Every X-Man Ever!

January 20, 2015 8:47 AM

Every X-Man, X-Woman, X-Whatever, ever... A written and video-illustrated timeline of all X-Men since day one.
posted by Optamystic (24 comments total)

And if you haven't seen them, Ex-Men: Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto, Etc...
posted by gwint at 9:06 AM on January 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

So, which X-Man brought his new girlfriend and was like, "Oh, my God!"

(I'll show myself out now)
posted by FJT at 9:14 AM on January 20, 2015

In middle school I always liked Psylocke for her great back story because she had a great ass.
posted by four panels at 9:24 AM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Will this allow us to finally settle the question of who was the best mutant it was Warlock.
posted by maxsparber at 9:47 AM on January 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

Woah, not too fast there. Warlock isn't even the best Warlock in the Marvel Universe.

(That's Adam Warlock)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:51 AM on January 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

They didn't X-plain Gambit, someone please X-plain Gambit.
posted by almostmanda at 9:55 AM on January 20, 2015

Rachel and Miles will get around to Gambit eventually ...
posted by kyrademon at 10:05 AM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Their first mission was to save the original team from the living, mutated island called Krakoa.

Who is currently spending time as their lawn.

Gotta love comic books.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:29 AM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I understand the issues of film effects and story plot but I was really hoping for more of the winged x-men in the films. They always seemed like they had the most fun with their power.
posted by sammyo at 11:00 AM on January 20, 2015

Rachel Summers
Joined: Circa Uncanny X-Men #193 (May, 1985)

Maybe this is Ground Zero for when comic books became a little too baroque. If nerd archaelogists cannot accurately pinpoint when a fictional character joined a team in a work of fiction (which at the time still only spanned one book per month), what hope does the new reader have of teasing apart multiple universes and timelines?
posted by yerfatma at 11:05 AM on January 20, 2015

Well, it's mostly because she became part of the team after just sort of hanging around them for a while without anyone ever saying, "Kid, you're part of the Team!"

Which is not to say that Rachel Summers is not a black hole of plot confusion where continuity goes to die, because she is, but it's not because there isn't an exact moment when she officially joined up.
posted by kyrademon at 11:12 AM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think she was introduced as a character in 141-142 but these issues didn't give her name and she wasn't an X-Man until later.
posted by biffa at 11:12 AM on January 20, 2015

I loved Rachel when she was in Excalibur.
posted by FunkyHelix at 11:23 AM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, Rachel's great, but explaining her fully pretty much requires Feynman diagrams.
posted by kyrademon at 11:28 AM on January 20, 2015

> "I think she was introduced as a character in 141-142 but these issues didn't give her name and she wasn't an X-Man until later."

Well, actually she was already part of the X-Men in THOSE issues, because they were set in the future. But she BECAME an X-man before that, but in later issues, because she traveled back to the past. Although not actually HER past, because where she comes from she's the first-born child of Scott Summers, whereas in the past she traveled to that was Nathan Summers. See, that all has to do with the differences between the 811 timeline and the 616 timeline ... (*breaks out Feynman diagrams*)
posted by kyrademon at 11:34 AM on January 20, 2015 [7 favorites]

The best member of the X-Men is, of course, Doop. He is rumored to have made Dr. Doom cry. He carried Mjolnir (well, absorbed it into his body when Thor chucked it at him), he has a second brain in his butt (which saved his life), he has vast interdimensional spaces inside his head. He looks like a floating green peanut. And he speaks in Doop-speak, which despite any and all translators that can be found, is a complex language that imparts wisdom, enlightenment and dirty jokes.

He is not the best mutant because he is not a Mutant. He transcends DNA, he is eternal. He is Doop.

(He also might be She. It's never specified, but the masculine pronoun is used for him in the comics.)
posted by Hactar at 12:07 PM on January 20, 2015

Doop is also incredibly sinister. He murdered Corkscrew with an axe.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:18 PM on January 20, 2015

Jubilee über alles.
posted by oddman at 2:52 PM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Psylocke is not the sole inspiration for my hair color, but she was definitely a formative influence.

I loved Rachel when she was in Excalibur.

The Claremont-Davis run of Excalibur was one of my favorite runs of comics ever.
posted by immlass at 3:00 PM on January 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Agreed. In my mind because it was like Claremont said, "Well screw it, I've been forced off X-Men, now I might as well have some fun." His flaws to one side, I think part of the reason the X-Men just doesn't do it for me any longer is that he's been followed by a hundred people who have tried to write the same book but can't do it without being Darker. There was always a spirit of fun to his books that the rise of '90s comics/ torture porn killed off forever and pushed these books especially into the realm of total soap opera. Except to call them "soap opera" is to do a disservice to the fairly linear and comprehensible plots of soap operas.
posted by yerfatma at 4:11 PM on January 20, 2015

This is amazing, although I personally would have preferred a list of the faculty and student body at the School for Gifted Youngsters, the Xavier School and the Jean Grey School. An X-Men list without Warlock, Artie and Leech just doesn't feel right to me. Also, do all X-Men have to teach at or maintain the school to earn their keep? Out of that whole list, I can think of like ten people who can handle core and advanced curriculum and then several hundred gym teachers.
posted by elr at 4:49 PM on January 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

ForgetMeNot
    Real Name: Unknown
    Major Powers: Imperceptibility
    First appearance: X-Men: Legacy #300 (May, 2014)
    Joined: Unknown
    X-Plained: A long-time member of the X-Men who no one on the team remembers
    due to his power to be continuously forgotten by others.

That is beautiful.
posted by Bugbread at 5:55 PM on January 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

Since discovering and binging on Rachel and Miles recently I've been dreaming about a 'Random X' podcast - that takes the Random Trek approach of selecting a random X book and talking about it for a half hour.

The brief spell I was reading comics just happened to overlap with Sienkiewicz's run on New Mutants, so I expect all books to have art that unique and good. Fat Karma was a defining and disturbing image for 12-year-old me . When the hell did she get a metal leg, though?
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 7:01 PM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

That is beautiful.

I had managed to miss the issues he was in, so I was unsure if this was a joke by the authors, or proof of concept.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:50 PM on January 20, 2015