ATG Top 10: X-Men (The Guys)

Welcome to our new Top 10 blog! I am so excited to be the first one to bring back our Top 10 lists and to be working on the writing side of things once again! So what we want to do today is take a quick look at some of my favorite males in the X-Men over the years. Now for this list, I will be taking X-Men offshoot groups like X-Factor, X-Force and New Mutants and the rest of them into consideration since they all in one way or another were working towards the same goal as the core group of X-Men. So before we jump right in with both feet, I want to remind everyone that we have a facebook group that you can visit by clicking the banner below. Be sure to join our group as this way you’ll see all our shares of geeky news and reviews! Also, if enough of you join and are active we want to revive the Ultimate Comic Smackdown that pits two very similarly powered characters from rival companies against each other and you get to decide the winner by debating it out with your fellow geeks! So let’s go and count things down!

#10 Warlock

Let’s start things out with an alien mutant! I have absolutely loved Warlock ever since I first saw him in New Mutants as a kid. For some reason, his way of speaking just instantly endeared him to me and his naivety in many areas just made me want to hug this character and be one of his self-friends. Warlock is one of the Techno-Organic race known as the Technarchy. This race uses a Techno-Organic virus to feed by injecting it into someone and then feeding off of their life energy after they have been taken over by the virus. Most of the Technarchy are fearsome warlike beings. However, Warlock the son of the Magus was seen as a mutant because he was peaceful and didn’t have the drive to go out and conquer like the rest of his race. Warlock and the rest of his race are pure shapeshifters being able to transform themselves into basically anything. One thing that will always stand out in my mind was the X-Termination Agenda storyline where a resurrected Cameron Hodge ended up killing Warlock. As a teenager reading this it just broke my heart. Warlock had weakened himself to free his friends from a Genoshan prison cell and Hodge took him to try to harness the Transmode Virus from him so he too could shift his shape. This ended up killing Warlock. This also leads to a group known as the Phalanx on Earth. Warlocks ashes were also spread over Doug Ramsay’s grave which later gave rise to a combination being known as Douglock. One thing I would LOVE to see with the way House of X has now brought cloning of mutants into being is a return of Warlock.

#9 Beast

I have always been a fan of Beast even before he became the fluffy blue-furred creature he is today. In fact, I used to own the comics where he took on the blue-furred form for the second time. Back in the day, Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, was a normal looking human and his mutation was super agility, strength and being able to grab things with his toes like a monkey’s basically. He was built like an ape but with the mind of a genius. However, in some of the X-Factor books (the original team made up of the original X-Men), he got to the point where whenever he used his powers he was losing his intellect. The more he used his powers the dumber he became. In one storyline a villain named Infectia got in close to Iceman and tried to kiss him. I know doesn’t sound bad but her kiss made people into monsters and she wanted to see what she could do to a mutant. Beast got in the way and intercepted the kiss to save Bobby and the backlash of Infectia’s powers turned him furry and blue again and restored his intellect. Since then Beast has gone through several form changes until now he is kinda back to somewhat of his older look. For a while, he had more of a feline almost lion-like appearance though still a nice deep shade of blue. While being very bright sometimes Beast can do some stupid things, like creating a mutant cure or stranding the X-Men’s younger selves in the present in an attempt to get the current X-Men back on course together. Beast has always been one of my favorites and not just because of how fluffy and cuddly he looks! Beast also has a dark version of him called Dark Beast that somehow crossed over to the 616 earth from the Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline, which was an interesting offset to the Beast we know in the mainline comics.

