Marvel's mightiest mutants had a bit of a troubled birth. After the success of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were on something of a roll, creatively and financially. The Mutants, as they were initially (not-so-imaginatively) named, were set to be their next big hit in their series of flawed, conflicted superheroes. But they weren't. In fact sales on X-Men were so dismal Marvel stopped producing new stories with issue #66, later reprinting a number of the older stories in issues #67-93. It wasn't until the team got revitalised with the addition of Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler and the like that they managed to claw their ways into being of the most popular and successful titles they published. It was during that classic Chris Claremont run that all the things people love about the X-Men were solidified. The epic high adventures, the soap opera drama, the relationships, the politics of oppression made more explicit, the narration boxes out of control. Claremont's characters and plots have been plundered since for every successful mutant-starring comic, TV show and movie, to the point the characters are now one of the most well-known and loved superheroes in the world. But they're far from perfect. Here are ten problems with the X-Men nobody wants to admit.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
