Each week, XavierFiles staff offer their recommendations for what to read. New DC comics come out Tuesdays, everything else Wednesdays. DCeased: Dead Planet #1: Once more unto the zom-breach. An all-grown-up Jon Kent, Damian Wayne and Cassie Sandsmark headline the latest helping of DC’s zombie-apocalypse franchise, written by Tom Taylor (“X-Men Red”) and drawn by…
Note: This essay, published in 2019, has been updated to reflect that Grant Morrison is commonly referred to by they/them pronouns. In late 2000, writer Grant Morrison submitted a brief, typed essay to the senior editorial staff at Marvel – the ‘Morrison Manifesto’ – outlining what the X-Men would be under their pen. This manifesto,…
This article comes to us from Kevin, a historian in his day job and an X-fan in his spare time who sometimes gets the two confused. He tweets at @MagnetoRocks. It was written in 2019. The newest era of X-Men opens with something old. In the first pages of this summer’s House of X #1,…
Early today this tweet made its rounds on X-Men Twitter The only people who like Nathan Grey are gay fans for some reason ?♂️ pic.twitter.com/dBA4bXFWw7 — josh! (@bobbydrakenjosh) January 30, 2018 This got current GENERATION X writer (and friend of the site) Christina Strain thinking of how to make Nate Grey, a character who once held…
Name: Charles Francis Xavier Code Names: Professor X First Appearance: X-Men #1 (September ‘63) Powers: Telepathy Team Affiliation: X-Men About When the X-Men were initially conceived all those years ago, it was about students at a school. For whatever reason, it only took seven issues for the original five X-Men to graduate. This left the series in…
Name: Heather & Davis Cameron Code Names: Lifeguard & Slipstream First Appearance: X-Treme X-Men #5 (November ‘01) Powers: Adaptive protective biology & the ability to surf the Warp Wave Team Affiliation: X-Men About In 1966, Jack Kirby began working off a Stan Lee Fantastic Four pitch, “Have them fight God”. Working in the Marvel Method, Stan looked…
Name: Warren Kenneth Worthington III Code Names: Angel, Archangel, Death First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Sept ‘63) Powers: Flight, razor-sharp flechettes, healing blood Team Affiliation: X-Men, Champions, Defenders, X-Factor, X-Force, Horsemen of Apocalypse About The original five X-Men are often criticized for telling a story of persecution and bigotry through the eyes of a group of WASP-y kids…
Name: Takeshi Matsuya Code Names: Wiz Kid First Appearance: X-Terminators #1 (Oct ‘88) Powers: He does machines Team Affiliation: X-Terminators, Avengers Academy About Anger is like a tumor. If you catch it early enough and remove it, life can move on with limited consequence. It may serve as a warning, a reminder to watch out for its’…
Name: Rita Wayword Code Names: Spiral, Ricochet Rita First Appearance: Longshot #1 (Sept ‘85) Powers: Teleportation, magic Team Affiliation: Freedom Force, X-Force About The poet Ocean Vuong had an insight about something an Italian philosopher observed. “Vico had this theory that time moves more in a spiral than it does in a line. He believes that’s why we repeat…
On September 27th, after 154 Wednesdays without him, the classic Wolverine emerged from his adamantium cocoon to begin life anew. This development brought forth a cacophonous symphony of meh across Twitter threads, message boards, and subreddits throughout the internet. Personally, the return filled me with dread about the direction of the X-Line and not just…
This Editorial comes to us from Everett Christensen Also you can get a T-Shirt with that header image from the Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men store The X-Men Franchise has taken a lot of heat for its portrayal of gay and lesbian characters. Over the past few decades the number of textually lesbian and gay…
Name: Ariel Code Names: Ariel First Appearance: Fallen Angels #2 (May ‘87) Powers: Persuasion, ability to make doors open into different doors Teams Affiliation: Fallen Angels, X-Men About In 1983 recording artist Cyndi Lauper took the world by storm with her massive hit single “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. With its amusing lyrics and an inescapable…
Name: Lucas Bishop Code Names: Bishop First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #282 (Nov ‘91) Powers: Energy absorption and redirection Teams Affiliation: XSE, X-Men, X-Force About When I was young I had a weird idea that I was just fixated on. I wanted the next Metal Gear Solid game to give Solid Snake a teen sidekick who could be…
Name: Max Eisenhardt, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr Code Names: Magneto First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Sept ‘63) Powers: Control of Magnetism Teams Affiliation: The Brotherhood, X-Men, Hellfire Club About Conflict is at the root of all storytelling. All the exciting set pieces and witty banter doesn’t mean much if there isn’t a strong conflict to get the audience invested. X-Men:…
Name: Nimrod Code Names: Nathan Hunter First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #191 (Mar ‘85) Powers: Body transformation. time travel, teleportation, lasers Teams Affiliation: N/A About Evolution is key to the X-Men. Not just an evolution of characters and their powers, but an evolution of ideas. Since X-Men will never really end, at least not in the foreseeable future, nor…