#8 Forge

Forge is on this list because I think he has one of the BEST powers ever. However, I also think he wastes it by designing weapons and such for the government usually. Forge’s powers are an intuitive knowledge of inventing, which basically means if he can think of something to create he can instinctively know what will be needed to create it. While I can see him using his powers to upgrade the X-Men’s tech considering I am all for the ideas they believe in, I have a harder time seeing this man trained as a Shaman creating weapons for a government. I personally would be trying to create machines to heal disease and stop cancer. Forge is a Native American who was trained to be a shaman but ended up fighting in the Vietnam War. While being a shaman forge relies more on his mutant ability to invent than he does his skills with magic. In the past, Forge has been involved in a few of the X-Men incarnations and in X-Factor while it was government lead. Forge has had relationships with Storm (which grew a bit strained when one of his inventions stole her powers for a while) and with Mystique. Forge was instrumental in the “Fall of the Mutants” X-men storyline which saw the entire team of X-Men along with Madelyne Pryor die. Thankfully, the team was brought back to life by the goddess Roma. Forge had to cast the spell that killed the X-Men because that was the only way to defeat the Adversary who was let loose on the world when Forge had summoned demons during the Vietnam War to avenge his friends that had died during the war. Forge was also one of the main characters during the Phalanx Covenant storyline as he got kidnapped by Douglock to try and stop the Phalanx from contacting the rest of them that were in space.

#7 Longshot

Longshot has always had a place in my heart probably because young me thought he had a bit of roguish charm about him. I have to admit that I did not like him as much in the TV shows as I did in the comics. Longshot is a mutant from an alternate universe that introduced the spineless Mojo into the X-Men comics. When he first debuted, he had no memories of his past but it was later found out that he had led a rebellion against Mojo. Longshot has luck powers that help him out when his motives are pure. This power is a very interesting one as it can do lots of interesting things like turn misses of his throws into hitting something odd that chain reacts to do something good for him. Longshot is also different from a lot of other characters as he only has four fingers. Longshot is known for using throwing blades as his main weapons which look a lot like the blades that are now common from ArchAngel’s wings. Longshot has an almost spiritual brother in powers in the Brian Lumbly Necroscope books as the character Darcy Clark has an ESP power called a “Guardian Angel”. His powers see luck fall on his side as well though not with reality-warping type things that seem to work for Longshot but they always reminded me of each other. Looking up Longshot to do this blog also lead me to find out some interesting genetics about him that I didn’t know since I didn’t follow the later versions of X-Factor. It seems that Longshot is the father of Shatterstar however, it was Shatterstars DNA that was used in the past to create Longshot! Talk about confusing since that would make each of them their own grandfather in an odd little time loop! Shatterstar is the only Mojo rebel that was not created by the geneticist that created the rest of the rebels in the Mojoverse and Shatterstar it has been told is the biological son of Longshot and Dazzler. At some point, it seems he went back in time with Rictor where they found out his connection as the genetic father to Longshot. They then traveled forward in time so Shatterstar could take his baby self from Dazzler when born and transport himself to the future where he would be raised by the ones that raised him but before he did that he erased Dazzler and Longshots memory of having a child. Such a convoluted family but then again that seems to be the norm for the X-Men especially when they add in time travel (ie. Scott Summers and Cable). Other interesting facts about Longshot are his skin is like leather and he has two hearts kinda like a timelord does!

#6 Banshee

Banshee has always been another great favorite of mine. To be honest, if there was a comic book character that you could say I had a crush on it would be Sean Cassidy. Banshee is the father of one of my favorite female mutants too, the beautiful Siryn! I think one of the reasons I always liked him so much is because I have a weak spot for redheads and Irish accents which he has both of! Banshee has the power known as a Sonic Scream and if the name of that doesn’t tell you exactly what he can do just think of twilight fangirls reactions if told they would meet Robbert Pattison and the noise they make would be akin to what he can do. However, all joking aside Banshee can use his scream to demolish buildings, fly and disorient his enemies. The one thing I hate though is that for such a cool character Banshee has never been treated very well in the comics, in many ways he is like Dazzler, underappreciated for what he can do and underutilized in storylines. Banshee was sidelined for a time by having his vocal cords hurt, then later in the X-Men they killed him off. He was recently brought back but kinda like a zombie (looking this up it has something to do with a deathseed thing which I’m not familiar with). It seems though that Banshee has been seen in the new House of X comics going through a portal looking to be whole and healthy once more. I can only assume this is thanks to some of the healing plants that Krakoa makes. I hope this means we’ll see him in action more and that he will be used well instead of abused like usual.

