For almost as long as they have been in the comics, the X-Men and mutantkind at large have been stalked by a world that hates and fears them—a world that manifested that hate in the metallic, unflinching face of
The chronology of any comic book storyline or character—woven throughout decades of creative teams, retcons, and realignments to the narrative—is always a complicated affair.
The story of Marvel’s mutantdom is one of evolution, and with it, cycles—the rise and fall that almost always guarantees that the tale of the X-Men is one of endless battle, for a world that hates and fears them.
It’s fitting that the X-Men as an idea are as similarly cyclical as one of the franchise’s most iconic figures. “Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am Fire and Life incarnate!” cries Jean Grey, now the Phoenix, in X-Men #101, beginning a cycle of fated death and rebirth for her similar to the one…