X-Men

X-Men is a superhero franchise created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, first appearing in The X-Men issue 1 in September 1963. The franchise follows a group of mutants, humans born with a genetic trait called the X-gene that grants them extraordinary abilities, who are persecuted by a society that fears what it does not understand. Professor Charles Xavier, a powerful telepath, runs a school for mutant children and leads a team dedicated to peaceful coexistence between mutants and humanity. His former friend Erik Lehnsherr, known as Magneto, believes that mutants and humans cannot coexist and that mutants must dominate or be destroyed. That ideological conflict between Xavier’s hope and Magneto’s pragmatism has driven the X-Men’s best stories for over sixty years. The franchise has grossed over $6 billion in film revenue alone and is one of Marvel’s most significant and culturally resonant properties, long used as a metaphor for the civil rights movement, discrimination against LGBTQ communities, and the broader human experience of being considered other.

X-Men in Comics

The Silver Age and Early Years (1963 to 1970)

The original X-Men team consisted of five teenage students at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters: Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman, and Angel. The early issues introduced Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Sentinels, and the fundamental themes of prejudice and acceptance that would define the franchise. The series struggled commercially against Marvel’s other titles and was cancelled in 1970 due to low sales. The original run has since been recognized as foundational even if it was not a commercial success at the time.

The Chris Claremont Era (1975 to 1991)

The franchise was revived in 1975 with Giant-Size X-Men issue 1, introducing a new international team including Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird. Chris Claremont took over writing duties and produced what became the longest and most defining run in the franchise’s history, spanning sixteen years. Claremont introduced Rogue, Gambit, Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Mystique, and Mister Sinister. He wrote the Dark Phoenix Saga, the death and transformation of Jean Grey into an omnipotent being who destroys a star and must be stopped, which remains one of the most significant storylines in superhero comics. Days of Future Past, a story in which Kitty Pryde’s consciousness travels back in time from a dystopian future to prevent a political assassination, introduced the time travel concept the franchise has returned to repeatedly. The Claremont era made X-Men Marvel’s best-selling title and transformed it from a cancelled book into a cultural phenomenon.

The 1990s and Beyond

The 1990s saw X-Men split into multiple titles with enormous sales. The relaunched X-Men issue 1 in 1991 by Jim Lee sold over 8 million copies, the best-selling single comic issue in history. The decade also produced the Clone Saga equivalent in the form of the Age of Apocalypse crossover and the controversial Onslaught event. Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run in the early 2000s modernized the franchise significantly. Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men is considered one of the best runs of the 2000s. Jonathan Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X in 2019 reimagined the entire mutant line, establishing the mutant nation of Krakoa as a sovereign state. The Krakoa era concluded in 2024 with its destruction, leading into the From the Ashes era with new creative teams and directions.

X-Men on Television

X-Men: The Animated Series (1992 to 1997)

The Fox Kids animated series is where most people who grew up in the 1990s first encountered the X-Men. It ran for five seasons and adapted many of the most significant comic storylines including the Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, and the Phalanx Covenant. The theme song is one of the most recognized in cartoon history. The voice cast, including Norm Spencer as Cyclops, Cathal J. Dodd as Wolverine, and Lenore Zann as Rogue, became so associated with the characters that many fans still hear their voices when reading the comics.

X-Men: Evolution (2000 to 2003)

A reimagining of the X-Men as actual high school students navigating both teenage life and mutant powers. Took significant liberties with the source material but developed its own fan base and is well regarded for its character work, particularly with Rogue and Mystique.

X-Men ’97 (2024)

A revival of the 1992 animated series continuing directly from where it left off, produced for Disney Plus. One of the most critically acclaimed animated series of the year, praised for honoring the original while telling genuinely ambitious new stories. The first season’s mid-point episode, featuring the Genosha massacre, generated widespread discussion for its emotional weight and willingness to go to dark places in a cartoon format. The series proved that the 1992 show’s legacy was genuine and not just nostalgia.

X-Men in Film: The Fox Era

The Original Trilogy (2000 to 2006)

Bryan Singer’s X-Men in 2000 was the film that proved superhero ensemble movies could work, paving the way for everything that followed including the MCU. Patrick Stewart as Professor X and Ian McKellen as Magneto were perfectly cast. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was a star-making performance that would define his career for twenty-five years. X2 in 2003 is widely considered the best film in the Fox era, expanding the world and deepening every character. X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006, directed by Brett Ratner after Singer left for Superman Returns, adapted the Dark Phoenix Saga poorly and killed off major characters in ways that felt unearned. The film was commercially successful but critically mixed.

The Wolverine Solo Films

X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009 is considered one of the worst films in the franchise, most notoriously for the treatment of Deadpool, who had his mouth sewn shut and was given unrelated powers in a decision that Ryan Reynolds has described as a crime against the character. The Wolverine in 2013, directed by James Mangold and set in Japan, was significantly better, stripped down and character-focused. Logan in 2017, also directed by Mangold, is widely considered one of the best superhero films ever made, a Western-influenced story of an aging, dying Wolverine protecting a young mutant girl. It was the first superhero film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Prequel Films (2011 to 2019)

X-Men: First Class in 2011, directed by Matthew Vaughn, recast the team with younger actors set in the 1960s and was a genuine return to form. James McAvoy as Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr were excellent. X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014, directed by Singer, combined the original and prequel casts through time travel and reset the franchise’s continuity in the process. It is considered the best film of the prequel era. X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016 and Dark Phoenix in 2019 both underperformed critically. The New Mutants in 2020 was a horror-inflected spinoff with a troubled production history that sat on the shelf for years before release.

Deadpool (2016) and the R-Rated Spinoffs

Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool in 2016 was a film that almost did not happen, greenlit partly because leaked test footage went viral online. It became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time at that point, grossing over $780 million worldwide. Deadpool 2 in 2018 introduced Cable. Deadpool and Wolverine in 2024, released under the Disney and MCU banner after the Fox acquisition, brought both characters into the MCU and grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time.

X-Men in the MCU

Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019 returned the X-Men rights to Marvel Studios. Several Fox-era X-Men characters including Deadpool, Wolverine, and multiple others appeared in Avengers: Doomsday in 2026 as part of the multiverse-spanning storyline. A proper MCU X-Men film is in development. The integration of mutants into the MCU has been one of the most anticipated developments in superhero cinema for years.

X-Men in Video Games

The X-Men have appeared in games since the early 1980s. The X-Men arcade game by Konami in 1992 is one of the best beat-em-up arcade games ever made, supporting up to six players simultaneously. X-Men Legends in 2004 and its sequel Rise of Apocalypse in 2005 were well-regarded action RPGs. Marvel vs. Capcom and its sequels have featured multiple X-Men characters as fan favorites.  Wolverine has been a playable character in dozens of games across every format, with an Insomniac-developed Wolverine game releasing soon for Playstation 5.

Key Characters

The X-Men roster has expanded to hundreds of characters across sixty years. The most significant include Wolverine, whose accelerated healing, adamantium skeleton, and retractable claws have made him the franchise’s breakout character. Storm, one of Marvel’s most powerful mutants, controlling weather. Cyclops, the field leader whose optic blasts are always firing and can only be contained by his visor. Jean Grey and her connection to the Phoenix Force. Rogue, who absorbs the powers and memories of anyone she touches. Gambit, the Cajun thief with explosive cards. Mystique, the shapeshifting villain and moral ambiguist. And Magneto, whose complexity as a Holocaust survivor turned terrorist turned sometimes-ally makes him one of the most compelling antagonists in any medium.