It was the spring, I believe, of 1963. I had walked up to Bungalow News in downtown Pasadena to check their science-fiction and comic stands. On the latter I found the first issue of a new comic book from Marvel Comics, which had recently swum into my ken with “Fantastic Four,” “Spider-Man” and “The Avengers.” This was another super-hero-group series called “The X-Men.” The story was about a group of four young people with mutant superpowers, their mentor the crippled telepath Charles Xavier (from which, one supposes, the “X”) who used his Westchester, Mass., school for special students as a cover for the training of mutant superhumans, and their interactions with a society of normals that hated them and another group of supermutants who, under the leadership of the somewhat sympathetic but twisted Magneto, believed that war between normals and mutants was inevitable and that it was the duty of mutants to destroy normals.

In 1963 such a plot was not new, but it was not terribly old, either. Mutants were largely a product of post-Hiroshima science-fiction; the first sympathetic treatment of them of which I am aware was Wilmar Shiras’s “In Hiding,” which appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction at the end of the forties, and was published in book form (with several later stories about the same characters) as Children of the Atom at the end of the fifties. Almost all science-fictional mutants, of course, had superpowers of some sort, most often psionic (telepathy, telekinesis, the ability to see through ladies’ underwear or whatever). This is understandable; who would be interested in a story about a mutant whose (much more likely) mutation was having twelve toes or three nostrils or whatever?

What was perhaps more interesting was the emphasis on misunderstanding, not good vs. evil, as the cause of conflict. The X-Men — Henry “Beast” Jones, Scott “Cyclops” Summers, Bobby “Iceman” Drake and Jean “No special nickname” Grey — were far from evil, though from time to time they were known to lose their tempers, something which for a mutant with their powers could be infinitely dangerous (in Jean’s case, eventually literally infinitely). Humans did not hate mutants; they were simply scared to death of them. Even the “evil” mutants ⁽¹⁾, most notably Magneto, had understandable reasons for fearing humans (in Magneto’s case, the destruction of his entire family in a pogrom).

With the introduction of new mutants (originally called, quite logically, The New Mutants but later subsumed as X-Men) some years later, concentration seemed to narrow down on this concept of pogrom with a story line that involved Congress passing repressive laws against mutants, thus seeming to justify Magneto’s vendetta against mankind. This is largely the storyline that’s been picked up by the movie, which is (IMHO) very good, and not just for the spectacular special effects.

The film begins in a very Spielbergian way, with old grainy footage of Jewish prisoners being herded into Auschwitz, where parents are separated from their children in anticipation of becoming part of the Final Solution; this is where we see the future Magneto first display his powers in a vain attempt to save his parents. Cut to Meridian, Mississippi, in the “not too distant future,” where a teen-age “Rogue” (Anna Paquin) finds out that she, too, has a very uncomfortable superpower, and immediately splits from home. At the same time we see Senator Robert Kelly (Bruce Davison) haranguing his Committee, and an uncomfortable witness Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Jansson), about the need for a Mutant Registration Law (after all, these people are more dangerous than a loaded firearm), while Charles “Professor X” Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Erik “Magneto” Lensherr (Ian McKellen) watch separately from the gallery. Cut to the remote and icy reaches of Canada, where a fleeing Rogue encounters super-powerful I-wanna-be-bad “Wolverine” Logan (Hugh Jackman), with his built-in instant healing capability and a skeleton of unbreakable adamantium that seems to be the result not of mutation but of some kind of surgical intervention, of which he has no memory. Both are saved from collection by Magneto’s minions when, out of the snow, Ororo “Storm” Munroe (Halle Berry) and Scott “Cyclops” Summers (James Marsden) ⁽²⁾ appear on the scene.

The main thrust of the story has to do with a plot by Magneto to capture Rogue and use (actually, use UP) her superpower to drive a machine that will convert all the world’s powerful to mutants, and thus give them a stake in protecting mutants against “normals.” Pitted against this are, primarily, Cyclops, Storm and Jean, together with a Wolverine who remains not entirely convinced of which side he really should be supporting.

A number of the other characters in the comic series make cameo appearances. I missed Jubilation “Jubilee” Lee, the mall rat, but there’s a good shot of Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde walking through a door without opening it first; according to the IMDB, Piotr “Colossus” Rasputin is also there, but I missed him, too, somehow ⁽³⁾. Bobby “Iceman” Drake shows up several times, not as one of the original X-Men but as a minor student in a school that has a much larger student body than Xavier’s school in the comics; Hank Jones is not present. Over among the “evil” mutants, besides Magneto we see Mortimer “Toad” Toynbee (Ray Park) from the original Brotherhood ⁽⁴⁾, and later additions Raven “Mystique” Darkholme (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) (who plays a very significant role) and Victor “Sabretooth” Creed (Tyler Mane); I miss the sleazy-looking “Mastermind”. Cerebro, the mutant-tracking device, plays an important role, though the Danger Room is neither shown nor mentioned (in a sequel, perhaps?). The Blackbird and its underground hangar are present. NSC agent Henry Peter Gyrich is also present, though apparently dead for some time …

The film handles the story just right, in my opinion. Most notably, Xavier plays a significant role in the first half of the story, but a bit over halfway through is rendered hors de combat, and the principals among the students at his school have to save the situation themselves. They do so not only with superpowers but with the kind of teamwork we’ve come to expect from them in the comics; the battle in the Statue of Liberty is as full of closely-timed handoffs as a well-played (but short) basketball game, this despite a fair amount of testosterone-charged rivalry between two of players.

A lot of recent SFX films have run overlong (as someone once said, you don’t worry about this when people simply look at their watches, but when they hold them up to their ears and start shaking them …). X-Men runs almost two hours, but I don’t remember looking at my watch once, and when the film ended, I was surprised at how short it had seemed. And it leaves lots of room for a sequel or two; the mystery of Wolverine’s skeleton, for instance, is never resolved, though Xavier makes a suggestion that could ultimately lead Logan to Canada’s Alpha Flight and another adventure. Whatever, I look forward to a few sequels. In the meantime, enjoy this one.

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⁽¹⁾ Who named themselves in a most unlikely way: “The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants”.

⁽⁴⁾ If this man ever gives you the rough edge of his tongue, the experience may be quite painful.