The X-Men have dozens of lineups and hundreds of members, but none are more iconic than the original five.
Everyone has their own team of X-Men. This team has been around since they first started reading the X-Men comics, and it's one they're always eager to see revisited.
This may be a rough order. While some games hark back to classic lineups (like the recently announced Uncanny X-Men in the new Ashes program), some of the more unusual lineups may be lost to time.
Surprisingly, one of the lineups that doesn't appear often is the original team. The first wave of X-Men only consisted of six members, including their mentors, but most people refer to them as the original five X-Men.
Who are the original X-Men?
The original X-Men debuted in Uncanny X-Men #1 and consisted of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman, Archangel, and Beast. Their mentor and leader is Charles Xavier, also known as Professor X.
Marvel Comics
Professor X is both the father and the principal of the original team, who are all students at Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters. In fact, Xavier Academy is a front for a mutant academy, where students receive a discreet education away from those who hate and fear them.
In fact, the X-Men were founded to represent Xavier's dream of a peaceful world where mutants and humans lived together. In fact, they became defenders of humans and mutants alike, fighting forces like Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who believed themselves to be superior to the humans who had rejected them for generations.
The original X-Men that surpasses the first five films
The original X-Men team remained fairly consistent for the first 60 issues or so. Still, there have been some slight changes over the years. The Mimic is a mutant with all the powers of the original X-Men who briefly joined the team before an accident rendered him incapacitated.
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Magneto's daughter, Lorna Dane, joined the team in Uncanny X-Men #60, eventually adopting the code name Polaris. She struck up a romance with Cyclops' brother Alex (aka Havok) when he joined the team in Uncanny X-Men #65.
There's also Shapeshifter, a mutant who joins the team due to some technical issues. However, he impersonated Xavier, so he didn't realize he was part of the team until long after his death.
Why the original X-Men left the team
After Uncanny X-Men #65, the book ceased publishing new issues and was completely reprinted for the next five years. When the book was relaunched in 1975 with Giant-Size X-Men #1, the only returning member was Cyclops.
Marvel Comics
It is revealed that the original team has traveled to Krakoa Island to find new mutants. The mutant turns out to be the island itself, which is sentient and attacks the team. Only Cyclops managed to escape, and the rest were captured by Krakoa.
Cyclops formed a new team consisting of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Storm, Banshee and Thunderbird to carry out a rescue mission. Despite their success, this marked the end of the X-Men era. Beast, Angel, Marvel Girl, and Iceman decide to leave the team and try to live normal lives after their ordeals. Out of obligation to the team and anxiety over his inability to control his powers, Cyclops continued to serve as the leader of the new team.
Xavier's Secret X-Men Team Explained
In addition to the expanded original team, later retcon revealed that Xavier formed a second secret team ahead of the giant X-Men and hid them away.
Marvel Comics
In X-Men: Genesis, the team consists of Darwin, Petra, Swae, and Vulcan, the other brother of Cyclops and Havok. Xavier gives the team some quick mental training and sends them on a mission to rescue the original X-Men. However, the mission went poorly. They were only able to rescue the Cyclops, and the new team was believed to have been killed by Krakoa.
The retcon was explained as Xavier erasing Vulcan's existence from Cyclops' mind to protect him from not knowing that his brother died trying to save him. In fact, both Vulcan and Darwin managed to survive. Darwin's powers stored his essence within Vulcan as an energy being, and Vulcan himself fell into a coma until the energy released by the House of M incident awakened him.
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