Like I’ve talked about in my recent reviews about Marvel, I’m a DC dude, but lately I’ve been dipping my toe in the waters of the Marvel Universe – and the water feels nice. And while this doesn’t bode well for my wallet, I am stoked to be reading such great comics about a brand new world to me.

Well, not that brand new. I do have some knowledge of the Marvel Universe from my years of collecting their books back in the early 90’s. So with that knowledge, I thought I would run down the current list of X-Men and see just what I know and don’t know about them without reading the book for the last 15 years……

(and please, if any of you Marvel fans out there read this, comment on this review and let me know where I am wrong and give me some updates!)

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE X-MEN

Cyclops: The first X-men chosen by Charles Xavier. Scott’s Dad is Corsair of The Starjammers, his brother is Alex (Havoc), and not sure who is Mother is. Scott had a long, intimate relationship with Jean Grey (Phoenix) but that all ended when Jean died on the moon. This led to Scott quitting the X-Men for awhile and flying a plane. During this time he met Madelyn Pryor who looked a fucking LOT like Jean Grey – well, this is because Madelyn turned out to be clone of Jean created by Mr. Sinister. Mr. Sinister turns out had been watching Scott all his life and at every turn influencing Scott’s life and decisions he made. Scott and Madelyn got married and had a son Nathan Summers. But the happy baby times were sort lived when Scott and Maddie had to send their baby boy into the future to save his life (I forgot why they had to do this. Something about a virus perhaps?). Nathan would eventually come back to the present using time travel. He was now grown and went by the name Cable. Well, when it rains it pours in Scott’s life, his wife Madelyn then became the evil Goblin Queen and massacred a shit load of mutants. I do believe she died. Scott then faced off with Storm for leadership of the X-Men and lost, He bailed. Years later he would return to the X-Men as leader of the “Blue Team” of the X-Men (Storm being the leader of the “Gold Team”). Here is where things get a little fuzzy – Jean Grey came back to life…. Right? And she and Scott got married. Then Jean died AGAIN and Scott shacked up with Emma Frost, the White Queen, who use to be part of the evil Hellfire Club but has since changed her ways. Scott is still with Emma and Jean is still dead and that’s all I know about Cyclops.

Emma Frost: Emma use to be called The White Queen back in the days when she ran with the Hellfire club – a group of evil mutants and reeked havoc on the world. Emma is a powerful telepath on par with Jean Grey, who the Club tried to recruit as their “Black Queen”. Somewhere along the way Emma renounced her bad ways and turned good – I’m really not sure when this happened. During Josh Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run Emma was able to turn herself into diamond. Was the first time she did this in comics? I don’t remember her being able to do this back in the 80’s. At any rate, she is still with Scott Summers and still dresses like a prostitute.

Colossus: Peter grew up on a farm in Russia and has a sister, Illyana, who is also a mutant. Peter during the early years of the X-Men had a puppy love romance going with Kitty Pryde, but as far as I know they never went “all the way”. Colossus punched a shit load of people over the years in the X-Men comics but never did anything amazing, or uncanny for that matter, until he sacrificed himself to end the Legacy Virus that was killing mutants. He stayed dead until Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men brought him back. Looks like he was being kept alive by aliens who thought that he was destined to destroy their planet. Colossus rekindled his romance with Kitty Pryde during this time but that was short-lived when Kitty hitched a ride on a giant bullet that was fired at Earth and used her phasing abilities to make it pass thru the planet harmlessly.

Hope: I have no fucking clue who she is.

Namor: Don’t know a whole lot about Namor. Didn’t he use to be a bad guy and have fights with the Human Torch or Human Flame or That Dude That Turns Into Fire? I read a few issues of his solo comic back in the days but only for the Jae Lee art and I don’t remember much else from that. Prince of the sea perhaps? Talks to the fishes maybe? Little tiny wings on his ankles still there? Is he a mutant? I guess, he’s in the X-Men.

Magneto: Was a kid during the Holocaust and witnessed his family killed by the Nazis. This led to his belief that Mutants needed to rule the world in order to bring ORDER to it. He had an early friendship with Charles Xavier but that went sour when Erik (Magneto) started spouting off his doctrine that didn’t jive with Charles’ dream of a mutant loving world. Erik decided that he would band together the worlds evil mutants and take it over, thus the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was born. For years they would battle the X-Men – normally resulting in a stalemate. As Magneto got older his views on world domination changed and when Xavier left Earth to live with Lilandra a Shi’ar princess he took over the X-Men and led them. This didn’t set well with a lot of the X-men and Magneto soon went back to being evil and setting up his base on an asteroid. Last I heard that asteroid base got all ‘sploded and Magneto was thought to be dead, but he came back and fucked shit up. But I guess he is back to being good again. For fuck sake dude, choose a side and stick with it!

Danger: Created by Josh Whedon in his Astonishing run, Danger is the Danger Room as a sentient lifeform. Danger tried to kill the X-Men when it became alive, because that is what the Danger Room was programmed to do – kill the X-Men. They defeated Danger. So now it seems Danger is a good guy and no longer wants to kill the X-Men. Cool.

Magik: Colossus’ little sister, she was part of the original New Mutants (I think). I do know that she got kidnapped by some demons and taken into Limbo where she lived for years and when she returned to Earth she was all fucked up and evil and tried to kill everyone. Looks like she all better now.

Storm: I know that Storm grew up on the mean streets of Africa and made a living as a thief. But she gave up that lifestyle when the X-Men came a knocking. She is a natural born leader and led the X-Men for many years after beating up Cyclops. She was into mohawks and leather there for while too when she became the leader of the Morlocks after beating up their own leader and taking the role (Storm sure likes to beat up leaders and take their positions). Her and Forge had a thing going there for while but that ended badly.

And that is pretty much my knowledge of the current X-Men team. Like I said, any in information you can add about those characters and the last 15 years of their adventures and whatnot would greatly appreciated.

Thanks