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X-Men History


The X-Men are some of the most famous comic book superheroes of all time. The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Marvel Comics and were originally introduced for the first time in 1963. Despite their fame now, they were actually one of the last superhero characters introduced in a period of many introductions, the Silver Age revival of comics and superheroes.

The Silver Age of comics marked a major change in the comic book industry. With comics losing public standing and under attack from the government, the Comics Code Authority was introduced. Under this code, comics started to focus on more character driven story lines and had improved and flashier artwork.

Many old superheroes were recreated under these new general guidelines and reached great successes. This led to the introduction of many new comic book superheroes. Before Marvel Comics got around to creating the X-Men, many others came before them. The first of which was the Fantastic Four group.

Others include many of the famous comic book superheroes of today including Spider-Man, the Hulk and Iron Man. Finally the X-Men were created as a group of superheroes genetically different from the main human race. After the fact, Stan Lee had said that one of the reasons for his genetic mutation theme was that this would explain every character’s past, without having to invent a new and separate storyline each time.

Nevertheless, all of the characters had different super powers and special abilities. In the very first issue, the super villain of the X-Men, Magneto, was also introduced. The original X-Men were led by Professor Charles Xavier, otherwise known as Professor X. While Xavier was a constant throughout the X-Men, the rest of the cast had many differences.

The original crew of the X-Men superheroes were teenagers who were still learning to develop and control their powers. The most popular X-Men character was not introduced until the 1970s. This of course was Wolverine. Wolverine was introduced with a whole group of other X-Men characters who were adults from many different countries.

This was in an attempt to boost sales globally and appeal to other groups of people. These new X-Men characters were brought in to save the teenagers from capture and the series continued from there. At many points throughout the comics, Wolverine and his back story would become the focal point.

These new X-Men characters, fully powerful and grown adults, were introduced in 1975 in Giant Size X-Men #1. Prior to that, the X-Men had been without their own comic book line for some 5 years since 1970. They continued to appear in other Marvel comic books but lagging sales led to their original discontinuation. Marvel certainly could not have forecast the popularity that Wolverine and many of the other new characters would go on to reach.

Of course in recent years, the X-Men have reached an entire new generation and broader spectrum of the public through their multiple movie releases. The movies are viewed within comic circles as varying in their accuracy and quality. Overall, they did a good job at blending together the many storylines and main themes of the comic books.

As with the comic book themselves, people were left wanting more Wolverine. The character continues to appeal to many different individuals and has certainly come to symbolize the success of the X-Men comic book.