X is for X-Men

I know a lot about the X-Men.

I've read a few comics. They weren't that easy to get a hold of, and once I had money, I wasn't that interested. There was too much going on in those storylines, and my comic attention was pretty much burnt out between my old Sonic comics and the manga I started buying.

However, I entered into X-Men every other way I could. When I got my Sega Genesis for Christmas one year, X-Men was one of the games that came with it. There was Gambit, who used a really cool staff and shot flaming cards at the enemy. I knew that he was Cajun, which was cool. ("Cajun" to me meant he talked funny, but not quite Southern-funny.) Then there was Wolverine, who was short and couldn't jump well but made up for it with adamantine claws. Then there was Nightcrawler, some random tail-panther blue guy who could teleport in a pink blur, though the teleportation was really difficult to control and used up tons of power. Finally, there was Cyclops. He was my favorite, because he could jump high, was blue, and shot lasers out of his eyes. They also had support characters (Rogue, Storm, etc.) as power ups, which would come in and attack Juggernaut and those difficult boss characters; they were really useful. I could never beat the game without cheating, but I loved it nonetheless.

Then there was the cartoon TV series that showed on Saturday mornings and sometimes on weekday afternoons. I didn't get to always see it, but I could follow the storylines pretty well. There were sometimes crossovers with Spiderman, which I liked just as much.

When I went to a flea market in 1994 or 1995, I saw a card dealer. He had a bunch of X-Men collectible cards. I bought them and got to know the histories of Magneto, Professor X, and others.

And then, in fourth grade, I ran across some young adult X-Men novels and devoured them. They were pretty decent at the time, even though in the cover artwork Cyclops's flaccid rear end made it look like he had diarrhea.

From this early spattering of influences, they grew on me. I thought I knew all about them. They were a hero ensemble, not singular like Superman, Batman, or Spiderman (and I liked them all). There's just something about mutants with superpowers that is... cool. Their powers were awe-inspiring, ranging between telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, pyrotechnics, super strength, controlling the weather, being able to absorb other people's powers, and shooting laser beams (out the eyes!). They're outcasts, sometimes socially dysfunctional, but they band together anyway, using a combination of science and their powers to help save the day from evil mutants. And even the evil mutants were sometimes not evil by choice, like Magneto, a survivor of the Jewish holocaust, had seen too many horrors to not be affected by them. It was deep and shiny at the same time. It might be one reason why I now like epic poetry so much.

In the ensuing years, I would see the movies (though not always when they first came out). I would be disappointed when they made Cyclops out to be more prickish rather than the confident leader that he was in my mind. I would read the Wikipedia articles on the X-Men in detail. Jean Grey would confirm herself as my favorite character, but so would Professor X and Magneto. I don't feign to know so much about it anymore, but I love it anyhow.