From Gene Mutation To Hollywood

Marvel has always been one of the most popular American comic book franchises but more than that the publics renewed interest in professor Xavier’s pupils is something to talk about. The success of the X-Men cinematic trilogy directed by Brian Singer and Matthew Vaughn, as well as Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie starring Hugh Jackman have not only helped revitalise the franchise but create a new type of fanbase. In light of this we thought we’d take a look back at the roots of the X-Men and where it all began.

Marvel History 101

Now summing up the complete history of Marvel’s mutants is obviously near impossible. There have been so many titles, so many issues, so many plot twists and continuity reboots and ups and downs and whatever, even Marvel’s own X-writers have sometimes been unable to keep track of them, which has been the reason for some of the continuity flaws over the publication history of the X titles. So let’s take some air and work our way through some of the key titles and mutants that have brought marvel so much success.

Citizen X

The year was 1963; future Comics legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had been working together in the Fantastic 4 characters for a couple of years. It was a time of lonesome heroes and recurring sidekicks, and Marvel’s mailbox was getting filled up with more and more letters from readers who demanded the creation of a new superhero team, in the midst of so many lonely characters.

Stan Lee was, of course, no stranger to superhero creation, even at that time; he had already fathered many of today’s most popular characters in the comic book world, and had recently created Spiderman (1962). Lee’s creations had a somehow common background when it came to their powers: “I couldn’t get everyone bitten by a radioactive spider” he’s been quoted, thus the idea of having superpowers naturally manifesting through genetic mutation; the “Homo Superior” was born, and with it, Charles Xavier’s “School for Gifted Youngsters”.

Conceptual art was by Lee and Kirby themselves, along with Paul Reinman in charge of the inking. A title was all that was missing for the new group to start. “The Mutants” was originally proposed, but the creators thought it just wasn’t attractive and original enough. Besides, Stan lee himself thought readers wouldn’t know what a “mutant” was supposed to be according to the Marvel version of it, and wouldn’t bother buying a magazine to find that out, and so, the far more appealing, yet quite simplistic “X-Men” title was conceived.

Many people believe the “X” as a tribute to Xavier surname’s first letter, but it’s actually because of the “X-gene” which mutants have, causing them to develop their powers and abilities.

X Marks The Spot

The first issue of the X-Men title would set the grounds for understanding what mutant powers were all about, in the heart of the recently formed Marvel universe, with its all new heroes and antiheroes. The main players make their entrance while showing off their powers, as Professor X mentally calls for his team, which is comprised of The Beast a.k.a. Henry McCoy; Angel a.k.a. Warren Worthington III; Iceman a.k.a. Bobby Drake; and Cyclops a.k.a. Scott Summers.

The mutants are called for a session at the “Danger Room”, the X-Mansion’s training grounds, after which the last member of the team will make her entrance, Marvel Girl a.k.a. Jean Grey.
Right from the beginning, Grey’s inclusion in the group would make for an uneasy love triangle (is there any other kind?) between her, Cyclops and Angel, in which the rather shy Summers would not be too much of a match for Worthington’s high society ways. This, of course, would change in time.

Now that the good guys have come together, it’s time for the baddy ones to do exactly the same. Enter a guy by the name of Magneto a.k.a. Erik Magnus Lehnsherr (born Max Eisenhardt), whom has a grip on things, really… or at least, on everything metallic, that is. Magneto makes his appearance at a military base with an attitude and an obscure purpose, but soon gets fairly foiled by the X-team. From now on, the X-Patrol would gain public attention… and a lifetime fiend.

Just as there was a good team, there had to be a bad one; 1964 saw the creation of Magneto’s “Brotherhood of Mutants”, which presented as with a whole gallery of evildoers: Quicksilver a.k.a. Pietro Maximoff; Scarlet Witch a.k.a. Wanda Maximoff; The Toad a.k.a. Mortimer Toynbee; and Mastermind a.k.a. Jason Wyngarde.

Fight after fight these villains would battle the mutants for everything they’re worth, while several other already well known Marvel characters including Namor and the Avengers had their cameos as well.

X-Men By The Numbers: Market Value Comic Issues

• Issue 1: An obvious one, but anyways.
• Issue 7: Issue number seven shows the groups graduation, which makes it an oddball.
• Issue 10: By the title’s tenth issue, we discover the “Savage Land” which, guarded by its sentinel Ka-Zar, will later become a recurrent scenario for many X adventures.
• Issue 11: The eleventh issue present us with the Stranger, a mutant-seeker and recurring character (or, better said “character concept”) who tries to kidnap Magneto and the Toad. Also, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch abandon his former master, and the Brotherhood gets disbanded.
• Issue 12: Enter Professor X’s evil half-brother, the unstoppable Juggernaut!
• Issue 14: One of the most recurring menaces in the X-mythos gets featured in this issue: enter The Sentinels!
• Issues 41 - 42: Professor X gets “killed” by the first time, killed by a mob of under dwellers. After this, the X-Patrol disintegrates, according to it mentor’s wishes.
• Issues 49 - 52: The group reunites again, when Xavier’s mutant location computer Cerebro alerts of a great concentration of mutants going on.
• Issues 66: Year: 1969. After a while with poor sales, the title gets cancelled.

