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Published October 15, 2019

Didja Know... The History of 'X-Men' #1

Didja Know digs into downright delightful details from across the merry Marvel Multiverse!

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Didja Know digs into the fun facts, strange stories, and divine details that helped build the hallowed halls of the House of Ideas!

The harrowing history of Marvel's merry mutants stretches back more than 50 years, True Believers, and over that time there’ve been four different X-MEN #1s to excite and exhilarate you--wait! What’s that? A new X-MEN #1 stands ready to thrill and chill you again for a fifth time? Why didn’t we know that!?

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X-MEN #1 variant cover by Mark Brooks

Okay, okay, frantic ones, we're pullin' a fast one. Of course we knew!

That’s why we have a brand-new Didja Know prepped and ready to roll all about the different X-MEN #1s over the years… So hang onto your hats, Marvelites! X-marks the spot and we’re diggin’ down deep!

Didja Know… the first X-MEN #1 billed the mutants as “The Strangest Super-Heroes of All!”?

Just how strange were they back in 1963? Well, before that point, though the Marvel Universe featured such creative cut-ups as four fantastic freaks, a green-eyed-green-skinned monster, a goldilocks god, and a web-headed wonder, the X-Men still took the blue ribbon for bouncing bizarreness.

How so? Just look at the original UNCANNY X-MEN (1963) #1 and you’ll find an Adonis of an avenging angel, a bombastic and bubbly beast-man, a smilin’ snow-cone, a thin man with a laser look…and a red-haired lady with a psychic size to dwarf ‘em all. And on top of that, their teacher was a wheelchair-bound cueball with one of the most powerful brains anywhere.

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1

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Today, the X-Men’s riotous ranks are legion, but back then that first team made the Avengers look like any old Tom, Dick, and Harry just off the haywagon!

Didja Know… there’ve been six versions of Magneto’s Asteroid M?

Now, before you get your leotards in a loop wondering why we brought up the Master of Magnetism’s marvelous manor in the sky and what it has to do with X-MEN #1…because, as we all know, it debuted in the original UNCANNY X-MEN (1963) #5, just hang loose, hero, and all will be revealed.

Now, it took 28 years for a second X-MEN #1 to hit the scene—in 1991, natch—but when it did it brought along the third incarnation of Asteroid M, which first appeared in WEST COAST AVENGERS (1985) #57. That big ol’ chunk of rock featured prominently in the then-new X-MEN’s first storyline, until it was destroyed in X-MEN #3.

X-Men (1991) #1

X-Men (1991) #1

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But that’s as it should be, right? We mean, Warlock collided with the second Asteroid M, and the fourth one fell into the sun, the fifth one’s ruins became Utopia, and the sixth…hmm, whatever happened to the sixth? Don’t look up now, bunky; it just might be hanging over your head!

Didja Know… Jubilee became a vampire?

Oh, these X-MEN #1s, always such fun…at least for readers. For the merry mutants themselves? Not so much. Take young Jubilee, for example. She got turned into a bloodsucking creature of the night in 2010’s version of X-MEN #1, the third such landmark issue.

X-Men (2010) #1

X-Men (2010) #1

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See, right after the X-Men’s battle with Dracula, Jubilee got caught in what could only be delightfully described as a terrorist vampire suicide bombing. Sprayed with vampiric blood from an exploding fangster, the young mutant—she’d lost her powers earlier—started to take on all the atrocious aspects of a vampire until finally she faced the fateful facts: she needed to be measured for a coffin and pick out a black cape.

Now, don’t fret, friends! Yes, Jubilee was still a vampire when 2013’s X-MEN #1 debuted, but her climactic cure arrived later in GENERATION X (2017) #86, and X-fans everywhere sighed in relief. All that leaves now is the question on everyone’s muddled mind—what will the newest X-MEN #1 do to our mirthful mutants? And will we survive it?

Peruse these eye-poppin' publications with Marvel Unlimited right now! Then visit your local comic shop to read X-MEN #1 today!

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