-level mutants?
Jerk Sue: In the hands of some writers, Kitty Pryde, Cyclops, Emma Frost, and Wolverine. Logan especially, considering that he's been used for Jerkass Has a Point moments too many times that whenever he criticizes anyone for their behavior, he's almost undoubtedly done the exact thing he's condemning. At this point, being a giant hypocrite is slowly becoming a character trait for Logan.
Les Yay: Anything by Chris Claremont. Try to deny the subtext between Storm and Yukio, Mirage and Wolfsbane, or Selene with Rachel Summers and Magma.
Of course, he did it with guys and villains too...
Magnificent Bastard: Sebastian Shaw; a would-be usurper comments at one point that trying to outplan him is likely a more difficult task than conquering a country.
Cyclops during Utopia period of the X-men history
Magneto
Marty Stu: Wolverine can easily fall here if he's given the wrong writer. One time he regenerated from a few single cells. This is due to his older fans Running the Asylum; chances are, if a writer tries to scale him back, this will be immediately ignored by the next one.
Mr. Sinister's Ultimate counterpart infamously introduced Ultimate Professor X to the latter's "true enemy": Stairs.
"To me, my X-Men!" It's since been used by Cyclops, as well as an older Franklin Richards in FF as "To me, my Galactus".
Moral Event Horizon: Ultimate Wolverine's attempted murder of Scott Summers.
Wither, whose purpose seems to be to explore how a villain becomes a villain, probably crossed this with his recent double-murder.
Mystique crossed it in "Dream's End" (murdered Moira Mc Taggart and stabbed Rogue), then double downed after Xavier and Rogue forgave her during "Blinded By the Light" and "Messiah Complex"
Bishop killed innocent government soldiers, destroyed the X-Mansion, and tried to kill a baby. When Cable saved the kid, Bishop shot at Cable and mortally wounded Xavier instead; then stole a time machine and did even worse to try and kill Cable and the kid until he wiped out all life on Earth.
Magneto killing Jean Grey. Later retconned. He still has ripping out Logan's skeleton though and his general mistreatment of his kids.
Cassandra Nova sending the Sentinels to destroy Genosha.
It's hard to tell just WHERE Sabretooth crossed it, but his most heinous act involved taking in Daken and playing the role of the father that Daken (who has MAJOR daddy issues, to put it mildly) never had, all the while slowly grooming him for a confrontation with his father, resulting in his death at Wolverine's hands. Why did Sabretooth do this? Simple. He just wanted to hurt Logan at a far deeper level than he could ever manage on his own.
Louis Simonson gets some credit, for writing definitive versions of Archangel. Grant Morrison for Emma Frost, though that one is a case of this being used in a bad way. There's a reason this is YMMV.
Narm Charm: The existence of Master Mold, a giant Sentinel who spits out smaller Sentinels.
Never Live It Down: Jean doesn't actually come Back from the Dead that much. It only truly happened once (other times were fakeouts or resurrecting instantly, which applies to half the other characters as well). She was known for lots of crazy things happening to her, but it got recently morphed into solely coming back from the dead, when that isn't true. Probably people seeing the word "Phoenix", and not bothering to actually do research.
Scott Summers had his squeaky clean image tarnished forever by his shabby treatment of Madelyne Pryor, abandoning her and their son Nathan * (Note that, he didn't so much as abandon her as she kicked him out of the house and he didn't return in time to fix their relationship before she was apparently killed and her existence as erased, something many forget). An tarnished image that was then irreversibly destroyed when Scott cheated on Jean Grey with Emma Frost * (somehing that happened while he was in the middle of a massive psychological breakdown after a terrible case of Mind Rape crosed with Demonic Possession). And now, everything that happened during AvX* (Which, again is down to a mix of Demonic Possession and Designated Villain).
Gambit, while he was always an Antihero, actually only betrayed the X-Men once, when he decided to go and join Apocalypse thinking that it could help mutants and that he could retain his personality after becoming a Horseman. He was wrong. When he returned to normal, he returned to the good side as well. Yet people seem to think that he betrayed everyone and their mother more times than you can count.
