X is for X-MEN

Author: Adam Turney
The X-Men are a group of mutant super-heroes that merely want to fit in with their normal human counterparts. You see, they are considered homosapien superior and have genetically evolved so that they possess special powers which include telepathy, telekinesis, strength, metal/indestructible skin, speed, flying, control of the weather elements, absorption of thoughts and energies, teleportation, and so many other cool abilities. When I was in elementary school I began reading the comic books and loved collecting the Uncanny X-Men comic books. There were multiple versions of the X-Men comic books, but I found the group that I enjoyed. They weren't too expensive to purchase, but looking back I am not sure how I afforded them. My best friend Josh collected them too so we would get together and read the new release for each month. We would talk about how cool each issue was and how we wish we could have our own powers. We had our favorite characters that we wish we could be and we even acted like we were them, shooting beams from our eyes, throwing playing cards expecting them to explode, and pretending like we could move objects with our minds.

Eventually, after years of patient waiting, they finally released movie versions of the X-Men. When the first movie came out my guy friends all dragged our girl friends to the movie with us on the first day of release (it would be like our wives dragging us to see Twilight...ew). The movies were amazing to finally see our fantasies come true. Even though we did not get to see all the mutants we wanted to, it was still fantastic to finally see some of our favorites on the big screen. The movies got progressively better and it was exciting to see Cyclops die in the third movie...he has always been a big dorg even in the cartoon series. The third movie left the series open for another sequel but I have not seen any real information confirming this rumor.

My best friend and I collected the action figures and spent numerous hours playing with them. I remember one day at his house we took his sisters Barbie dolls and we made a video with our action figures and the dolls. It was hilarious because we put the dolls on a boogie board and pretended like a villain sent them out to sea and they were going to be killed. We rescued them with our hero action figures and everything was happy again. We even filmed these silly stories with a video camera...those giant ones that we had back in the early 90's. The toys were great because they all had special actions they would perform (thus the name, action figures) and that is what made them better than dolls because they did more than just bend their knees and drive in pink Corvettes.

Today I do not play with the toys or read the comic books. I still have over 100 comics in a box at home and I am hoping that one day, 100 years from now, they will have some significant amount of value. I also have comic cards that go along with the books, which are similar to baseball cards but have pictures of the characters and a brief bio on the back. On my birthday while I was dating Melissa she surprised me with a comic book I had wanted for years, it was the first appearance of my favorite X-Men character...Gambit. I will forever have fond memories of my time reading the X-Men comic books, and I will forever get giddy when I read rumors about a new movie being released. Sadly, the other day we were in Borders Bookstore and I tried to read a new X-Men comic book and they just aren't as good as when I was a kid...so I doubt I will ever find myself reading them again.