What do you like about the X-men?

[wano]

Don't underestimate men's ability to appreciate female characters

[Tarantino]

All of the above. Characters and stories the most.

[WebLurker]

I'm in the "specific character" camp; I like X-23 comics a lot, but don't read other X-Men stuff. (Think the poll should've included movies and cartoons/TV shows; some of those are really good and there are fans for whom that this the only aspect of the franchise that they follow.)

[WheelchairX]

All of the above but the metaphor got me there. Being someone with a physical (and noticeable) disability, I connect with these characters and stories more than any others because it is honestly so real and relatable on so many levels.

[Dethi]

Well for me it's pretty much the two first.

I started reading X-Men for Jean and Scott and their interaction and it's still the case.

But it became much more than that while still being my main reason to still reading X-Men.

I also think that superheroic is one reason I started reading comics in general and X-Women (and womens in comics in general) came after.

[Silvermoth]

I love them because I love seeing the thing people hate them for being celebrated and actually being wonderful. That meant so much to me growing up

[Sutekh]

Characters and interaction, specific character (in this case, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Madrox, Monet, I've got a lot of 'specific characters...'), superheroics and strong women (Jean, Storm, Rogue, etc.).

I probably could have picked minority/metaphor as well, but it's not my favorite thing about the X-books. (And definitely not Team Magneto, or the fanbase, which, if anything, are turn-offs. If anything, I like some of these characters *despite* their fans...)

[Gortam]

-Characters & their Interactions

tbh i could read an X-Men book that had no action in it w/ the right cast, artist, & writer.

This. Exactly.

Many times i think action for the sake of action undermines the quality of X-Men books.

[pandafarmer]

For me it's the "family" I grew up with and spoke to me as a teen. I wasn't a troubled soul necessarily, but I lived vicariously through their struggles and I felt like they were my "people." Superman/Batman/Cap/Spidey always felt so safe and boring to me. These guys were the misunderstood rebels who did good in spite of appearances and how people treated them.

As I grew older I went away from reading comics but every now and again something would pop up in a feed and I'd be drawn back in. In today's digital age it's much easier to do that, and I can take my entire collection on a plane ride and "check in." Now in my mid-40s I still enjoy reading the stories and re-reading titles I perhaps missed during one of my down times.

So for me, community was never a part of it. I was the only one in my circles that really read comics. Sure I like "the girls" but honestly it's because they are interesting characters rather than generic bimbos.

[sungila]

For me it's the "family" I grew up with and spoke to me as a teen. I wasn't a troubled soul necessarily, but I lived vicariously through their struggles and I felt like they were my "people." Superman/Batman/Cap/Spidey always felt so safe and boring to me. These guys were the misunderstood rebels who did good in spite of appearances and how people treated them.

As I grew older I went away from reading comics but every now and again something would pop up in a feed and I'd be drawn back in. In today's digital age it's much easier to do that, and I can take my entire collection on a plane ride and "check in." Now in my mid-40s I still enjoy reading the stories and re-reading titles I perhaps missed during one of my down times.

So for me, community was never a part of it. I was the only one in my circles that really read comics. Sure I like "the girls" but honestly it's because they are interesting characters rather than generic bimbos.

Thank you wano for offering up such a wonderful topic for discussion!
I relate to much of what other posters have shared and much of what pandafarmer shares here. Especially the bolded.

Nightcrawler being there on the cover of Uncanny X-Men #210 and the Cockrum solo series and me being chosen and chosing by way of fate and some sort of immediate self recognition and affiliation with this damaged self-sacrificing blue mutant fighting in the dank sewers who is also that same flirty inter-dimensional teleporting rogue pirate lost and outcasted to the real of a fantasy sourced in the essences of his memories, friends, enemies and unbound storybook soul through skies of seas and below the streets through the gutters a blue light in the black coal shadow...it just happens I suppose. At a certain time in place the you that you are says that's 'me' and for some reason you believe it's true...and then it is.

But this Nightcrawler initiation isn't something that just happens once and then it's done. It's a ceremony of panels, pages, interactions, fire passings, expansions and affiliations (from Kurt to Illyana) and when events in life rekindle with those mirroring moments of recognition. Me again and still again.

And in a sense, nostalgia art persona and avatar are exercises of the metamorphic cycles of timelessness (stuff of skies and seas and soul) of which we are as a riveting flow, recasting, reshaping, spiraling our stands and threading our weave. It's a shape we take from the shaping stuff in order to shape it...a ship for the sky and sky for the sea.

So for me, it's Nightcrawler mostly. And then Magik. And then 'the Mutant'. And so much more but when it's 'so much more' it's hard for me to say if it's the shape of what I made or the shape of what I took from...um...

What I'm saying is that it begins with a character and personal interaction...a subtle silent KA-POW! moment that forges that POV...that is 'me' and then it's as if there was no beginning at all. From there it goes at least eight ways in both ways...and at any point along all those ways...again and again.

Eventually my excuses could be that I dig the Mutant anti-hero outsider aspect of superhero realism. I'm more given to multiverses than to urban fantasy and the something about Claremont and his creative team of artists speaks to me and continues to even as others speak and expand upon that wellspring of origin in language and tone. Maybe Claremont's greatest gift is that he knowingly challenged himself to let his characters tell and be their own stories. Something a creator can't do, something impossible, but so is all art...it's something that isn't and wasn't but is and must have been something in order to have become.

Ask a river why the sea and why this way and when you listen what does it say?

[bigstupidjellyfish]

I love the the characters and the way they interact, Gambit, the superheroics, the metaphor, and the X-Women. I don’t think I should explain why.

[Grey]

This thread made me realize that the superheroes and action, while enjoyable, are not a high priority for me. I can recall some episodes of XTAS that are my favorite that have little action.

[wano]

This thread made me realize that the superheroes and action, while enjoyable, are not a high priority for me. I can recall some episodes of XTAS that are my favorite that have little action.

Same here, my favorite episode of TAS is "No mutant's an island" and I like it mostly because it shows us a very human side to Cyclops as he struggles with Jean's departure, rather than non stop action

[OldManMagneto]

I like the consistent complaining I get to do.

[nx01a]

I chose...

The characters and their interactions
I love a specific character
Superheroics
Minority / LGBT+ / Outcast metaphor