X-Men: The 20 best characters of the last decade
By Mark Lynch
Which X-Men heroes and villains are the best and most important of the past 10 years?
People have loved the X-Men since the very beginning. The idea of people being hated for who they are is a tale as old as time. What’s funny is the fear is reserved for only X-Men in Marvel Comics. As Cyclops said in Astonishing X-Men, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four don’t get chased through the streets with torches. He’s right. The bias against mutants makes no sense. Nonetheless, it’s made for over 50 years of incredible stories.
A lot of people consider the stories between the late 1970s to early 1990s to be the best age for X-Men comics. While they were definitely incredible, Marvel’s Mightiest Mutants have produced more great stories in the recent past. They’ve left the country to be on Utopia. The Schism led to some changes on the rosters. And the death of Cyclops and Wolverine left a void on the team. All of these had major ramifications on mutants and the entire Marvel Comics universe.
Rather than go back and spend time discussing the best X-Men of all time, this list will focus on the last 10 years. A time where there were a lot of changes to the roster and the culture of mutants as a whole. More importantly, these characters have grown. Not just in age, but in maturity. Some of them took a while to become essential while others have slowly grown into the big time stars we currently see.
On that note, let’s take a look at who the best and most important X-Men characters of the past decade are.