Don't have time to read the whole history of the X-Men? Let me break it down for you...
In the beginning, Professor
Charles Xavier founded the School for Gifted Youngsters as a way of
training young mutants – people born with special abilities thanks to an X-gene
that gives them X-tra power – in the use of their abilities, and to make the
world safe against those mutants who would hurt humans. Their stusent body doubles as the superhero team known as the X-Men, comprised of
team leader Cyclops (Scott Summers), Angel (Warren Worthington III), Iceman
(Bobby Drake), Beast (Hank McCoy) and Marvel Girl (Jean Grey). Their first foe
is Magneto, a terrorist with the ability to control all metallic objects, whom
they thwart in his attempt to commandeer nuclear warheads from the United
States military base at Cape Citadel. Their second foe is the The Vanisher, who
seeks to unite the criminal underground under his charismatic leadership and thieving
capabilities. Their third foe is The Blob, an overweight circus attraction.
On numerous
occasions, they overcome Magneto’s attempts to subjugate the human race, exact revenge on the X-Men specifically, create supermutants, establish a base on an
asteroid, or increase the membership in his fledgling Brotherhood of Mutants (dubbed the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants by their opponents.) However, he
is typically not defeated by the X-Men’s abilities as superheroes, but
by the treachery or incompetence of his own allies (Toad, Mastermind, and the
reluctant villains Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who owe Magneto their lives, in
more than one way.) Ultimately he is abducted from Earth by The Stranger, a
cosmic being whose power he had sought to use for his own ends, but whose
abilities and morality were far beyond mortal understanding. You win some, you
lose some.
Prior to
his time with the X-Men, Charles had spent years travelling the globe, which is
where his other passion, and the other cause of the X-Men, was fomented –
aliens. It was during this time that Xavier met the villainous Lucifer, an
extraterrestrial agent stationed on Earth with the mission to strip humanity of its free will and make them slaves of his race. Combatting aliens in various forms
would go on to be a stated part of the X-Men’s mission from there on.
Also of
concern is Xavier’s stepbrother Cain Marko – not a mutant, but empowered by the
mystical gem of Cytorrak as a “human Juggernaut,” (or simply The Juggernaut) a being of immense physical
strength whose helmet protects him from Xavier’s mental powers – who harbours a
lifelong hatred for the Professor and possesses a criminal streak.
As humankind
becomes increasingly aware of the presence of – and potential threat posed by –
mutants, the need to take action rises. Anthropologist (yes, anthropologist)
Bolivar Trask has commissioned the creation of the Sentinels, oversized robots
designed to hunt and combat mutants on behalf of humankind. Unfortunately, the
Sentinels overthrow their human creators, bowing instead to the leadership of their
“Master Mold” who will stop at nothing to fulfill their mission to “protect
humanity,” up to an including dominating the human race themselves. While the
X-Men are held captive, Trask sacrifices himself to destroy the Sentinel
complex once and for all, with the truth never to be known.
Having formally graduated from “school,” the
X-Men do battle with a variety of threats, both mutant and non, from a
returning Magneto, to Count Nefaria who plots to hold Washington, DC ransom
inside a big glass dome, to the Locust, a science professor with the ability to
command large mutant insects. When Cyclops decides he is not up to the task
of leading the X-Men due to interpersonal conflict with Angel (over their
competing affections for Marvel Girl) Professor X enlists the help of onetime foe Mimic, who possesses the ability to copy any superhuman power he encounters. Mimic,
a hothead with authority issues, ultimately loses his powers in combat with the
Super-Adaptoid, a robot with similar powers of his own.
The X-Men
also find themselves shorthanded with Jean graduating and spending time at
University, where she meets Ted Roberts, whose brother Ralph bonks his head and becomes the
maniacal Cobalt Man (who will stop at nothing to kill Iron Man, who is notably
not an X-Man) and who, after coming to his senses, is kidnapped into the
underground war between the Mole Man and Tyrannus. It involves giant robots.
