X-Men
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| Name: | X-Men |
| Abbreviation(s): | XM |
| Creator: | Stan Lee and Jack Kirby |
| Date(s): | September 1963 - Present |
| Medium: | Comic books |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | Marvel Directory Wikipedia Official Marvel Wiki Uncanny X-Men.Net (fan-built site for reference and news) |
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Subpages for X-Men: Click here for other articles related to this fandom on Fanlore. | |
This article is about the comics and their fandoms. For the movieverse and its fandom, see X-Men Movieverse
Contents |
Introduction
The X Men are the heroes in a Marvel Comics franchise of the same name.
This is the strapline that almost inevitably accompanies the opening credits and issue title as sure as "Stan Lee Presents..." and the names of the artists, writers and editors responsible. It is the most straightforward explanation of what the X-Men ethos and the world in which they exist.
Creatively, Stan Lee initially found "mutation" a solution to the problems of providing heroes with individual origin stories.
It also gave rise to the "cast of thousands" that populates the multiplicity of books generated by the franchise. The glossary at the fansite, Uncanny X-Men.net is currently at close to two thousand mutants. Unlike radioactive-spiders, genetic mutation isn't going to stop at one person or one space capsule; mutation is a common event - in short, every person on this planet is a mutant of some sort - only here mutation doesn't stop at blue eyes or longer necks.
Creative teams and fans will struggle to exhaust the possible ramifications. This is world where your fourteenth birthday party ends when you turn purple [1].
The X-Men comics are concerned with difference. It is a recurring theme in both fanon and canon.
Synopsis
Wide Range of Canon
Core Comics
This covers a wide range of comics, it's not unusual to see up to ten X Men related series running in any given week. The core titles are Uncanny X-Men and X-Men (second series) otherwise known as "adjectiveless X-Men". The more recent addition of Astonishing X-Men is close to assuming central position as a creator-led book run by such top notch talent as Joss Whedon with John Cassaday and Warren Ellis with Simone Bianchi and going in new and exciting directions.
Other Comics
Further comics abound, including everything from character-centric adventures to noir detective and conspiracy. There are also several other team books running at any one time taking advantage of the rich canon universe and cast of thousands (or pretty damn close, see below). Characters move, fall in love, develop new alliegences and go to seminary. There are few continents untouched by the various X-Men. Antartica is a non-starter, as it is home to The Savage Lands inhabited variously by strange mutant animals, Kazaar (a Tarzan analogue to put it very crudely), and Magneto. At various points, the Uncanny X-Men based themselves in Australia, Atlantis, New York, Scotland and Outer Space.
Some series have ambigious titles which obscure their "parentage" as related comics, although an X in any title is a mostly reliable indication.
Mutiplicy of Comics
Sometimes, when a run of a title finishes, there will be a switch to a newer title. For example the kids at Xavier's College for Gifted Students followed in the original New Mutants mostly graduate into the semi-independent X-Force. Adding to this confusion, retired titles are being increasingly resurrected, but not always with the same characters, storyline or plot. An example is New X-Men - formerly a change in name for the adjectiveless X Men - being moved to a new comic that covered the students at Xavier's in a mode not unlike the original New Mutants. Furthermore, the title eventually reverted to New Mutants with some of the original characters returning as educators.
If we start to consider appearances and cross-overs into other Marvel titles, the canon grows to almost stagering proportions. Some of the X Men have variously been seen in the Avengers (the Marvel Comic not the 1960s television show), the Defenders and Heroes for Hire. When we add the plethora of additional material, two highly successful animated series, three movies with semi-independent canon, one-shots, graphic novels, and tie-in novels; it is easy to see how intimidating the fandom seems to newbies and potential fans alike.
Canon as Intimidating Fandom?
Comic fandoms can be scary. The X-Men especially so, with a large canon that is fertile ground for fanfiction writers and fanartists. As a Marvel comic there is a strong bent towards personal stories and character interaction. The limited run Muties series demonstrated the potential of the form as five creative teams built individual comics about life with the wrong set of genes. However, for a long time there has been a fannish body of work collectively known as The Common People exploring and stretching the potential of the canon and its impact on individuals.
