Talk:X-Men/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Social issues

So several people have reverted my edits to this section, but no one seems to be offering any substantial explanation for why. My understanding of the verifiability policy is that material that is challenged -- such as this -- must come down until a source is provided. Of course, it's courteous to leave things up for a bit to give other editors the chance to hunt down a citation before the material is taken down. To quote:

All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable 
published source using an inline citation. ... The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or
restores material. You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it. How
quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might
object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references.

In this case, the material was flagged as needing citations more than four years ago, but no one bothered to cite more than a few small portions of it. Now that it's challenged, I took down the uncited portions and left the cited portions intact. This seems like a pretty straightforward application of WP guidelines, but the editors who are insisting on this material are fairly experienced, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

So far, the only explanation offered was that it's better to add sources than remove content. That's obviously a valid perspective, but it's unfortunately not a reliable way to address contentious material.

Thoughts?

— Bdb484 (talk) 05:45, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

• The section in question is large and the current tags do not make it clear which statements are disputed. Please provide specific examples so that they may be addressed. Warden (talk) 06:29, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I see the problem now. I had assumed that the tag was self-explanatory. If this is not the case, I'm happy to elaborate: The sentences that don't have any sources are the same sentences that need to have sources. Here is a comprehensive list:

• Professor X has come to be compared to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Magneto to the more militant Malcolm X.
• The X-Men’s purpose is sometimes referred to as achieving "Xavier’s dream," perhaps a reference to King’s historic "I Have a Dream" speech.
• Magneto, in the first film, quotes Malcolm X with the line "By any means necessary." X-Men comic books have often portrayed mutants as victims of mob violence, evoking images of the lynching of African Americans in the age before the American civil rights movement.
• Sentinels and anti-mutant hate groups such as Friends of Humanity, Humanity's Last Stand, the Church of Humanity and Stryker's Purifiers are thought to often represent oppressive forces like the KKK giving a form to denial of civil rights and amendments.
• In the 1980s, the comic featured a plot involving the fictional island nation of Genosha, where mutants were segregated and enslaved by an apartheid state.
• This is widely interpreted as having been a reference to the situation in South Africa at the time.
• Explicitly referenced in recent decades is the comparison between anti-mutant sentiment and anti-Semitism.
• Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, sees the situation of mutants as similar to those of Jews in Nazi Germany.
• At one point he even utters the words "never again" in a 1992 episode of the X-Men animated series.
• The mutant slave labor camps on the island of Genosha, in which numbers were burned into mutant's foreheads, show much in common with Nazi concentration camps, as do the internment camps of the classic "Days of Future Past" storyline.
• Another notable reference is in the third X-Men film, when asked by Callisto: "If you're so proud of being a mutant, then where's your mark?" Magneto shows his concentration camp tattoo, while mentioning that he will never let another needle touch his skin.
• Characters within the X-Men mythos hail from a wide variety of nationalities.
• These characters also reflect religious, ethnic or sexual minorities.
• Examples include Shadowcat, Sabra and Magneto who are Jewish, Dust who is a devout Muslim, Nightcrawler who is a devout Catholic, and Neal Shaara/Thunderbird who is Hindu.
• Storm (Ororo Munroe) represents two aspects of the African diaspora as her father was African American and her mother was Kenyan.
• Karma was portrayed as a devout Catholic from Vietnam, who regularly attended Mass and confession when she was introduced as a founding member of the New Mutants.
• This team also included Wolfsbane (a devout Scots Presbyterian), Danielle Moonstar (a Cheyenne Native American) and Cannonball, and was later joined by Magma (a devout Greco-Roman classical religionist).
• Different nationalities included Wolverine as a Canadian, Colossus from Russia, Banshee from Ireland, Gambit who is a Cajun, the original Thunderbird who was an Apache Native American, Psylocke from the U.K., Armor from Japan, Nightcrawler from Germany, Omega Sentinel and Indra from India, etc.
• Religion is an integral part of several X-Men storylines.
• It is presented as both a positive and negative force, sometimes in the same story.
• The comics explore religious fundamentalism through the person of William Stryker and his Purifiers, an anti-mutant group that emerged in the 1982 graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills.
• The Purifiers believe that mutants are not human beings but children of the devil, and have attempted to exterminate them several times, most recently in the "Childhood's End" storyline.
• By contrast, religion is also central to the lives of several X-Men, such as Nightcrawler, a devout Catholic, and Dust, a devout Sunni Muslim who observes Islamic Hijab.
• Subculture: In some cases, the mutants of the X-Men universe sought to create a subculture of the typical mutant society portrayed.
• The X-Men comics first introduced a band of mutants called the Morlocks.
• This group, though mutants like those attending Xavier's school, sought to hide away from society within the tunnels of New York.
• These Morlock tunnels served as the backdrop for several X-Men stories, most notably The Mutant Massacre crossover.
• This band of mutants illustrates another dimension to the comic, that of a group that further needs to isolate itself because society won't accept it.
• In Grant Morrison’s stories of the early 2000s, mutants are portrayed as a distinct subculture with "mutant bands," mutant use of code-names as their primary form of self identity (rather than their given birth names), and a popular mutant fashion designer who created outfits tailored to mutant physiology.
• The series District X takes place in an area of New York City called "Mutant Town." These instances can also serve as analogies for the way that minority groups establish subcultures and neighborhoods of their own that distinguish them from the broader general culture.
• Director Bryan Singer has remarked that the X-Men franchise has served as a metaphor for acceptance of all people for their special and unique gifts.
• The mutant condition that is often kept secret from the world can be analogous to feelings of difference and fear usually developed in everyone during adolescence.