He also covered up his involvement in the massacre of the Morlocks; he was tricked into that and had no idea it would happen, but it's easy to see why he wouldn't exactly be trusted.
It might be surprising to a lot of people only familiar with the adaptations that Magneto hasn't actually been a villain in over a decade, unless you count his turn in Morrison's run, in which he was either a victim of Demonic Possession, an impostor, or both, depending on which retcon you believe.
Nightcrawler's faith. It was never intended as a major aspect of his character, in fact most of the time he wasn't even all that religious* (He is, after all, a Memetic Sex God), but in the hands of some less-than-talented writers * (*cough*Chuck Austin*cough*), its like e exists to be the token Christian, only for a change of writers to result in this being ignored or downplayed again. Similarly, Northstar's sexuality. Him being gay, other than making him one of the most well known gay superheroes, isn't really that big of a deal to his character at large. His personality doesn't hinder on the fact he's gay. Yet, in the hands of some people* (*cough*Chuck Austin*cough*), its like all that matters is that he's gay.
Nightmare Fuel: Genosha, prior to Xtinction Agenda when the X-Men liberated the country.
The Scrappy: Very few people seem to like Ink. Even fewer like the new Hellfire Club made up of 12-year-olds. Then there's Maggot, though most proffer to forget about him.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: Fandom is divided into those who think Rogue must be with Gambit and those who think that no matter who they themselves favor, anyone is preferable to Remy as Rogue's love interest.
Interestingly, Remy/Rogue wasn't even the original endgame. Chris Claremont created Gambit as STORM'S love interest and planned on having a shock reveal where Storm would ultimately find out that Gambit was really arch-villain Mr. Sinister, in a new body designed to further torment the X-Men.
Take that and toss in Scott/Jean/Wolverine and Scott/Jean Emma Frost; the former (Jean and Wolverine hooking up) was teased at the start of the Casey/Morrison run but fans were so overwhelmingly negative that Morrison ended up going with Emma/Scott, which did not go over well and led to later writers going with Cyclops/Emma Frost/Namor, as far as retconning a relationship with Namor into Emma's past to pander to fans who HATE the Scott/Emma pairing.
And Iceman and Sadowcat. Reasonably popular as a Crack Pairing, often used in adaptaions where he cast is condensced and hey're the youngest, bu until recently they were never depicted as even being close friends. Come Schism, and then they're the Official Couple of Wolverine and the X-Men.
Straw Man Has A Point: Very often it seems like is Magneto was right arguing that peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants is impossible, considering that no matter what the X-men do, the plot never seems to get any closer to reaching that, particularly because people in the Marvel Universe are Too Dumb to Live and suffer from Aesop Amnesia regarding that theme. It gets even worse that in a lot stories throughout the Marvel Universe, especially in recent years, they seem willing to easily sacrifice any and all of their freedoms at a moment's notice, so quite often it would seem like the world would be better if the X-men let Magneto Take Over the World, since at least he doesn't go making the Green Goblin the most powerful man in America.
Similarly, people often tend to agree with, in principal, the idea that mutants do need to be dealt with due to how powerful they can get and how evil they can act. And that's all we'll talk about here.
Too Dumb to Live: One fitting most X-Men media, the military and police's attempts to stop evil mutants, but particularly ones like Magneto. How many times must they throw metal tanks, missles, bullets, etc. at him only to have them effortlessly stopped and often turned against them before they realize that is not ever going to work?
Vindicated by History: The original series was never a top-seller, but sales had declined so much by the end of the 1960s that the book was cancelled. A little bit later, the series (with its original numbering) returned, but only as a reprint title. A number at Marvel did like the book and the characters, but they couldn't figure out how to bring them back until 1975's Giant-Sized X-Men #1. After that was published and received strong response, Marvel has kept the X-Men in regular publication ever since - adding many spin-offs and mini-series to the archive (and many hours of outside, successful media).
The Woobie: The Morlocks deserve a mention after having been massacred by the Marauders.
Complete Monster: A few examples stand out, even for a kids' show, including Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, Fabian Cortez, Omega Red, Sauron, and D'Ken.
