I liiiiiiive.
Yeah, sorry, life things have been happening. I've been lurking, just not doing any posting.
Anyway, long story short, I've been pulled back into the X-Men figure game (Hasbro figs are Soo good) but this is the third collection that I'm making from scratch, and like... I want a few characters, but not the 48 I had planned once upon a time.
So my question is this, if you had to narrow down the insanity that is the x-men franchise to a Max of 15 X-Men and 15 villains, who would be your picks.
Are we talking favourites or what you consider to be essential team?
Essential:
Prof X, Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Kitty, Angel, Iceman, Rogue, Psylocke, I guess Gambit because I was a kid in the early '90s, and actually that's it unless you want Forge. Maybe Bishop or somebody. I love Jubilee, but if you have Kitty then she doesn't have a point. I'd stick her with Generation X.
I was going to do costume choice picks but that's pretty personal taste. For example, I'd generally go with Wolverine's brown costume, one of Cyclops' costumes that covers the hair, I really like Storm in the white version of her classic costume or punk look, so I'm all over the place for that.
I'd be inclined to have Havok and Polaris off to the side, but then it would want me to go with other characters I don't consider "X-Men" proper and you open some weird doors. Blink. Fantomex. Xorn. Doop. No-Girl. I'd love a No-Girl figure. This is when it would start to get a little crazy.
Essential villains:
Magneto, a sentinel (or Master Mold?), Apocalypse, a Brood Queen, Mr. Sinister, Mystique, Sauron, Mojo, White Queen (Other Hellfires? - Oh wait, did you want Emma to be an X-Man?!), Juggernaut (with or without Black Tom), Sabretooth, Dark Beast maybe?, Blob, Toad...
Can you do Dark Phoenix if you have Jean on the team?
After this it starts to feel like adding one would need multiple smaller groups. Even Toad and Blob were pushing it there. I'd rather lump them with a Brotherhood, but I was never into Avalanche/Pyro, and Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch should go with the Avengers. Mastermind and Unus seem like a waste at that point.
Aw heck, I'd probably put Cassandra Nova as an essential villain too. See? I'm not stuck in the past. What do you mean she was created 17 years ago?
Okay, I dunno about the villains right now, I'd have to come back to them.
If you want to go with both, go for it, I'm not even sure where *I'm* going with this whole thing... See, originally my "X-men shelf" covered 24 X-men... 8 original (the 7 X-men+Xavier), 8 Second Gen era (the 7 recruited for Krakoa + Kitty), and 8 "modern" like Rogue, Gambit, etc.
The problem with doing that setup again is that this is literally my third time scrapping everything and starting over for various reasons (I WAS done with collecting X-men entirely, but damnit that Brown Wolverine figure is so gorgeous) and I do not have the love for the franchise I once did. Additionally... while being a completionist is all well and good, filling in obscure gaps like Thunderbird (part of the reason I switched the first time is the 3.75" line had a 6 pack with him in it) Banshee, and Polaris... I'm just not up to it any more.
Anyway, right now, the ones that are FOR SURE locked in are: Wolverine, Cyclops, Phoenix, and Colossus. The first three because they're purchased (used a bit of tax money) and Colossus because he is my fav and I would not do an X-men shelf without him (though to HFIL with the recent ML fig in his fugly costume). Mainstays like Storm, Xavier, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pride, Rogue, Beast, and Gambit are also pretty easy picks. A couple classics that I'm sure other people will post but I'm PERSONALLY not fond of are:
Psylocke: Mehhhhh. I know she was the hotness for a lot of fans, but I never really got into Psylocke like, at all. The whole body swap thing is also squicky to me and I never found her that terribly interesting. I know I'll get haters for that, but it's the truth.
Bishop: This one is frustrating to bring up, because I used to LOVE Bishop. He was one of my favorites. But then the whole hope hunt thing happened and it just DESTROYED any empathy I had for the character. And unlike with Cyclops, where I felt his descent into being a "villain" made the character more interesting, Bishop was just... a zealot. I had no empathy for his goals or his cause, and the whole thing took decades of development and flushed it down the toilet. And as much as I want to remember him how he was, this cool time travelling mutant with a cool power and tons of history (not to mention being an early black superhero when comics REALLY needed more of them) and while I know they tried to redeem him more recently... I can't shake the bad taste out of my mouth.