All of these statements need citations that both (A) document their veracity; and (B) demonstrate that they support the broader theme of the comics reflecting the relevant social issue.

Once that's done, I don't see why there should be any objection to putting them back up. In the meantime, though, I think it's clear that keeping them up is not in keeping with WP:V.

— Bdb484 (talk) 20:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It's better to add sources than remove content. Before [1] after [2]. First, you try to find some sources then if you can not find any you delete. If I look the Revision history of X-Men, I only see a contributor who remove content and who does not make a lot of effort to find sources.--Crazy runner (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like this conversation has gone cold, but I still wanted to write back now that I noticed that I got a reply.

I know that a lot of people agree very strongly with you that it's better to add sources than remove content. And to a certain extent, I tend to agree also.

But the fact is that while that's a nice idea, the actual protocol is a little different. Not everyone has the time or the expertise or the resources to add citations, especially to source thousands of words of original research. That's why the protocol recommends adding sources rather than deleting material, or simply tagging the material as being in need of a source. But if no one cares enough to add sources to material that was flagged in a previous decade, deleting the material is 100 percent appropriate. It's part of the WP:BRD cycle, and in my experience, it's the only way that articles get improved.

I hope people don't get the idea that I'm trying to strike material just to be a dick or because I have some kind of agenda other than getting these pages filled up with reliable information. If something is worth including on the page, someone will come along to back it up with credible sources, and your top-notch efforts here proved that.

Again, a very big and very sincere tip of the hat to you for that work.

— Bdb484 (talk) 18:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I deleted "communists" from the list of minority groups that the X-Men are identified with. I kept the "Red Scare" section section below that, however, because that metaphor (illustrating persecution, paranoia and suspicion) makes sense. But the X-Men are never identified with communists. And isn't the whole lesson of the unfair McCarthy hearings simply that people who WEREN'T communists were being identified as such? Besides, comparing the X-Men (founded by one millionaire capitalist (Xavier) and supported by another (Warren Worthington)) to communists is kind of prima facie absurd. Yes, Senator Kelly (originally construed as a Democrat, by the way, for whatever that's worth) has certainly played a McCarthy (R) analogue at times, but that doesn't mean that the X-Men are like communists. At best, they're like SUSPECTED communists from one brief period in one nation's history, but even that is much more of a stretch than comparing them to homosexuals or racial minorities. The X-Men have pretty much taken it upon themselves to actually allude to persecuted gays and blacks. This has happened in the comics hundreds of times. But they've never said "Wow, now I know how communists feel." And the writers have never played up that angle. They do identify the fictional government as McCarthyite, but they never go the next step and identify the X-Men with communists. Because that would be pushing the metaphor too far and would be absurd. If anything, it's only been ONE rare deranged "evil mutant" (Quentin Quire, for example) who's made the odd extended communist metaphor by wearing a Che-inspired "Magneto was right" shirt. (But note that he wore a Magneto shirt, not a Che shirt. And Magneto infamously sank a Soviet sub, whatever that's worth.) 63.233.65.101 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC).

