X-Men

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our years on the Internet, it’s that there’s no aspect of comics that can’t be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of five or ten. And since there’s no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we’re taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. There's nothing fun about the topic, but death is unquestionably a huge part of superhero comics, and this week we're looking at five of the deaths that had the most profound effect on the Marvel Universe.

When superheroes make the transition from comics to TV animation, it's always interesting to hear what kind of theme music they get. Songs with lyrics that explain who the heroes are can be fun, but they can also go awry. Instrumental tracks can be boring if you're not careful, but if they're well-executed, they can do a great job of creating just the tone you want for your cartoon. I've put together a chronological list of nine memorable theme songs from TV superhero cartoons. Obviously I can't include them all, but I expect to see in the comments which of your favorites I've left out.

It took the X-Men films over a decade to finally introduce the iconic Sentinel robots, but will TV manage to do it far sooner? That’s the word on FOX’s as-yet-untitled X-Men TV series, which producers claim will feature the mutant-hunting baddies, “though very different from what we’ve seen before.”

When you hear talk of the standalone Gambit movie, most — well, pretty much all — of it has the word “delay” in there somewhere. The movie started off strong: Channing Tatum signed on for the title character, it had a director, and everything looked good. Then, the first delay happened, it lost director Rupert Wyatt, got a new one, and was delayed some more. But fans of the trickster need not lose hope yet: X-Men producer Laura Schuler Donner says Tatum is still signed on to do a standalone Gambit movie in the future. We just don’t know when.

Even a murderous mercenary loner needs a couple friends every now and then.

The X-Men are slowly taking over. On TV, we’re getting FX’s Legion, on the big screen, we’re getting Logan, a Deadpool sequel, and New Mutants. Even after the decidedly dismal X-Men: Apocalypse, the film series that makes up the spine of the X-Men franchise is still planning on a further installment, and now we might know the title.

FX X-Men drama Legion has understandably pulled focus for its February premiere, but what of Burn Notice creator Matt Nix’s FOX series, which was said to feature a couple with mutant children on the run? Reports indicate a pilot order is heating up, while Nix himself previews the untitled series’ place within the X-Men films.

You’d be forgiven not to have the clearest sense of what Noah Hawley’s X-Men derived Legion is actually about, given the surreal nature of all the footage released. By the same token, its mutant connection to the X-Men world has been kept somewhat vague, though Hawley himself now explains what powers and connections to the franchise we’ll see in Season 1.

2016 has been quite a year, and we can only imagine what 2017 will bring. As I look back at what superhero comics have been in the past year, I can't help but think about what the future holds. DC Rebirth, I admit as someone who was skeptical going in, has overall led to some great comics. Civil War II has been less encouraging, although there have still been some very good Marvel comics this year. DC and Marvel comics seem simultaneously to always be relaunching and never changing. But there are changes creeping in around the edges if you pay attention. With that in mind, I've put together five hopes --- five suggested resolutions if you will --- for what I'd like to see from mainstream superhero comics in 2017.

Welcome to Costume Drama, where we turn a critical eye toward superhero outfits and evaluate both the aesthetics and the social issues that often underlie them. For this installment I'm looking at five characters who've been redesigned as a group more than perhaps any other team: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel and Beast, the original founding members of the X-Men. In particular, I want to look at the costumes that the teenage versions of these characters have worn since they traveled to the present in Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen's All-New X-Men.