There are several reassurances to newcomers with a fear of being buried in comics:
- Very few people can tell you the entire history of any given character or summarise every single book. Even fewer of them write fanfiction.
- Most X Men fanfiction revolves around the "core" comics, the main cast and fan favourites. Furthermore, a great deal of the fanfiction is character-based as opposed to storyline- based.
- If you've seen the 90s animated series, you are already quite knowledgable, the stories closely matched canon and even tackled complex stories such as the comic-classic Days of Future Past.
- There are several information sites, most noticably Uncanny X-Men dot Net, which covers almost everything you could ask about, from key events to naming that mutant.
(Where to cover fandom?)
Creators
Find Quote: Stan Lee on how he discovered mutation as a catch-all reason for superpowers, after he had already used "gamma rays" The Incredible Hulk, insects (most notably Spiderman) and "cosmic rays" (The Fantasic Four) and felt that genetic mutation would give him a world of easily explaned superpowers.
The proto-X-Men story in Amazing Fantasy (or another title) showing a young mutant communicating with a psychic avatar of an early Professor Charles Xavier.
How the title flopped, revived and went into re-runs.
1970s Reboot
The World of the X Men
Cast of Thousands
This is not hyperbole. The character glossary at Uncanny X-Men dot Net lists 1995 at the time of writing. http://www.uncannyxmen.net/glossary/
Their Adverseries
The League of Evil Mutants
Fuzzy Moral Boundaries
What actually makes the difference? How are the acts of X Men different? Even Magneto veers around the spectrum.
Sentinels, Bolivar Task, and Bastion
Genosha
The Hellfire Club
Timetravel
In an universe where incredible technology has moved far beyond our own,mutant abilities such as teleportation and astral travel, brilliant scientists can change the world, and there is communication between other spacefaring races, it makes sense that travel between times is possible. Thus far, it remains hard to achieve and the results unpredictable.
Ever since Days of Future Past broke the mold, the X Men universe has developed an obsession not only in what the team does in the modern day, but their future success and the memory they leave. Given the sometimes gritty mileau of the comics, it is rarely good news.
Days of Future Past
As sbove, it is hard to state how far Days of Future Past changed the tone of the comics. It was an unexpected move from the creators, Chris Claremont and John Bryne, and took the readership unaware.
In itself, the cover has become a classic of the genre and has been oft-imitated. An aged Wolverine protecting an adult Kitty Pryde as a Sentinel looms large, the shadow almost enveloping them. The brick wall behind them has posters of their friends. Wanted posters. Almost every one bares a pasted-over legend; dead, apprehended, like some monsterous liturgy.
The message was clear, in their adventures, their fights, their sacrifice, the X Men achieved nothing. The legacy is a world of segregation, concentration camps, failing freedom fighters, all maintained by the Sentinel robots and their masters. It could all be traced to one moment, the death of Senator Kelly, a key anti-mutant lobbyist.
One moment, one day, one plan, one person.
massively important in comic historyaat large as well as shaping the X Men synopsis
further later ties in, e.g. the days of future now
Bishop and Xavier’s Security Enforcers
Not quite like the Days of Future past Introducing Bishop and his "history" of the X-Men Jubilee the last X-Man? Averted? Several tie in series
Other timetravel events
Askani'son X-Men: the End - claremont, More recently, House of M, no more mutants...
Universe
If we exempt the Ultimate Line (a modern rebooted range of series, some parts of which diverge greatly from the original Marvel Universe and its canon) and the Epic (?? 80s string of creator-owned and "hands off" titles i.e. Elektra Assasin] and the general fun of What If? The latter a title that would go down well with fans, given its treatment of cracked-out synopses, such as Spiderman's Aunt May becoming the new Super Surfer while babysitting Franklin Richards, the psychic genius son of the Fantastic Four's Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman.
Interactions with the other Marvel Titles
Main Marvel Universe - Earth 616
Epic Crossover Events
Fan reaction to
Mutant Massacre (does Thor and the Power Pack make this a wide event?)