Heroes:
1.Cyclops
2.Jean
3.Beast
4.Iceman
5.Angel
6.Wolverine
7.Storm
8.Nightcrawler
9.Colossus
10.Kitty
11.Rouge
12.Psylocke
13.Gambit
14.Emma Frost
15.Xaiver
Villains:
1.Magneto (Although by this point he's more of anti-hero, having been an X-Man for the last 10 years and all,)
2.Mystique
3.Apocalypse
4.Mr.Sinister
5.Sabretooth
6.Blob
7.Pyro
8.Avalanche
9.Goblyn Queen
10.Juggernaut
11.Sauron
12.Mojo
13.Sentinel
14.Sebastian Shaw
15.Selene
And while I'm at it, here are all the other 'essential' X-Men in case something comes up. Continuing off of the initial list, we have:
16.Jubilee
17.Dazzler
18. Forge
19.Banshee
20.Bishop
21.Cannonball
22.Cable
23.Havok
24.Polaris
25.Magik
26.Rachel
27.X-23
28.Pixie (Don't care much for her, but she's a modern mainstay)
29.Longshot (Though only because of Claremont)
30.Fantomex (I don't care for him, but it doesn't change that he's a modern mainstay)
31. Magneto (Double-dipping, I know. Again, he's been an X-Men for about a decade on top of his 80's stint, so he counts)
...They really do breed like rabbits, don't they?
Man, you are a wild collector. Holy smokes. How do you afford this hobby? I hope when you are getting rid of them it's because you are selling them.
I think you've got your mainstay bases covered here. I went on wikipedia to see a list of all X-Men members and since the 21st century and they are adding all sorts of people.
This one's a matter of the heart. I just asked a friend to make his X-Men dreamteam, all eras, pick whoever and he picked: Beast, Storm, Colossus, Forge, Nightcrawler, Cypher, Warlock, Husk, and Dazzler.
I don't know who mine would be.
Jebus kkohoho.
For my part, I'm more or less settling on:
- Xavier-If we can get his golden chair from the jim lee/90s cartoon I'd be all over it.
- Cyclops- Bought the ANAD Cyclops from the Dark Phoenix two pack. I have a soft spot for the Astonishing costume, but the classic fits better with the overall look of the shelf.
- Iceman- Hrm. Part of me wants to settle for the recent ML Iceman... but my favorite look for Bobby is his X-factor outfit with the giant X. Hasbro captured he look very well in the MU line, and I wish we had one like it in the larger scale. I'd honestly take any form of classic Bobby on a modern buck though.
- Angel-For reasons I'll get into, I'm leaning towards a form of classic Angel, as opposed to his more common "archangel" look. I'm partial to the blue version of the costume, but if the red comes out first I'll take it
- Beast-Classic Blue and Furry.
- Phoenix- Green Phoenix.
- Nightcrawler- Classic
- Wolverine- Brown and Tan. I like the yellow/blue costume, but I've always appreciated the Brown look more.
- Storm- Admittedly I'd love to see Storm's white costume, but she's had a ton of decent costumes that would fit well next to he classic X-men looks, but all she's had is mohawk figures. Not that they're bad, but the modern costume is too busy and the 80s one is a bit too punk.
- Colossus- Classic
- Shadowcat- The more modern one on the ML is perfectly fine.
- Rogue-90s with the jacket
- Gambit-the pink look.
The last one I'm torn by. I have a soft spot for x-23, Changeling/Morph, and Warpath, but none of them are huge mainstays of the books, and I'm of half a mind to leave it just to the 14. The only problem with that is my OCD going "Duhr, do more. 14 isn't well rounded enough"
As for the Villains... I kinda like the idea of the villains parallelling the heroes.
- Magneto-Him being in opposition to Xavier is a no brainer. Classic costume.
- Cyclops- The modern one. Mr. Sinister used to be my go-to, but while I think the post-AvX Cyclops is complex, I *do* consider him to be a villain in the same way Magneto is a villain: doing things the wrong way for the right reasons. I also love the idea of the modern Cyclops facing off against his classic, idealistic self.
- Pyro- Fire and Ice. Classic look.
- Archangel-It got a bit stale, but I kinda liked the jekyll hyde thing angel had going on with himself in X-force.
- Dark Beast-Classic.
- Dark Phoenix- Evil Jean Grey. Classic.
- Toad- I don't have a great reason for this, but I just loved their interaction in X-men evolution. They've got decently equivalent powers too, and I'm just as happy to give Toad some love... unlike most other media.
- Sabertooth- Classic look.
- ???- Not sure on this one. Shadow King has been my go-to, but he's not a parallel so much as a villain the cartoons love to pull out for the obligatory "storm" episode. He has a history, sure, but neither his powers nor his backstory are that close to Storms.
- Juggernaut- Classic
- Emma Frost- I waivered on putting her as a hero but I opted not to for two reasons. 1, I don't really have a good villain to pair with Emma, and 2. Emma fits better on the same side as Modern Cyclops. As for costume, the ML one is... ok, but I'd rather wait to see if we get a more modern one.
- Mystique-Classic
- Mr. Sinister- Classic.