X

X-MEN. Th e X-Men superhero team was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby ; they

fi rst appeared in September 1963 and have since become the basis for one of Marvel’s
most enduring projects, spawning countless spin-off s, video games, cartoons, action
fi gures, and feature fi lms. Th e X-Men comics would eventually include contributions
from some of the leading writers and artists in the industry, including John Byrne , Jim
Lee , Grant Morrison , and Chris Claremont. Th ough perhaps uninspired in its incep-
tion, X-Men grew into one of the most popular comics of its time; its characters and
stories have touched on some of the most intense social and political questions of our
time, cultivating a rich thematic history unusual in a mainstream series.
Th e X-Men phenomenon began with the creation of the original X-Men team of
mutants by Professor Xavier, himself a powerful telepath, in the hopes that his team
will be able to protect humanity from those mutants who would seek to use their pow-
ers for evil. In the fi rst issue they face the man who would become their greatest foe:
Magneto. A mutant who could create and control magnetic fi elds (and who was later
revealed to be a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust), Magneto would go on to become
the most important oppositional force the X-Men would face—not only because of his
enormous power but also because, in insisting that humanity will never accept mutants
and that they must struggle against humans in order to protect and preserve their own
existence, he presents the most compelling ideological challenge to Xavier’s dream of
peaceful human/mutant coexistence.
Indeed, while arch-nemeses Xavier and Magneto are enemies, they are also old
friends who often treat one another with mercy and mutual respect—in some cases
they even work together against more traditionally evil characters like the time-traveling
agent of social-Darwinist destruction, Apocalypse. Th us, in a sense, Xavier is Martin