by Jesse Walker-McGraw

I recently became obsessed. Not with One Direction or Twilight or my phone. I’m now obsessed with comic books. Yes, really. Oh, stop laughing. Comic books. X-Men comics, in particular. Stop laughing! Over the summer, one of my friends mentioned she liked comic books. I had passed a comic store a few times, and decided to check it out. Inside, I was confronted with shelves and shelves of super heroes. A life sized Spider-Man statue glared at me. I was hooked. I found three comics (that turned out to be X-Men) that looked like they were in roughly chronological order (they were parts one through three of five) and forked over about 12 bucks. When I got home and began inspecting my prize, I found I understood none of it. There was this guy with weird claws and a lady who controlled weather and a girl who controlled minds and had weird face tattoos. To find out more, I did what any self respecting nerd would do: I Googled stuff. A lot of stuff.

Six months later, I’m 50 comics richer and completely entranced. I now buy at least one comic a week, and recently spent an entire free period explaining comics to a long suffering friend. For those of you who are rolling your eyes right now, I’ll explain my obsession.

First of all I’m obsessed with X-Men comics only. I tried reading other comics (including Batman comics) and didn’t like them too much. With X-Men comics, there are several series going at the same time, and each focuses on different characters. There’s a series that focuses on just the women, a series that focuses on a school run by the X-Men (don’t laugh!) and a ton more. Each series is written and illustrated by different people, so each has a different style.

Another reason I’m obsessed is the diversity. In the 1960’s, when the X-Men series started, the discrimination against the heros (who are mutants) was supposed to reflect racism. Now, it represents, to some extent, homophobia. I love that women are shown in every type of role, as well. In the all-female series, there’s a female leader, a few female teachers, quite a few female fighters, and a teenage mom. Two of the women are Caucasian, two are Asian American, the leader is African, and some of the women don’t have clearly defined races. One female villain is blue.

This brings me to another reason for obsession: the awesome and bizarre storylines. To clarify, for those poor, poor souls who don’t know anything about the X-Men, they’re mutants, as I said before, which means they’re human but have extra abilities. This ranges from controlling the weather to telekinesis. Because of this, normal people are afraid of them and do stupid things like try to kill them. Which doesn’t go well for the humans. A typical story arc can deal with anything from aliens (there are a lot of aliens involved) to time traveling. Or both! The story arcs can have big effects on the characters and their world. For instance, the telepathic girl with weird face tattoos I mentioned? She’s from a story arc that happened in the 70’s, and she became a main character.

That brings me to the last awesome bit: the characters. What I love about them is they all have different layers. They function as a family, but continually fight. They seem to be on one side, but they’re really on the other. They all have huge emotional plot twists which make them feel like real people. Not to mention the awesomeness that comes from mutant powers.

Alright, people, I’ll leave you with an assignment. Go read a comic book! Further your education on American legends! Or at least watch the movies based on them. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.