#5 Wolverine

The best there is at what he does and what he does isn’t pretty! Wolverines is probably one of everyone’s favorite X-Men over the years. He’s surely one of the 616 universes favorite X-Men as it seems he gets to hook up with a bunch of the lovely ladies and have a few other mainline beauties have a bit of a crush on him. One of his more shocking hookups seems to be with Squirrel-Girl and while I LOVE her to death I never would have pictured the two of them together, to be honest! Wolverine and Scott Summers have always had a bit of a rivalry going on both between their ideologies and the fact that Wolverine had a tendency to hit on Jean Grey (Who he actually was with in the Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline). While I love the character of Wolverine he is one of them that I think they have copied too much in the comics of Marvel. Just like in the Ultimates universe they watered down the Hulk I think in some ways they have just gone to the well too many times with Wolverine as well. I mean you have Wolverine, Old Man Wolverine, X-23, Badger, James (Son from Ultimates universe I think it was) and Dakan. Hell in the Exiles comic they had one issue that had hundreds of Wolverine’s due to the caretakers deciding to send team after team of Wolverine’s from different dimensions to take on a threat. Funniest part in that story was the fat Zombie Wolverine after eating like 20 of his other world counterparts. Does it count as cannibalism if you’re just eating another you? Just plain Wolverine I think has also been overused in the 616 as he tends to be on several teams at once and off on his solo adventures all at the same time. He was in the X-Men and Avengers and his own comic and X-Force and it just went on and on. This has been an ongoing problem in recent years with Marvel as they try to shoehorn their fan’s favorite characters into as many groups and stories as they can to try to keep sales up, however, in my mind, all they do is dilute the character until people don’t care as much. Wolverine has also been a huge staple in the X-Men movies played by Hugh Jackman but from what all the press has been saying is that he is done with Wolverine ever since he did the movie Logan so the big questions is when they finally bring Wolverine to the MCU who should be playing him? If you have any ideas post them in the comments below for your fan casting! Personally I think the guy who played Clayton Danvers in the show Bitten would make a good Wolverine!

#4 Iceman

Ah Bobby Drake, he could have so easily ended up as first on my list! Bobby Drake is a VERY relatable character, especially nowadays if you really think about it. When Bobby first debuted in the X-Men he wasn’t all that impressive a character. He was basically a walking snowball who could freeze things. His look wasn’t that great (but then again the art from back then compared to now is kinda pathetic for most things). The one thing thats always struck me about Bobby though is how relatable he was especially to the LBGTQ community and thats before they even brought him out of the closet as gay a while back. You see one big thing that they did with him that was even touched on in the movies some was that his family was not very good with the fact that he was a mutant. His father especially didn’t like that he was a mutant and with a world that hates and fears mutants at first Bobby tried to hide who he was, he fought with himself with being proud of who he was and what he did and shame at being a mutant. Over the years, Bobby became much more comfortable with who he was and by the time I was reading the series Iceman had his first mini-series and while his parents still weren’t comfortable with the whole mutant thing Bobby wasn’t hiding it as much anymore. I see many parallels with him being a mutant and coming out stories of the LGBTQ community. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they eventually said that Bobby was gay and while both Kevin and I think that new characters are better for representation, we also agree that the way they present Bobby makes sense to us. You see Bobby already had the stigma of being a mutant, his family was against it and it created a bunch of drama and trouble at home. The community doesn’t like mutants and people try to kill him simply because of who he is. So imagine you had this same environment but not only are you a mutant but you’re also gay! It makes sense that he would hide that for years because people in the LGBTQ community are treated like Marvels X-Men in many ways (though usually not with giant hunter killer robots trying to kill you). So it made sense to us that he wouldn’t want that double whammy. What we weren’t thrilled with is how Marvel Girl just calmly outs him without thinking about the consequences of her actions. That was kinda shitty of her which sucks because she is one of my fave females of the X-Men. Over the years, another change to Iceman is that he has become an Omega Level mutant. This means he is basically the most powerful or potentially most powerful mutant when stacked up against everyone else with a similar power set. Bobby can now do stuff like creating ice clones of himself and even control them. He can be smashed to pieces and still pull himself back together. Iceman has truly become an amazing character with great power. I unfortunately don’t think they do enough with him even if he is presented as a main character a lot.

#3 Gambit

A character that is loved by many, he has a tendency to jump back and forth in his story between hero and villain, yet he still comes out in the end with a heart of gold. Gambit’s power is to charge inanimate objects by converting their potential energy into kinetic energy which makes them explode violently upon any impact. Gambit’s signature move with this is to charge playing cards and throw them at his opponents. He first showed up during the “Days of Future Present” storyline. Gambit starts as a thief who brings a de-aged Storm under his wing. Eventually they make their way to the X-Men and he ends up joining them. Unknown to them then Gambit had a past with one of their major enemies Mister Sinister and indeed had been the cause of the Mutant Massacre of the Morlocks. Gambit had been contracted by Sinister to get the Marauders together and to show them where the Morlocks lived in the tunnels under New York. This attack on the Morlocks is where our next person on our list Angel lost his wings and thus lead to him becoming Archangel. Gambit has gone back to Sinister during the Messiah Complex storyline and has also been Death in one of the newer incarnations of Apocalypse’s horsemen. Another interesting twist that involves Mister Sinister came in one of the Alternate Universe stories in X-Men: The End where Gambit is actually the “son” of Sinister cloned from his DNA with a bit of Scot Summers DNA mixed in. In that story, Sinister was going to use Gambits body kinda the way they keep saying Apocalypse does by transferring into it. Gambit has had a one off in the X-Men movies notably the horrible movie that was X-Men Origins Wolverine. He was one of the few bright spots in the movie where they mostly seemed to get his character right (though the using his staff like a helicopter to jump from above stunt was horrible). Since then there have been many stories about a Channing Tatum led Gambit movie. Every year it seems there is talk about it and then it just kinda disappears. Now that Disney/Marvel has the X-Men back I would like to see them do a solo Gambit but not sure I would want Tatum as Gambit or someone else. Who would you guys pick as a fan cast for Gambit? In the comics, one of the big romances through the years was with Rogue and Gambit. They finally tied the knot in what was supposed to be an X-Men issue where Kitty and Colossus were supposed to wed. I know this is a much loved shipping due to the whole hopeless romance thing but I think most people liked it because it was a “hopeless” romance. Rogue never seemed to be one that would get and keep someone no matter how much she wanted it…it was kinda a huge part of her character and Gambit, well, he’s always been a bit of a charmer and ladies man. There’s also the fact that Gambit has had the shady past which tends to put Rogue off most of the time. I really hope they last but I’m afraid Marvel will ruin them. I also don’t think they were a good thing to do in the issue where Kitty and Colossus were supposed to get together finally but I think they ended up doing it so the fans didn’t riot from the loss of Kitty finding her happiness. I just hope this doesn’t blow up in Rogue or Gambits faces as I love both characters!