Xavier becomes aware of a major threat in Factor Three, a faction hoping to use
mutants to provoke World War III between the United States and Russia; they are
led by the mysterious “Mutant Master” who is in reality a cuttlefish-like alien
hoping that the nuclear devastation will render Earth suitable for habitation by his race,
who commits suicide when defeated. The team also meets Frankenstein's Monster, which is real, but a robot created by aliens. Afterward, the Professor transfers some of
his telepathic ability to Jean, and, following a battle with a creature known as
Grotesk, appears to die of an unknown illness.
Now without
Xavier’s guidance, the X-Men are disbanded by their government liaison Amos “Fred”
Duncan and given new identities, but quickly regroup to combat the threat of Mesmero,
who unleashes the power of Magneto’s “daughter” Lorna Dane. Lorna, however, declines
to join Magneto’s cause when she learns she is not, in fact, the daughter of
the Master of Magnetism, and that her real parents died years ago.
The team
must then rescue Cyclops’ brother Alex, a fellow mutant whose body absorbs
cosmic radiation, from the Living Pharaoh, who uses the radiation to fuel his
own transformation into the Living Monolith, a giant monstrified version of
himself. No sooner do the X-Men win than they must contend with resurgent
Sentinels, under the guidance of Trask’s son Larry – a mutant, unbeknownst to
himself. The X-Men prevail when Cyclops challenges the Sentinels to fight the sun itself, as the “source of mutation.”
After
encountering the vampiric were-dinosaur known as Sauron and a returning Magneto
in the Savage Land (an area of Antarctica untouched since prehistoric times)
the X-Men return home to find Professor Xavier, having faked his death (using
former Factor Three agent Changeling as a stand-in) to spend time studying the
threat posed by the Z’nox, an alien race devoid of empathy. The X-Men combine
their powers, plus those of Lorna Dane, Alex (now occasionally known as Havok)
and the Professor’s own psychic abilities to ward off the Z’nox.
Following
this success, the group enters a period of inactivity, during which Beast
separates from the team and, due to a scientific experiment, transforms into a
blue-furred gorilla thing, later joining the Avengers. The remaining team-members
are eventually trapped on the mysterious island of Krakoa, causing Professor X
to scour the world for a new team of mutants to band together and rescue his
original students. They include previous foes Banshee (who had worked
with the X-Men to help take down Factor Three after defecting from them) and Sunfire,
Canadian operative Wolverine, from Kenya the weather-controlling Storm, the steel-skinned Russian Colossus, teleporting demon acrobat Nightcrawler form Germany, and Thunderbird, an Apache
warrior with enhanced speed and strength. These new recruits liberate the
original X-Men and defeat the mutant responsible – Krakoa itself, a mutant
island that walks like a man – before returning.
In the
aftermath, Angel, Iceman, Havok and Lorna opt to leave the X-Men once and for
all, leaving Cyclops to lead the new recruits, with Jean later returning in
support of her man. Sunfire also bows out, but nobody misses him. On their first mission,
to liberate NORAD Command at Cheyenne Mountain from Count Nefaria who has
seized control of it with the help of his Ani-Men, Thunderbird dies trying to
break through the cockpit of Nefaria’s plane from the outside, the kind of plan
that really makes you wonder what step 2 was. Upon the arrival of housekeeper
and personal friend of Xavier (and brilliant scientist in her own right) Moira MacTaggart, the mansion is overrun by
demons released from an otherworldly cairn that had been situated on the school
grounds this entire time (unleashed by Cyclops in his grief and guilt over Thunderbird’s
death.) They are seemingly all sent back from whence they came by Storm’s unleashing
the full fury of her power due to an attack of her claustrophobia.
The X-Men
are kidnapped to a satellite base by Stephen Lang, creator of the latest model
of Sentinels, which are designed to mimic the original X-Men. Once he is defeated,
Jean has no option but to pilot the X-Men’s spacecraft back to Earth through a
deadly solar storm, taking her telekinetic abilities to their limits to shield
the craft from the radiation. She seemingly dies in the landing, but bursts
from the waters of the Jamaica Bay declaring herself to be a new woman, fire
and life incarnate, Phoenix. She is taken immediately to the hospital and later
gets an apartment with Private Investigator Misty Knight.