The two most shining examples of human Complete Monsters are Cameron Hodge (helping the Phalanx assimilate the entire universe to "purify" it) and Graydon Creed (trying to kill his own family because they are mutants).
Critical Research Failure: In one episode, Gambit travels to Washington, D.C., which apparently is located in the state of Washington.
Ensemble Darkhorse: Beast. Eric Lewald states that the writers considered him a guest character in Season 1, which is why he was largely sidelined. Fans and writers alike took to the character, leading to his increased prominence for the remainder of the series.
Morph was in the first episodes entirely for the purpose of being killed off so the writers could show how serious the series would be. However, his unexpected popularity led to him being revived in the second season.]
Nightcrawler's episode was so well-received they wrote a second one just to bring him back and the writers seriously considered having him join the X-Men after "Bloodlines."
Foe Yay: In the final episode of the series, Magneto, upon hearing that he may be the only one able to save the dying Xavier, abandons the army he had gathered and goes to save his archenemy. It is possible that they're just really good friends,but...
Jean Grey: "How much do you love Charles Xavier?"
The number of these moments between Magneto and Xavier is somewhat Hilarious in Hindsight seeing as several years on, openly gay actor Ian McKellen was cast as Magneto in the live-action films.
Genius Bonus: In "The Cure", the revelation that the scientist "Dr. Adler" is actually a disguised Mystique should come as no surprise to fans of the comics—he's named in honor of Mystique's lover, Irene Adler (AKA Destiny), who never actually appeared in the TV show.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In "The Phalanx Covenant" two-parter: While taking over the Earth, the Phalanx intend to assimilate mutant powers to further their goals. Beast shudders at the thought of (essentially) one being having every mutant power on Earth. Flash forward a decade later to the New Avengers arc, "The Collective"...
Wolverine's threat to Cyclops after he marries Jean, warning him "If she's not happy, make sure I don't find out." Considering what Cyclops does with Emma Frost, with Jean finding out...
Ho Yay: Wolverine noticeably takes Morph's death harder than anyone else (after being perfectly willing to risk his own life to try and save him), and later makes sure to avenge him. When Morph comes back from the dead Wolverine is quite emotional (for him), and is far more determined than anyone else to bring him back home, even chasing him to South America before reluctantly accepting that he needed time alone. He was also quite happy to have him back in "Courage" and volunteers the two of them for a mission together as soon as one comes up. For his part, Morph "dies" trying to save him and specifically calls out to him when he calls for help in "Reunion". At one point he also, while declaring he'll kill all the X-Men, thinks of killing Wolverine and suddenly snaps back to his "good" personality.
Memetic Sex God: All of the main female characters, and a few of the side female characters also. Plus Gambit and Wolverine.
Narm Charm: The cheesy voice acting often serves as one of the major draws for the show. Storm in particular is celebrated for being an over-the-top Mistress of Pork.
Never Live It Down: Angel/Archangel's appearances entirely revolved around Apocalypse's turning him into a Horseman, and his vengeful streak afterward, apart from the very last example when he abandoned his obsession with revenge just in time for Apocalypse to try to remake time and space into his own image.
What the Dark Phoenix did to Mastermind after she came out of his Brainwashing.
The Shadow King.
That...thing that was imprisoned in a Shi'ar starship that crashed on Earth. It eats souls.
Everything about Bishop's Bad Future. The worst part about it? No matter how many times Bishop (and later Shard) travel to the past and set right what went wrong, ''nothing changes''. Plus, that time era's Forge has Wolverine's bare skeleton suspended in a tube.
A montage was put together of what would happen if Phoenix/Dark Phoenix were allowed to run amok. The results were fire covering the entire Earth. Sleep tight, kiddies.
The effects of the Legacy Virus. It makes circuits appear all over your skin.
The first episode of the Phoenix Saga ends with Jean Grey essentially being burned alive; the scene cuts out on her agonized screaming, and then the screen fills with a particularly scary-looking version of the Phoenix...
Periphery Demographic: Despite running as a Saturday Morning kids show, the material did not shy away from the darker content of the comics and thus continued to appeal to older comics fans as well.
