Buy These Flippin’ Comics!!! (11.13.13) – Mutants Turn 50!

November 13th, 2013 by Johnny Hotsauce

Welcome back, Omega Level Mutants! This week is a pretty special one for fans of homo sapien superior, as those of who’ve evolved that extra special chromosome celebrate their fiftieth anniversary this month, courtesy of Marvel’s X-Men Gold #1, an issue that brings back X-Men from throughout the years, and the creators who made them famous! As our own tribute, the column this week is dedicated to chatting up our favorite X-things: characters, writers, artists, squads, villains, movies, etc. So step inside and lets discuss those folks that have been uncanny, astonishing, amazing, ultimate, and giant-sized – the X-Men!

Acceptance. For fifty years now the X-Men have been a fascinating metaphor for the struggle of groups deemed “different” by society to be accepted. Pretty powerful story, right? Where else in comics do you get a conceit with as much social relevance? What I find I enjoy most about the X-Men is that “the struggle” is such an easy concept for anyone to understand. Fighting for the right to be different – that being different doesn’t make you lesser – is a lesson that can be particularly meaningful to a young kid picking up a comic for the first time. Certainly in the midst of the culture clashes of the 60’s this struggle was very real, dominating headlines and actually creating social change. But even today I find the X-Men just as apropos, as the struggle of being mutant was just as much about personal acceptance as it was social. Again, I don’t think it can be oversold that for kids who are becoming teens and struggling with young adulthood, trying to be accepted by both peers and adults, reading about the plight of the X-Men can seem all too relatable.

I was 13 when Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-Men #1 found it’s way into my hands. I distinctly remember scrambling to the local supermarket on several different trips to grab each of the five different covers. Eventually selling over 8 million copies, it became (and still holds today) the number one selling comic book of all time. For comparison’s sake, the highest selling comic in the past decade, the Amazing Spider-Man Obama issue, sold just a little over a half a million.

Anyways, I’ve been a fan of mutants ever since, and that’s kinda where I wanted to leave my ramblings and put that ball in your court, dear readers! Let’s start the discussion, and celebrate our love to all things X-Men! I wanna hear favorite characters: