The Ravens Nest

or Why I Chose The X-Men X-Pansion

That’s right. You heard me. Dibs. That’s my campaign name for Marvel Multiverse RPG. Grabbed that one and the X-Men Expansion on a killer Black Friday Deal thanks to my brotha from anotha motha in this bad boy . If you’re not on board with the RPG Elite, I truly don’t know what to tell you other than you have everything to gain from incorporating just a few core traits that will drastically improve your gaming sessions and your life in some areas.

Really, what I wanted to get into was why I chose the X-Men Expansion (seriously…not X-Pansion…missed opportunity. Dad jokes still rule, just sayin’) is because, well, let me get into that.

Maybe you’re a Spider-Man fan, I get that. I love Spider-Man. I look at him as the ninja of the group. He’s agile, fast, quick-thinking, smart, strong as an ox and just comes across as fearless. Look, I’m a Spider-Man 2099 guy. Note, I’m talking about Miguel O’Hara. Is he Spider-Man? Yeah, In 2099. In NYC, it’s Peter Parker with Mary Jane and the kids all day long. You grab a copy of this game, you’re the next Spider-Man. Nothing I can say about it. Go play that Spider-Man.

Maybe you’re an Avengers fan. Cool, I like them too. I get it. Get after it. Have all that fun. Might even join up with you one day. Hey, Spider-Man Fan, Got some people over here you might like to meet. Y’all gotta meet this dude, total Spidey fan, you’re gonna love each other.

Muties! Where My Muties At! Yeeeeaaaahhhh!

They’re on the right track, baby, they were born that way.

That was it. That’s how Stan Lee described them. He just wanted super-heroes that he didn’t have to explain the origins of the super powers they had. They were born that way. How? Genetic Mutation. Next evolution. Causes all kinda shit to go sideways. Humans with telepathic/telekinetic abilities, Rapid healing factors, some so deformed that they can’t mingle with the rest of society, others with very visible mutations like that of Beast or Angel, Mystique or even Nightcrawler. Those are fascinating stories. Those characters were pretty relatable.

Let’s just take The X-Men for example. Start there. Charles Xavier starts a school where he teaches gifted adolescents how to control their abilities in a university/boarding school environment complete with a training facility. In the mind of Charles, these mutations are a next-stage of human evolution. One that we should embrace as those with special abilities could be productive members of society if we would stop being afraid and being a little more curious in application. Charles reminds us that the reason he’s suggesting we go that route is to repeat past mistakes. This time things can be different.

Then there’s Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. They’re a bit more militant. They don’t want to integrate, they want to dominate because, to them, it’s the only way to be certain that mistakes of the past aren’t repeated, and he doesn’t even see that he’s the one ready and willing to repeat those mistakes because it’s okay when he does it for some idiotic reason.

Naturally, Charles has to enlist the help of these literal children to become trained superheroes to stop a villainous threat despite the fact that the entire world probably still hates the mutants for simply having a mutation over which they had zero control.

Now that’s the premise. That’s the art. Whatever you want to assign to that is fine by me.

So the X-Men were like the boarding school of mutants that learned how to use and control their powers to benefit themselves and the lives of those around them. They don’t assault other humans or other mutants for no reason. They use their powers in defense of themselves, each other and other people and never engaging unless engaged first.

The New Mutants were supposed to be an X-Men Junior League until they became a spinoff but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the first spinoff ever of that was…

X-Factor. This one reunited the original X-Men Lineup. It was pretty great to see. The OG X-Men were sort of a firm of Mutants for Hire. Pretty gnarly stuff. When the round of 1990s #1 Reboot comics came along, this one got a revamp too. With the OG X-Men now split between teams Blue and Gold, X-Factor got repopulated and were now a government-operated X-Team.

Excalibur was the British team of mutants. I didn’t really read this title. I didn’t read Alpha Flight either

I wasn’t huge into X-Factor but my primary titles were X-Men and X-Force.

X-Force is what the New Mutants became after Cable joined and took the leadership role and moved them out of Xavier’s school and into the Adirondack Mountains like your crazy prepper uncle, which, when you begin to think about it these days, is it really that crazy?

In any case, I thought the concept of mutants was something that resonated with me and hence, rather than the Avengers, Kang, or Spider-Man supplement (All were available at great prices but I could only get the core book and one other thing) I chose X-Men.

Don’t get me wrong here, Champions Fourth Edition probably could have done the trick in one book. Sentinel Comics could have even done it but I kinda wanted to go to the source on this.

Why? Because my table of players is mostly brand new to this thing. Save for maybe one player, the greater majority of them have never once played one of these games and have no idea what this is. They’re going to want to go directly to source without a bunch of headache. You wouldn’t believe what it took to get them into Cairn. We had a lot of games prior to that that just didn’t stick for whatever reason.

