X-Men for the Uninitiated

[GrnMarvl14]

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I'd copy and paste the article, but it has a few images to illustrate certain points.

This is really worth a read if you've ever wondered about the comics, or even if you know all about them. It's a great ultra-summary of the characters for people who are only familiar with the movies and animated series.

Great quote:

The love triangle with Jean and Scott and Logan goes back to the earliest days of the revival– the Dave Cockrum years. Remember, Wolverine was the team malcontent, the guy that created discord and tension. The love triangle was just one more way for that to happen. In fact, a lot of the reason so many fans hated Wolverine in the early days was because of that triangle and the idea that Logan might somehow break up Scott and Jean. People forget sometimes that it’s FICTION and that writers put their characters under pressure for a reason. The more tension you have, the more suspense there is about how it will all work out, then the more interesting the book is and the more engaged you are by the drama.

Really the love story with Scott and Jean went through so many wild freaky twists and turns, and taken as a whole makes both of them look so badly-behaved, that it’s best not to think about it as a complete history. Fans tended to forgive them because we all so loved the two of them as a couple, and the Dark Phoenix story was such a powerful love story that it overshadowed everything. We just KNEW they were in love, and the fact that they sometimes acted crappy to one another (Scott, especially, behaved very badly over the years) …well, that didn’t really ‘count’ in our heads as we were reading, we always forgave everything if they would just get back together.

The entire article does a great job of explaining the key differences between the movies and the comic, especially taking on the various characters (notably Rogue and Wolverine).