Even Rogue, whose inability to control her powers means that her official costumes tend to cover her completely from the neck down, gets in on this with her civvies, in what's either an intentional effort to keep people at arm's length or just a case of holding the Idiot Ball.
Nowadays, Rogue has had the psychological blocks on her powers removed. She still has a full bodysuit and a cloak, presumably since she's accustomed to it.
More likely, it prevents her from accidentally using her powers on more than one person at once, for example, if she's crammed in a football-style pileup and trying to power-steal/incapacitate only one of them, but might otherwise take out one of her own people.
The Bad Future montage stands out as it depicts something fans aren't used to: the X-Men losing. Bishop narrates events from his perspective of the 1990's forward to his time (2050's), in which Senator Kelly is assassinated, the Mutant Registration Act passes and Sentinels are deployed to "enforce" the Act. Then the Sentinels decide they could take over, and smash into the White House. The scenes of Bishop's future show captured X-Men being herded into concentration-style camps and end with a cemetery of dead X-Men. Probably the most evocative image was the close-up of Jubilee's grave, which is the last to be shown, and reveals that she, the youngest member of the team, would be the first to die...if they don't stop Senator Kelly's assassination in the first place.
Trapped By Mountain Lions: Professor X and Magneto being stranded in the Savage Land during the entire second season. Fortunately, it rarely took up more than a minute or two per episode.
Complete Monster: Stryker. Possibly his son Jason too, assuming Stryker's account of him driving his mother to suicide is accurate. Shaw in First Class is, if anything, worse.
Victor Creed in X-Men Origins also counts, which is very unsurprising given he is the man who would be Sabretooth.
Crowning Music of Awesome: Phoenix Rises, which plays during the bombastic death scene of Charles Xavier and the final showdown with the Phoenix in The Last Stand.
Draco in Leather Pants: Liev Schreiber's Victor Creed has caught the eye of the fangirls.
Fridge Horror: Think all the normal humans turned out fine because Cerebro was turned off before it could kill them all in X2? Then think of what happened to all those people who were piloting aircraft, performing surgery, etc. during that time.
From the above, imagine any mutants who wanted to keep their powers secret but had it blown because of the above event. Most people were likely unaware of what exactly going on, but a good deal will use the basis that some guy got hit first, but was fine while he and the other non-mutants were having issues. Afterward, they may use that as a basis to assume someone as a mutant.
Think of how Raven went from just wanting to be accepted and live a happy life with Charles, to killing without remorse, even nearly killing her first and oldest friend.
And think of how Erik who truly seemed to grow to love Raven in Xmen First Class and who spent decades with her at his side, casually kicked her to the curb in X3 after she was hit with the mutant cure.
On the subject of the cure, it is very likely people will still be ostracized because they were mutants at some point. Imagine someone being seen to get it and get attacked later without being able to protect themselves.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Magneto asks Wolverine "You think it's all about you, don't you?". Who's on the cover of the first four movies?
Back when Magneto and Professor X meet again for the first time in the first movie, Erik says "I can feel you in here" while invoking the Pstandard Psychic Pstance that Charles isn't even known for using... until First Class.
Similarly, Erik playing with a bullet he's pushing into some poor shmuck's head...
Magneto's comment in the same scene that he doesn't think he can stop all of the bullets. Becomes incredibly amusing given how many missiles he managed to catch in First Class, suspend in mid-air, then return back on their original trajectory.
Beast throwing down the mutant cure in disgust in X-3, in regards to his experience with another serum in First Class. And the odd pairing of Azazel and Riptide as Co-Dragons, considering the Ship Tease between the similarly-powered Nightcrawler and Storm in X-2.
Similarly, as Marsden's later roles tend to be more comedic and, at times, Crazy Awesome, its quite amusing to find him in later roles and know that he got started playing The Stoic Cyclops. Of course, his take on Cyclops does have more of a sense of humor then most versions.
Jerkass Woobie: Magneto and Mystique, given their backstories.
Moral Event Horizon: Stryker's plan to wipe out all mutants on the planet qualifies. For that matter, Magneto crosses the line when he is trusted with stopping this by the X-Men and does....by reversing it to wipe out all humans on the planet, leaving his old friend Xavier to die in the process.