Throughout
this time, Xavier has been receiving visions of an otherworldly race,
specifically the Shi’ar Princess Lilandra, who is seeking him because of a psychic
connection she felt when Xavier defeated the Z’noxx. Despite the efforts of a
Shi’ar agent named Shikari – garbed in disguise as Eric the Red, an identity Cyclops
had adopted when infiltrating Mesmero and Magneto’s organization – who is
tasked with preventing the Rebel Princess from reaching Earth, they make
contact, but this is short-lived before Shikari apprehends her and brings her
to the nameless world where her brother, the Emperor D’Ken plans to use the M’kraan Crystal to consolidate his power over the galaxy. Unfortunately, as happens to
most evil schemes, this goes awry and the crystal threatens to destroy all that
lives, until Phoenix is able to use her power to repair the delicate lattice
within the crystal and restore the balance of life.
Soon after,
the X-Men are kidnapped by Mesmero and forced to perform as circus acts, but
his scheme is soon hijacked by Magneto, who brings the team to his Antarctic
volcano base, where he chains them into chairs that mentally reduce them to
infancy (which is something that had happened to him at the hands of his own
creation Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant.) The X-Men are able to free themselves,
but in the process the base is destroyed. Beast, who had been investigating the
team’s disappearance, and Phoenix, believe their friends dead, while the X-Men,
who have escaped into the Savage Land, believe the same of the others. In his grief, Professor X joins Lilandra in space and Phoenix travels the world.
The X-Men
return to New York by way of Japan and then Canada, with Banshee losing his
sonic scream in a fight against Moses Magnum and Wolverine nearly being returned to
his Canadian compatriots in Alpha Flight but escaping at the last minute. They
escape from Murderworld – a homicidal amusement park run by killer-for-hire
Arcade – before reuniting with Jean, Havok, Lorna and Moira on Muir Island to
combat the threat of Proteus, a reality-warping psychic mutant with no body of
his own who must possess others to survive - who is also Moira's son. Despite a heavy mental and
emotional toll, the X-Men persevere and Colossus kills Proteus, to whom all
metal is deadly. Professor Xavier returns from his trip to space and begins
bossing everyone around.
Around this
time, Jean begins to experience strange timeslips – visions that put her in a Regency
romance setting, in the life of a noblewoman being romanced by a roguish man
named Jason Wyngarde. The X-Men find themselves the targets of an evil cabal of
villains called the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, of which Wyngarde (in
reality old foe Mastermind) is a member. His plot is to seduce Jean and take
her power for his own, but unlocking the darkness within backfires as the X-Men
rout the Hellfire Club then find themselves at the mercy of Jean’s latest
incarnation – Dark Phoenix.
After handily
defeating her former friends, Jean travels the Galaxy in search of the limit of
her power. To satiate her hunger, she devours the energy of a star, which
obliterates an inhabited world in its orbit, branding her a criminal in the Shi’ar
Empire, now presided over by Lilandra. Jean is narrowly brought back from the dark
side after a tense battle with her friends but is forced by the Shi’ar to stand
trial for her crimes in a duel of honor pitting the X-Men against the Shi’ar’s
Imperial Guard. The X-Men lose and the sight of Cyclops almost dying causes
Jean to become Dark Phoenix once more. In recognition that every day would be
a struggle to overcome the darkness within her, she sacrifices herself and dies
there by her own hand.
In his
grief, Cyclops leaves the X-Men, replaced by Storm as leader. The team is now
joined by young Kitty Pryde, an eager 13-year-old girl who can walk through
solid objects, and is also a computer genius. Her
consciousness is swapped with her older self from a future where mutants are
persecuted to near extinction and America is overrun by the Sentinels following
a chain of events seemingly set in motion by the assassination of Senator Robert
Kelly by Mystique’s new Brotherhood of Mutants. The team thwarts this, but the
older Kate must sadly return to an alternate future in which most of her
friends have died in battle with the Sentinels. Younger Kitty proves her mettle
by destroying one of the demons that was left behind from the earlier attack by
firing on it with the X-Men’s jet’s afterburner like in "the movie."