The Lights

Since the issues doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon, we should probably discuss the membership status of the Lights and come to a consensus about including them on the membership list on this page or not. The general assumption seems to be that they are just students, not full X-Men; however, there is a strong case for considering them full X-Men: the recap page of Generation Hope #8 says, "After successfully completing their first mission as an officially sanctioned X-Men squad, Hope and company are met with some disturbing news." In addition to this, later in the same issue Hope says, "We're X-Men. We need code names in the field." These statements could be interpreted to mean that they're full X-Men, but it could also be argued that yes, they're X-Men—but only X-Men-In-Training. So, until we get further clarification from Marvel as to their official status, I suggest discussing the matter here so we can reach a consensus for the time being and stop the edit wars (or, more likely, continue the edit wars but at least have a consensus to refer to when reverting). Thoughts? DeadpoolRP (talk) 06:32, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I, personally, don't like to use the recap pages as they tend to dumb down the details to fit the space and gloss over some of the important stuff. As for the team designation, I go back to issue #5 with the conversation between Hope and Cyclops about it. I won't go word for word since it would be too long, but what Scott says is that he has no problems giving her a team since she has as much training as most of the full X-Men, which would explain why she is considered a full X-Man in the main list, but he is very clear in that none of the others do, and that they will need to train and to study under the rest of the X-Men. He even says that with some of the issues they have with Teon and Gabriel, and especially with Idie's age, they don't want to put them in any high risk situations. He flat out said these kids need training, under Hope and everyone else, so that's where they should be designated 69.250.56.64 (talk) 15:48, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Members spam

Hello,

I suggest to move/remove/redirect the small but yet huge list in the infobox that stretches into three paragraphs . The infobox is not supposed to introduce new information, but it should summarize the whole content. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 12:42, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that it needs to be removed, because what better way to, in your own words, "summarize" the content of the page than to list who is a member as well as the bases, etc., in an easy to find section at the top of the page for users to be able to find if they're just looking for a member list, rather than having to search through the decade sections to see if the person they're looking for joined at all. 68.33.142.75 (talk) 19:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The main picture

I dunno if that's of a current team or what, but that's not the X-Men people think of when they think of the X-Men.

There are three serious options - the original team (Professor X, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel, Iceman), some version of the Claremont team (Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde is the iconic roster), or the (barf) Jim Lee/Lobdell/Nicieze Blue/Gold teams.

Those are the rosters people think of when they think of the X-Men. No Emma Frost (in the iconic version that's in the public consciousness, she's strictly a bad guy - Claremont never wrote her otherwise - in the recent movie, she was 100% a bad guy). No Pixie (who the hell is that? nobody's read comics in the past 20ish years - none of the new characters count, matter or have will ever really enter the public consciousness). And no Dazzler (tho she was on a Claremont roster during his real run, it wasn't anything like the iconic roster).

Need a more representative picture. I'll go dig up some candidates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.77.90 (talk) 21:24, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Category:Telepathy in fiction

Is this category appropriate when several main characters are telepaths? CensoredScribe (talk) 01:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Do reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define the show(insert article name here) has having to do with (insert category here)? Would (category name) be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article? (Wikipedia:DEFINING#Non-defining_characteristics) No? Then no. - SummerPhD (talk) 02:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Category:Highschools in comic books

How important is highschool to the story of the X-men? CensoredScribe (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Do reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define the show(insert article name here) has having to do with (insert category here)? Would (category name) be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article? (Wikipedia:DEFINING#Non-defining_characteristics) No? Then no. - SummerPhD (talk) 02:28, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Roster Section

hey i have seen in main Avengers article that there is table showing current roster of every avengers team or every avengers book . so i am saying we should put that kind of table in this x-men article also. i know there is separate article for x-men members but it is too difficult to find the current roster of one team because we have to search whole article. but if we make table showing roster of every team in this main x-men article then it would be very good just like main avengers article. by the way table looks like this