The one with Madyline and baby!Cable and demons. Inferno (are these more X events?)
Age of Appocalypse - something of an exception - titles cancelled and replaced eg. X-Calibre - characters who sneaked into the regular Universe while
Quantum Leaps
...Alternative worlds
One wonder of the Marvel Universe is the way it deals with parallel realities. (find something from X Man or Excalibur]
Dimension roaming titles - Excalibur Cross Time Caper and everthing regarding the exiles
What if?
Freedom this gives to fans and mass enjoyment - no idea is too cracky
Crossover potential and how a fan can have fun with canon multiple universes - find some great examples, where is that Nazi-Excalibur fic?
Suggested Starting Points
A short
Areas of Particular Fannish Interest
X-Men, due to its large cast and years of publication, has every trope that a fan could ever want -- canon includes ship wars (for example, Scott/Emma vs. Scott/Jean), long-running het pairings like Gambit/Rogue, openly gay characters like Northstar, highly subtextual relationships like that between Xavier and Magneto, trans romances like Mystique's with Irene Adler, inherent fusion (such as the theory that Mystique was Sherlock Holmes), kidfic, and wingfic.
Fannish Resources
Reference and Canon
Uncanny X-Men dot Net The definitive X-Men website, now running for eight years. They cover upcoming, current and back issue titles with a smart and thorough style. Their "Spotlight On" posts cover characters, their backstories, significant issues, and costume.
Scot Tiptan's Comics 101 Essay A great primer introducing the X Men and the respective comic counterparts of the X Men movies.
Archives
- Fonts of Wisdom
- Gen X Fanfic Archive
- Lori's X-Men Archive
- Pryde and Wisdom
- Shifting Sands
- Comicfic.net
- FF.net
more coming later
Mailing Lists
Fanzines
Fannish Activity
While movieverse fanac tends to be more typical of media fandom, fanac for the comics, a traditionally male-dominated sci-fi fandom, focuses on collection, canon discussions (consider the No-Prize offered for the best explanation of canon discrepancies), cosplay, and roleplay. However, there is still a fanfic movement in the X-Men fandom, which often appears during such multifandom exchanges as Yuletide.
- communities?
Although the fandom is now much reduced in size, it was large and active during the 1990s. Much of the fandom's early online activity took place on usenet (rec.arts.comics.x-men). The fandom also enjoyed several active mailing lists. Untold-l was a general comic book-based fanfic list. The list died in an avalanche of bouncing emails shortly after ownership of Untold-l changed. Outside The Lines, run by Susan "Neon Nurse" Crites, was established to replace Untold, and continued to give fans a place to post their fics. [2] Outside the Lines was open to all comic-based fanfic, although X-titles dominated, much as they had on Untold. Various character and pairing specific lists also existed.
X-Men fandom enjoyed several large archives, among them: Lori's X-Men Page, Shifting Sands, Pryde and Wisdom, Comicfic.net, and the Gen X Fanfic Archive. Hawk's archive was one of the earliest archives, and collected every fic posted to the usenet group, regardless of quality. Many of the previously mentioned archives were created after Hawk's archive went down. Kielle's Comic Fan-Fiction Authors' Network (CFAN), was a hub of activity for comics fans of all titles and companies. CFAN Full (If Brief) Page Listing demonstrates the breadth of fannish activity surrounding comics fandom.
The CBFFAs were an annual fanfic award; while there were categories for DC and Wildstorm/Image fics, the primary focus was on the various X-titles. The CBFFAs were hosted by CFAN, and ran from 1998 to 2002.
Themes and Trends in X-Men Fandom
Multi-chapter, plot-driven fics. Shared universes (Common People, Subreality Cafe, Shadowlands). Acceptance of original characters (see: OC award in CBFFA). Relatively large number of male fanfic writers, compared to many other fandoms. Mostly het and gen; early slash pairings (Iceman/Gambit, others?)
Find meta or timeline on decline of the fandom.
References
- ↑ Purple Girl, Alpha Flight (first series) # 41
- ↑ http://home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/outside.txt (Accessed Oct. 16, 2009)