In his
travels, Cyclops, along with Lee Forrester, captain of the trawler Arcadia on
which Scott had been serving, washes ashore on a mysterious island that is home
to Magneto. He plans to force the world’s governments into nuclear disarmament
in the name of mutantkind, and in the process of doing so sinks a Soviet
Submarine (The Leningrad) that had fired on him. In further retaliation, he buries the Siberian
city of Varykino in lava, although the city had been evacuated in time. The
X-Men arrive and stop him, and in the process, we learn that he is an Auschwitz
survivor, and that he had a wife who left him when he killed some Secret
Policemen who killed their daughter. He leaves, and the X-Men decide to take up
residence on the island. From there, Colossus’ younger sister Illyana is abducted into Limbo by the demon lord Belasco. The X-Men attempt to rescue her but in so
doing she is aged to 13 years old and emerges traumatized and darkened, as well
as – we later learn – sorceress-queen of Limbo. Storm is briefly made a vampire and consort to Dracula who, like Dr. Doom before him, is enamored of the windrider.
The X-Men
are embroiled in a plot by Lilandra’s sister Deathbird to steal the throne of
the Shi’ar, and team up with the Starjammers – a team of interstellar pirates led
by Corsair, who is Cyclops’ father – to stop it. Soon afterward, however, they
are kidnapped by Deathbird’s allies, the Brood, insectoid aliens who want to
use the mutants as vessels for Brood Queens. The X-Men overcome this,
destroying the Brood Queen and neutralizing the eggs within them with the help
of Carol Danvers – recently depowered as Ms. Marvel by Mystique’s foster daughter Rogue, but re-empowered by the Brood’s genetic experiments – as well as Storm,
who has gained commune with the Acanti, the ancient race of space-whales that
the Brood lobotomize into acting as their vessels. Upon
returning to Earth, the X-Men discover that Charles has formed a new team of
students called the New Mutants. He has also been infected with a Brood Queen,
but when his body dies they use Starjammer medical technology to clone him a
new one. He remains a jerk.
The X-Men encounter a society of underground-dwelling mutant outcasts
called the Morlocks, and Storm is only able to save Kitty’s life from them by
facing their leader Callisto in a duel, which she wins by stabbing Callisto through the
heart (she gets better.) Rogue, formerly of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants,
joins the team after accidentally absorbing too much of Carol Danvers’ psyche,
in hopes that Professor X can help her. Wolverine takes a trip to Japan and
becomes engaged to his recent love interest Lady Mariko after killing her dishonorable
crimelord father. The rest of the team join him there, where Storm is inspired by Wolverine's associate Yukio to undergo a
stylistic transformation from an untouchable weather goddess to a mohawked punk
rocker. Kitty reacts poorly. Mariko is convinced by sinister forces to call off the wedding.
Scott meets
a woman named Madelyne Pryor, a pilot who looks exactly like Jean. He becomes
convinced that she is Jean, the Dark Phoenix, reborn, but it turns out
just to have been Mastermind’s trick. They get married and fly off to a
honeymoon, where they are attacked by a giant squid.
The X-Men,
less Kitty but plus Cyclops (and Magneto) are transported to a mysterious alien world by a mysterious godlike being called the Beyonder, to team up with other Marvel Heroes
against big Marvel Villains. There, Colossus falls in love with an alien woman
named Zsaji, who dies. When he returns to Earth, he breaks off his nascent relationship with Kitty. Rogue is tasked with breaking Carol Danvers’ ex-boyfriend,
Michael Rossi, out of a SHIELD hellicarrier prison, becoming an enemy of the
state in doing so. Mystique, in the guise of DoD employee Raven Darkholme, hires
a man named Forge (a mutant with the ability to create fabulous inventions) to
create a gun that can de-power superbeings, under the premise of combatting
alien invaders called Dire Wraiths. It is aimed at Rogue, but Storm takes the hit,
stripping her of her weather-controlling powers seemingly permanently. Depressed,
she takes refuge at Forge’s penthouse in Dallas, where they grow close until she learns the truth about
his role in developing the depowering ray. However, in the midst of a freak
snowstorm, the two must team up with the X-Men, Nightcrawler's sorceress girlfriend Amanda Sefton, Illyana Rasputin and Forge’s mentor Naze, to defeat the Dire Wraiths, although another magical force makes its presence felt at
this time as well.
