This thread's for all of the X-Men comics and spin-offs (X-Force, X-Factor, New Mutants etc.), whether they're decades old or brand new.
- Apart from the main Marvel Universe titles, Ultimate X-Men, X-Men 2099, X-Men "What If?" stories, crossovers, guest appearances in other books, Alternate Universe tales and things like Marvel's manga adaptations are all on-topic here.
- X-Men 'family' books are on-topic (as are their own crossovers, guest appearances etc.) - e.g. Wolverine, Deadpool, Ms. Marvel and Cable.
- Characters and comics that originated in X-Men and its related books but are no longer connected to the franchise are not on-topic, unless you're discussing historical connections and crossovers. If in doubt, check before you write a long post. If this isn't the right place, there's a more general Marvel Comics thread
which covers them.
Technically, Marvel's Infinity Comics (and their predecessors, Infinite Comics) are webcomics, not comic books, but it's fine to talk about their X-Men related stories here.
Discussions that are only about X-Men adaptations in other media (films, video games etc.) are off-topic, but discussing the differences between the adaptations and the original comics is fine - as long as spoilers for the adaptations are tagged.
Please follow the spoiler policy rules
- tag spoilers for the latest issues, for any previews or content leaks, and for off-topic comics. When including spoiler tags, try to write so that tropers can make an informed decision before viewing them (e.g. which series and issue will they spoil?).
I have to say that the X Men franchise has been going on for decades. Maybe not as many as the Superman franchise has, but it still has quite a number to it.
One thing I am certain of is that the franchise seems to be subverting Status Quo Is God in recent years. Magneto and Professor Xavier seem to be fading into the background, with Cyclops and Wolverine taking their places. A lot of villains associated to the X-Men have been killed off and have actually stayed dead so far.
All this gives me the general impression that the franchise is trying to reinvent itself. Do you think that's what's going on here?
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 29th 2023 at 10:02:23 AM
Professional Complainer
Maybe an odd statement but I wonder if we even need the Mutants anymore. There was a time where they served as a metaphorical representation and nowadays we can have actual characters from the groups they represents.
I would argue mutants still serve a powerful and important role as stand-ins for marginalized people. But they need to have characters who actually belong to the groups they're standing in for, too.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
Professional Complainer
I guess what I'm asking is, do we need a story to stand in for homophobia and Have You Tried Not Being A Mutant when you can just have gay characters who deal with those things?
The Head of the Hydra
As Stan Lee said (I think it was him) Mutants provide an easy way for people to gain powers without having to think of a specific origin.
Besides super-powered species with their own society & culture & shit are always cool..... or they would be if Marvel wasn't constantly taking all the fun out of being a Mutant.
Edited by slimcoder on May 3rd 2019 at 10:22:41 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Mutants work as a catch-all. Plus, it does allow hateful language to be used without showing actual real slurs. "Mutie" is a lot more acceptable than a transphobic slur.
The Head of the Hydra
Plus it could still be used to look at prejudice in different interesting ways.
We can have like specific groups of Mutants discriminating against each other like Mutants without major physical changes looking down on Mutants who have major physical changes like pink skin or horns or just being an animal person.
Edited by slimcoder on May 3rd 2019 at 11:02:29 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
You Give Me Fever
Mutants discriminating against each other has been done before. We've had mutants who don't look very human being "racist" against those who do look human. We've had human looking mutants against "ugly" mutants. What we haven't had is the writing talent to make it particularly memorable or interesting.
We've had "mutant music"
MLM of color
Charles Soule's Inhumans run had a decent split of crazy adventures mixed with a political slant and I just feel if any series needed that, it's the X-Men. I don't know if they should get too deep with it, this article points out that having Rahne murdered in a way that can invoke trans panic rings hollow when there are so far no prominent trans characters being written right now in Marvel.
At this point, I would like to see the metaphor still there but never getting to the extinction level events we've been dealing with for the past few years. I would like more of the soap opera/character dynamics that were present earlier.
Yeah, if you have to do a bigotry story involving mutants, don't just retread the allegory angle - do something like having more "beautiful people" type mutants getting together and deciding "you know, fuck those Morlocks! They're hideous! They don't deserve to be called Mutants! We're the next stage of evolution!"