Second Genesis and Beyond

We’re now in 1972; Marvel Comics’ new Editor in Chief, Al Landau attends a meting with writers Stan Lee and Roy Thomas in order to set up the creation of a new multi-ethnic superhero team whose members would all come from different countries.

It was Thomas who came up with the notion of reassessing and relaunching the X-Men title, which had been on hiatus for a while. Thomas’ proposal is accepted, and the task of preparing the new characters’ designs falls in the hands of Dave Cockrum, while Mike Friedrich’s script gets brought to pencil by Len Wein. John Byrne also jumps onboard at a time, a period many fans regard as one of the finest.

Three years after, by 1975, Marvel’s group of mutants gets rebirth, as the first number of the Giant-Size X-Men magazine hit the stores. Many (if not most) fans acknowledge this as the most popular X-line-up ever: the team was comprised of Canadian native Wolverine a.k.a. James Howlett / Logan; Russian powerhouse Colossus a.k.a. Piotr Rasputin; African heroine Storm a.k.a. Ororo Munroe; Ireland man Banshee a.k.a. Sean Cassidy; Native American Apache Thunderbird a.k.a. John Proudstar; Japanese flaming hero Sunfire a.k.a. Shiro Yoshida; and West Germany original Nigthcrawler a.k.a. Kurt Wagner.

So, the original team decides to break out for good, live a normal life (as normal as being a mutant would allow for it to be) and it is only Cyclops who stays. The new group receives a call from The Beast (whom had been working with the Avengers) to stop Count Nefaria. The team goes on with the mission, but it’ll cost them the life of Thunderbird.

After leaving the group, the Iceman and Angel start at the Los Angeles University where, along with the Ghost Rider a.k.a. Johnny Blaze, the Black Widow a.k.a. Natasha Romanoff, and Hercules they’d form a group called “The Champions”; a somehow failed discontinuous series, which would last for only 17 issues.

The seventies saw the X-Men’s popularity become increasingly bigger and wider. Some would later argue about X-man Wolverine’s implication in this success. The character would pretty soon show a tendency to become sort of a separatist; a stand alone hero, nevertheless he was always under the “coil” of his teammate’s banner.

X-Men In The 80’s

The Crazy Decade was a time of violence, gloom, synthesizers and hair. Also, a time of change and growth, and musical debauchery. Except for British music, that is, which remained cool and all. For the X-Men, it was also the decade of spinoff titles: the growing popularity of the original books –and the fact that there were just too many mutants to keep track of in just a couple of titles, led to the creation of the so called “X-Books”, which included Alpha Flight; X Factor; The New Mutants; Excalibur; and yes, the anticipated Wolverine stand-alone title. 1983 also saw the departures of both David Cockrum and John Byrne, and the debut of new talents such as Paul Smith and John Romita Jr.

1986 was a year for intercourse… well, sort of. This was a period of unexpected alliances and surprising plot-twists. Also, the series’ first issues get re-edited under the title “Classic X-Men”, with short backup stories added which had a deeper take on the mutants’ personalities.
Then, for a little while, a sort of peace was achieved when Magneto -though briefly- joined the X-Men as head of the New Mutants. Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister and Madeline Pryor also made their first appearances as iconic 80’s villains.

X Stars

The nineties started as a less dramatic year if compared with everything that had been going on in the X-titles through the 80’s. In the first years of the decade, Marvel aimed at reassessing all its X-books and team line-ups.

Professor Xavier had been away for a while, and it was time for him to make a comeback.
The original X-Men team went for a return as well, which ended up splitting things by half: there was the Blue Team, which was under the leadership of Cyclops, and was featured in the X-Men title; and there was the Gold Team, under the leadership of Storm, featured in the pages of Uncanny X-Men.

New title X-Force was created out of the original New Mutants title. Artists from this period included Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, veteran Chris Claremont, Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lobdell.
Somewhere at the starting of the nineties (1992 to be exact)a sort of an exodus happen when many Marvel artists went away with the intention of uniting and creating a new publisher house, which ended up being none other than Image Comics.

All The Way To Hollywood

The X-men’s road to Hollywood hasn’t been an easy one. Decades of planning, setbacks and frustration had to be endured for hardcore fans to finally meet their favorite mutants on the big screen.

First came the two Brian Singer movies “X-Men” and “X-Men 2”, which were a great success at the box-office, and were followed by “X-Men •, The Last Stand” this last one of the trilogy directed by Matthew Vaughn, since Singer broke up from the franchise in order to revamp the Man Of Steel’s cinematic persona in “Superman Returns”.

All in all, the X-Men have become quite a cinematic franchise, the latest being the Wolverine origins movie - directed by Gavin Hood and starring Hugh Jackman. If you haven’t seen it, check it out in a theater near you right now.