The X-Men
are joined by Rachel, a telepathic and telekinetic mutant who has come to the
past from the previously-mentioned Sentinel-ruled alternate future to escape
the fate that befell the rest of her friends and family. A former “hound” – a mutant
used to hunt other mutants – she comes to the attention of Selene, a millennia-old
mutant vampire who wants to make her an apprentice. Unbeknownst to all at first, she is the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey, who, in her timeline, lived. A new model of Sentinel from the Rachel's time named Nimrod appears
and gains public approval by doling out a vicious brand of justice and
appearing to have an anti-mutant agenda. Anti-mutant sentiment is on the rise
and Xavier – who has regained the ability to walk thanks to his cloned body and
a course of physiotherapy – is brutally attacked outside of a university
seminar he has been teaching. The efforts to save him leave him strained and in
ill-health. Storm goes on a journey of self-discovery.
The Beyonder returns and tours Earth, which sends interim leader Nightcrawler on an existential spiral of
doubt. Magneto, seeking to atone for his previous, violent ways and resume his friendship with Xavier that pre-dates the X-Men, begins to assist the team. However, he remains a target for the Government, which has
hired Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – now acting as the
officially-sanctioned “Freedom Force” – to bring him in. He surrenders and agrees to stand trial. The trial is thrown out, however, when the proceedings are attacked by Fenris, the children of Magneto's and Xavier's old enemy Baron Strucker. Amidst the proceedings, Xavier nearly dies and is brought to space by Lilandra to heal, and is unfortunately not able to come back, leaving Magneto in charge. Cyclops, objecting to this new paradigm, challenges a returning but still-depowered Storm to a duel for leadership, despite having a wife and newborn son to worry about. Storm wins and Cyclops goes home, but eventually forms a new group called X-Factor with his fellow original X-Men, including Jean Grey, who, as it turns out, was not dead, but in stasis in Jamaica Bay while the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix impersonated her, leaving her blameless for Dark Phoenix's atrocities.
Meanwhile, Rachel, who has taken the name Phoenix, swears revenge on the Beyonder, nearly undoing her mother's the original Phoenix's work in repairing the M'Kraan Crystal and destroying the universe to do so, but eventually reversing course when she realizes that life is great. The Beyonder just kind of leaves.
From there the team fights off a Brood invasion and works to liberate the mutants of Genosha, an island nation that cruelly presses mutants into slavery. All the while, Madelyne Pryor has come into contact with the demons S'ym and N'astirh, who hope to use her grief over being abandoned and having her infant son kidnapped, to empower her to help with their plans to rule Limbo and Earth. Soon after forging her pact with the demons, however, she learns of the reason she was targeted by Sinister in the first place: she is a clone of the original Jean Grey, designed as a "brood mare" (her words) to bear Scott Summers' child in an effort for Sinister to have control of Scott's powerful offspring. This ignites a conflict between Madelyne (with the forces of Limbo who want to invade Earth), Sinister and the Marauders, and X-Factor, with the X-Men -- somewhat under Madelyne's spell -- in the middle. Madelyne is thwarted and dies, with the "Phoenix Force" integrating her into Jean's psyche. The united X-Men and X-Factor team up to defeat Sinister with the one thing that can kill him -- Cyclops' optic blasts, which he had been unable to use on the villain due to post-hypnotic conditioning (Havok prompts him to release it by slapping his brother around.)
Gambit and Storm link back up with what remains of the X-Men, X-Factor and the New Mutants now led by the mysterious Cable. They are attacked by forces from Genosha, which is being manipulated by ultra-racist never-dying robot-bodied former PR man Cameron Hodge. On Genosha, they are rejoined by Wolverine, Jubilee and Psylocke. With great effort they defeat Hodge, but not without some personal trials. Storm is also re-aged back to an adult body at this time.
Cyclops, leading the Blue team, develops an attraction to physically-sculpted, faux-Asian ninja assassin Psylocke, despite being more or less linked to the equally-physically-perfect Jean Grey (being that these are 1990's comics and most bodies are physically perfect). Wolverine learns that his entire history may be a lie, with some amnesia for good measure, causing great frustration to him and to readers, as he encounters figures from his past like Omega Red and Maverick. Gambit also reveals a bit about his past, that he was married and part of a clan of Thieves constantly at war with one of Assassins, but before the X-Men can learn any more about that, they have to fight the Brood, and everyone just forgets why they had come to New Orleans in the first place.
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