#2 Angel/Archangel

Warren Worthington III was also known as the Angel and later as Death one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen and then Archangel. Warren was one of the original X-Men whose power was that he had huge angel like wings. Combine this with his rich kid pretty boy looks and bright blond hair and you can see why he would get such a code name. Honestly, his power to fly with those wings is one I would love to have, to just soar through the sky on my own power. Warren is a millionaire and helps finance many of the X-Men’s exploits. Not only was he a founding member of the X-Men he also was a founding member of the Champions and X-factor’s original incarnation. Angel’s childhood friend Cameron Hodge is actually his arch nemesis and the commander of the anti-mutant group known as the Right. During the Marauder raid on the Morlock tunnels Angel was captured and crucified through his wings. Hodge telling him they were beyond repair had his wings amputated though it seems that would have been needless and Hodge had just done it to stick it to Warren. Apocalypse then got to Angel and promised him his wings back. Using stolen celestial tech Apocalypse turned Angel into the blue skinned and metal winged Archangel though at the time he was just called Death. He didn’t take the Archangel name until Beast gave it to him when he rejoined X-Factor after escaping Apocalypse’s control. Angel has had many romances over the years. First he had a crush on Jean Grey (but who doesn’t?) but when he found out she liked Scott he took the hint and backed off (unlike Wolverine). He dated Candy Southern who Hodge killed, he dated a Police Officer whose name I can’t remember at the moment and was almost turned into an energy vampire by killing her but he was able to stop himself from doing that. He has also been on again off again for years with Psylocke. Angel has also jumped between forms going back to his Angel form and then eventually being able to switch between Angel and Archangel. As Archangel his wings are razor sharp and can cut through most anything and his feathers are daggers that can be thrown with a flick of his wings that are tipped with a neurotoxin that can subdue his enemies. When Archangel gets mad, his wings will lash out on their own. Angel has had a chance to kill Apocalypse on multiple occasions but instead of living up to his name of Death he has spared Apocalypse. Angel even had a time when he and the Archangel form were split apart. Angel was taken by the Akkaba clan that worships Apocalypse and at the time was being run by Genocide. They promised to take the wings Apocalypse had given him away but they just took them off to make a whole host of Archangels. Archangel was a mindless husk at that point that Psylocke controlled with her Telepathy. Finally both forms were brought back together and remerged. Archangel was also a member of Cyclops’ strike team known as X-Force who would go out and kill those that needed to be killed before they could do the same to the mutants. Archangel had killed Hodge but thanks to a deal with a demon Hodge has been back as a huge cyborg twice and as part of the Phalanx. Another cool thing about Angel is he got a secondary mutation where his blood can heal other people, except for Nightcrawler as his parent race is the opposite of Angels parent race it seems.

#1 Nightcrawler

Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler or affectionately known by some as Fuzzy Elf earns number one spot for me. A swashbuckling pirate at heart and a demon in looks, Nightcrawler is a mutant who can teleport on his own or take others with him in a burst of smoke and stench of brimstone. Nightcrawler has been a mainstay of the X-Men since the second team that went into Krakoa to save the original team. The only time Nightcrawler hasn’t been a core member of the X-Men was when he was one of the founding members of Excalibur. Nightcrawler is one of the international team members hailing from Germany. His lineage is interesting as his mother is Mystique and his father is Azazel. For the most part, Nightcrawler takes after his dad with the demonic looks but he got the blue skin from his mom as his dad was the typical demon red. Due to Mystique being his mother, this means Rogue is his half sister. Nightcrawler can almost disappear completely in shadows and can cling to most surfaces with his prehensile toes and tail. For all his demonic looks and being chased as a kid by townsfolk thinking he was a demon he is actually a very devout believer in the Catholic faith. Kurt is an accomplished swordsman and acrobat and often puts these skills to work during battles. Nightcrawler was on the moon when Dark Phoenix died and was part of the X-Men team that fought the Shi’ar forces to try and save Jean Grey. Speaking of Jean, recently Nightcrawler was in a relationship with Rachel Summers the daughter of Jean and Scott Summers from an alternate future. Nightcrawler has always topped my list of favorite X-Men. I have been very sad the few times they have had him die, but thankfully they always find some way to bring him back, probably because the fans would riot otherwise.

So did you like my list? Would you have someone else you think should be on the list? If so let us know down below and maybe we’ll make a fan choice top 10! We are starting a new Patreon page with some cool littler perks and if we get enough Patreons we will be starting some awesome new things like a weekly Geek News roundup show on youtube and streaming the video games we play! Just go here to see it~~> All Things Geek Patreon