I love X-Men, primarily Wolverine and Cable. Loved Deadpool too because I remember when The Merc With A Mouth just talked, incessantly, whether you wanted him to or not, while he was trying to take out his target. He wasn’t quite as funny then and his humor was far more subtle and not so over-the-top.

I’m going to tell you exactly why I loved the X-Titles and Marvel’s mutants.

You can talk all you want about Wolverine’s age, his healing factor, his claws, his children (clones) and the absolute hell the character has been through. A character that was nearly on the chopping block got some major character development over the years to the point where he became the most popular mutant Marvel had ever created.

That’s not who I’m going to focus on today. I’m going to focus on one issue that will tell you everything about Marvel’s mutants. This is what you won’t see on the big screen.

I’m talking about X-Force #18, the conclusion of The X-Cutioner’s Song saga. The premise was simple. You had Cable, a mutant from the future (taken into the future, son of Scott Summers and Jean Grey) who has to use his psionic powers to keep a tekno-organic virus at bay. That’s why he’s so cybernetic. The virus is literally doing that to him. He has a clone named Stryfe who has the same power but not the virus. He’s bored, he’s psychotic and he is out to destroy Cable at any and all costs.

That brings us to the storyline. Lila Cheney is giving a concert, Professor X speaks at this concert and brings a message to the crowd, a mix of normies and mutants and tells them they really have nothing to fear and most mutants actually are willing to assimilate and enhance everyday life.

His speech is compelling, powerful and riveting. The kind of speech that changes minds and gives food for thought (because we did things like that back in the day, wild times) and a lone figure steps up and attempts to assassinate Xavier.

Everyone thinks it’s Cable. Certainly looked like Cable. While Cable isn’t exactly Magneto, he and Xavier have had their differences in approach due to their wildly-different backgrounds.

Cable’s realistic while Xavier is an ideologue but not a dangerous one. Magneto is the dangerous one. Still, this wouldn’t have caused such a rift between them.

Over the issues, you and I know it’s Stryfe. No one else in the universe on that page did. Turns out, wasn’t Cable at all (no kidding) because Cable was in an orbiting station the entire time.

This brings us to X-Force #18. By the time we get here, we know. Stryfe tried to assassinate the Professor, he’s holding Scott and Jean hostage from his spot on the moon and Cable decides this is it, he’s had all he is going to tolerate from his clone.

Stryfe kicks the whimpering shit out of Cable.

Cable has a plan though, Spoilers Ahead.

He, damaged and beat up as he is, he has the wherewithal to drag Stryfe over a bomb.

Scott is holding the detonator.

Cable is screaming at him to hit the button.

Scott can’t.

This is heavy stuff to lay on a reader in the 90s, especially a teenager. These are two parents watching their son battle the absolute worst of himself that his genes could have to offer. He knows that it has to end and it has to end sooner, rather than later before Stryfe successfully murders someone else and throws everything into chaos and undoes all that the Professor and The X-Men have worked to accomplish.

These are parents watching their own child telling them that the only way to be sure was to destroy both of them.

When it finally blows, it opens a vortex that sucks both of them down while the silhouette clearly shows the two of them in a hockey-style slugfest before it all closes and both are lost.

We know Marvel, they’ll always bring characters back.

I have yet to see Stryfe re-enter the conversation at all and he was one of Marvel’s most terrifying villains. The X-Titles always held the most intrigue for me.

Could we still do all that from the core book? Probably. I know Spider-Man, The Avengers, Silver Surfer, The Fantastic Four, etc are all in there. You’re essentially creating your own Marvel Superhero. You’re playing out all your favorite stuff and guess what, folks? I’m setting Earth 5150 firmly in the 90s, my favorite era of the X-Titles. For me, there’s just none better than those.

As much as 90s comics get raked over the coals, there were moments of full-development with setups, no matter how small paying off down the line. That was what kept me searching for back issues and wanting the next month’s issue.

For me, after that, X-Force fell off my radar. Over time, the responsibilities piled up and the time to read comics kinda got lost in the shuffle. I hear Wolverine led it at one point. Decent fit I suppose. I’d rather see where Table: Earth 5150 takes it. We can do Avengers and that kinda thing down the line, maybe. Maybe I’ll solo it. Kinda makes me wish I still had all of those X-Men action figures from childhood, probably could have built some dioramas and photographed the action figures in action like comic panels for the Against All Odds Substack.

We’ll see how it all works out. Tell me about your favorite characters, teams, titles, etc.

Even if it’s not X-Men.