And the X-Men can come in and basically say these guys are doing the work of anti-mutant bigots, and by closing off their community to those who fit the best look, they're closing out a lot of good people.
For extra points; have the beautiful people mutants unbeknownst to them be taking orders from Cameron Hodge - because its useful to him to have mutants on the ground going after one another. Then he can portray mutants as fractious and not deserving of their rights.
Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.
Sina Grace's second Iceman mini-series was really good on that front — basically, Mister Sinister wanted to cull the Morlocks again because nobody cared about them and he could use them for experiments. Iceman and Bishop ended up being the only X-Men assigned by Kitty Pryde to investigate and they ended up stopping a wholesale slaughter.
It was also the only book where I actually saw a Mutant Pride Parade where humans celebrated alongside mutants and there was a mutant drag queen.
In conclusion: we need more books by Sina Grace. And other writers who are, you know, actually LGBT+. (I would love it if Jay Ediden of "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" got to write a book about Cyclops. He's already writing a short story involving Thor, I believe, so it could be a short leap from there to the X-Men.)
The X-Men comics are suppose to be selling really well as far as comics are concerned yet there are still problems of racism and homophobia in comic culture.
Maybe the mutant as a minority metaphor is just ineffective and shit.
The only other possible explanation is that people take it literally. So the woman who has the touch of death and the guy who shoots lasers from his eyes will be viewed as less dangerous than a Muslim.
Edited by NoName999 on May 8th 2019 at 12:06:49 PM
Takat Empress
Perhaps people are tired of the retreads of characters. Why can't they do a new setting and cast if characters? It would at least shake things up
Mileena Madness
The Ultimate Universe basically.
Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.
The Head of the Hydra
The one where Nightcrawler was a homophic stalking twat among other things?
Edited by slimcoder on May 8th 2019 at 3:57:03 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
The wonderful, wonderful Ultimate universe.
Where Cap is an ass, where everyone's kinda dumb, where Reed became Doom, where Silver Surfer was an alien cult leader.
Thou art wrought of idiocy and assholery, Ultimate Universe!
Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Eh.
The idea of the Ultimate Universe is sound.
It just needed to be less...well what it was.
One Strip! One Strip!
Takat Empress
I remember the X-Men Ultimates...and Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver getting close...and Magneto flooding the planet...
>_>
Mileena Madness
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch got way too close, if you know what I mean.
See, that shit is exactly what it needed less of.
I blame....well, I don't blame myself, that's for sure.
One Strip! One Strip!
The Ultimate Universe wasn't suppose to be the Douchebag Universe, bad writing just decided "new and more real" = "douchebag and grimdark". Maybe there's hope for Earth-6161
Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on May 9th 2019 at 6:01:11 AM
There was a focus group some time ago, to study the fans' expectations over the X-Men
- Ok, how many of you want the X-Men to stay in their 1970s characterizations, and keep dropping references to the Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past and all those adventures older than you?
- (the fandom rejoices)
- And how many of you would like just the opposite: a complete reimagination of the characters from scratch in another universe, turning them into millenials, fleshing out their origin stories and linking all of them toguether?
- (more rejoicing)
- As for their adventures, how many of you want to keep mutations as a metaphor of racism, and have the X-Men face situations like those faced by social minorities?
- (more rejoicing)
- And how many of you would want just the opposite: drop them in the middle of an all-out war between the Brood and the Shi'Ar for the control of the Phoenix Force?
- (more rejoicing)
- So, in short, you want a modern and millenial series with a 1970s feel, with realistic and down-to-earth stories about weird aliens and cosmic spirits?
- That would be awesome!
The man sighs. The light is turned on in the observation booth, and Joe Quesada appears at the mirror.
- You kids don't even know what you want! That's why I wrote One More Day and it is still canon! Just tell us what's wrong with the freakin' X-Men comics!
Edited by GrigorII on May 11th 2019 at 6:01:27 AM
Ultimate Secret Wars
Surrounded by weirdoes
Less random killing and hopelessness, for one.
Wake me up at your own risk. I don't see why that's so hard.
We might be getting an Emma Frost series. (Or one in which Emma Frost is a lead character.) If Leah Williams is writing it than hell yeah.
Edited by alliterator on May 13th 2019 at 12:51:29 PM
I feel like there's quite a few mutant powers that would suit a trans or genderfluid person well, really.
The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."