Marvel may be dominating the box office and DC rolling out their long-gestating Extended Universe, but they ain't got nothing on the X-Men. Running continuously for sixteen years within the same continuity (give or take a time-travel reboot), it's testament to perseverance. We've traced Marvel's merry mutants from the not-too distant future to the past and back again several times, and while it's not always been plain sailing, that things can still move forward shows that, at some points, Fox have got it right. It's obviously something of a sticking point for fans of the franchise that the X-Men are currently unable to join the ranks of the MCU and team-up/clash with The Avengers, but when the future of the franchise is as exciting as it is it's hard to complain too much. And they're really amping it up, with this year seeing two movies released in the continuity and several more lurching into production (we'll get that Gambit movie eventually, right?). With Deadpool, the first of the 2016 films, hitting cinemas and taking the franchise in a totally new and exciting direction, let's take a look back at the eight movies so far - which are the next step in the evolution of superhero cinema and which are as useless as Halle Berry's Storm?