In First Class, Shaw killing Erik's mother to get him to unlock his mutant potential. It really colors his efforts to put mutants in charge in a very different light when you consider that he is willing to torment other mutants in order to achieve that end. He is also willing to kill mutants who stand in his way, despite saying that he won't harm his own kind.
Which translates to Fridge Brilliance in hindsight in the first X-Men film when Erik/Magneto uses the exact same methods by sacrificing Rogue for the greater good of all mutants.
In the first film, Mystique sabotaged Cerebro to put Xavier into a coma, possibly with the intent of killing him. If X-Men: First Class is part of the same continuity, this means Mystique tried to kill a man whom she grew up with and loved as a brother and did not part with on hateful terms - and she did it all just to further an agenda.
The entire exchange between Mystique and the prison truck guard in X3 is tooth-grindingly Narmy.
Guard: Oh, Mr. President...shut up! Mystique (disguised as a creepy child): Why are you doing this?! Let me down! I'll be a good girl! Please! Guard: Keep it up and I'll spray you in the face, bitch.
Unfortunate Implications: Despite being a very racially diverse team in the comics, the only non-whites in the X-Men are Storm (a native African played byHalle Berry), Darwin (who dies...apparently), and Angel Salvadore ( who pulls a Face Heel Turn). Also on the good side the Irish Banshee and Scottish Moria Mc Taggart get turned into Americans for First Class. Meanwhile, the evil mutants and human villains are very diverse. Almost every Asian on screen is a villain, even Kid Omega, Agent Zero, and Psylocke (the former two being white in the comics, the latter being a heroine in the comics). The only exception is Jubilee, who has nothing more than a cameo.
It's worst with First Class, where the two minority characters on the team go away (one by Bridge Drop, one by going dark side) just before the team starts its real mission.
The greater diversity of the Brotherhood at the end of First Class can be interpreted as showing that people who have actually experienced oppression are less idealistic/naive about the chances of peace. There's also a significantly greater proportion of people with visible mutations in the Brotherhood than in the X-Men.
Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, but only to those who grew up on the comics and animated series. He's famous for being a 5'2" Pint-Sized Powerhouse, while Jackman is about 6'2". He made up for it by totally owning the role.
YMMVs for the 1992 X-Men arcade game:
Ham and Cheese: While the dialog is cheesy, the actors seem to be hamming it up, especially since the remake required all voices to be re-recorded, so the new actors had to be made aware of what they were doing and be told that the cheesy dialog was kept on purpose.
I Liked It Better When It Sucked: It was announced that the dialog would be re-recorded and the cheesy lines would be removed and replaced with more natural dialog. As it was, the dialog had to be re-recorded anyway due to legal issues with the original voices, but upon hearing the fans' complaints, the company making the port decided to keep all the cheese on purpose so the game would avert this.
Memetic Mutation: In addition to "Welcome to DIE!" and the myriad other dialogue voices by our favorite "Master of Magnet", there's Colossus's shouting when using his Mutant Power (usually transcribed along the lines of "OoooooooOAAAAARGH!"). The latter is a favorite in the video game convention MAGFest, to the point that shouting it at nearly any time will usually be answered with others answering OoooooooOAAAAARGH! themselves.
So Bad, It's Good: The cutscenes and dialog, and possibly the simple gameplay. According to IGN's video review: "Sometimes something is so terrible that it's fantastic, and that's more or less the case here."
YMMVs for the X-Men anime series:
Ho Yay: Between Cyclops and Wolverine. You'd have to be blind not to at least once think 'will they just get a room already?'
Moral Event Horizon: When the U-Men try targeting kids just to improve their power, you know they've gone too far.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While the entire thing being better than the last X-Men show overall would be a bold claim, the handling of Cyclops in comparison has unarguably been greatly improved. Both have Cyclops at roughly the same stage in his life: He lost Jean and is still grieving. But, in WATXM, Cyclops was largely just a moody loner who didn't deal with it properly. Here, however, he starts with minor Death Seeker tendencies, but evolves to the point where he overcomes his despair. Largely, people proffer the way he's written her compared to the previous show (and compared to the films).
