X-Men Summary

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The X-Men is the most popular team of superheroes in comic books in the 1990s. Featuring an often changing lineup of young mutant superheroes and unusually complex story lines, the X-Men have found a consistently large and loyal audience of comic-book readers. Since 1980 only Spider-Man and Batman have rivaled them in popularity and sales. The X-Men's market clout has helped publisher Marvel Comics remain the undisputed industry leader, and the series' formula has been widely imitated throughout the superhero genre. Few other comic-book series of recent decades have been as influential. Marvel first published The X-Men in 1963. The concept devised by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was an extension of the Marvel formula already realized in such characters as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. The X-Men were teenaged costumed superheroes who used their powers in the service of humanity, even though the society at large misunderstood and feared them. Unlike their superhero peers, however, the X-Men had never even been human. As mutants, they were born with their special powers—usually as a consequence of parents exposed to radioactivity. This distinction left the X-Men especially alienated from human society and made them special victims of misplaced human anxieties. Lee and later writers would often use this premise to conceive stories critical of bigotry and racial persecution. The first X-Men lineup consisted of Cyclops, with the power to project devastating "optic blasts"; the Beast, with the agility and strength of his namesake; the Angel, who could fly with the aid of natural wings; Iceman, with power over cold and ice; and Marvel Girl, with the mental ability to move objects. Their leader was the enigmatic Professor Xavier, who, though confined to a wheelchair, possessed an impressive variety of telepathic powers. Xavier recruited the teenage mutants to enroll in his

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