Roster

The current roster consists of the following characters:

Avengers	New Avengers	Secret Avengers	Uncanny Avengers
Captain America	Ms. Marvel	Hawkeye	Captain America
Iron Man	Iron Fist	Black Widow	Thor
Hawkeye	Spider-Man	Beast	Wolverine
Thor	Wolverine	Valkyrie	Havok
Vision	The Thing	Giant Man	Rogue
Spider-Woman	Doctor Strange	Captain Britain	Scarlet Witch
Red Hulk	Daredevil	Venom
Quake	Mockingbird	Ant-Man
Wasp	Victoria Hand (Liaison)

i wanted your permission so i can make a required table for this article also. so ???--Shoxee1214 (talk) 15:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

What secondary source will you be using to make the "current" roster? Also, per WP:RECENT, why should we treat the current roster any differently to any of the other rosters throughout time? Morwen (Talk) 15:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

hey i am not getting your point can you please tell in simple english ? and yes current roster should be listed and updated regularly because it provided a very good information about that comic book.--Shoxee1214 (talk) 15:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You might want to read and understand the Wikipedia policy about writing about fiction and on synthesis. "providing very good information about that comic book" is not a rationale for having it on Wikipedia. We are an encyclopedia. There's all sorts of "very good" information that we nonetheless decide not to have because it is not suitable for an encyclopedia. Morwen (Talk) 16:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

ok i didnt know that. but can you tell me i should create that avengers like table in this or not ???--Shoxee1214 (talk) 16:18, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's why I asked you what your source is? I mean, the table itself is trivial. The hard bit is sourcing it. Morwen (Talk) 16:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

yeah so true actually there is a separate article for members which also have sources so we can put members by seeing that article and you tell yourself how can we include source for each and everything. but i can assure you table is a good and safe idea.so i'm including the table. ok?--Shoxee1214 (talk) 16:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

That article is poorly sourced, and I've been challenging on the talk page. It seems unwise to spread the problem further. Morwen (Talk) 16:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

yeah sorry i have just seen that. but know more than some of us so please can tell us how to go in right direction because this information and information on that page are valuable and then you are saying thatsecondary sources should not be included. so idea please ?--Shoxee1214 (talk) 16:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, where did I say "secondary sources should not be included"? I think my position is very straightforward: the article should comply with WP:WAF, so we need secondary sources for things such as roster tables. If you name the sources you propose to use for a table, then perhaps I could have a more specific opinion! Morwen (Talk) 17:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

well then we can include sources in which writers are saying that these characters would feature in that book. would it be sufficient?--Shoxee1214 (talk) 17:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

featuring in an X-Men book does not, in itself, make someone an X-Men, though, does it? And what do you mean, "current", anyway? Are you proposing to add speculation about what the line-ups will once NOW! has finished relaunching? Morwen (Talk) 17:18, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

bu current i meant that the characters which are currently part of that particular x-men in issues which are currently being released. so is it wrong to address this as current roster . i dont think so. what you think?--Shoxee1214 (talk) 17:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Tell you what, post it up on the talk page, and then I'll see what I can find wrong with it. Since you are being so non-specific it is hard to comment otherwise. Morwen (Talk)

ok check this and keep in mind that this table is just a demo

Roster

The current roster consists of the following characters:

All-New X-Men	Uncanny X-Men	Wolverine and the X-Men	Uncanny Avengers
Five Original X-Men	Cyclops	Beast
Beast	Emma Frost	Iceman
Iceman	Magik	Shadowcat
Shadowcat	Magneto	Rachel Summers
Storm	More New Mutants	Storm
Wolverine		Wolverine

And the sources for any of this are? Morwen (Talk) 17:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

All-new X-Men

Uncanny X-Men Wolverine and the X-Men .

see. but the problem now is that the roster is usually change after story arcs and sometimes change of characters is not announced due to spoiler reasons and in that case we can only know current roster by looking or reading that title so then we would have to change after reading that and we will have no source but sometimes roster changes are announced so we can give sources in that case . now what do you say can i edit? --Shoxee1214 (talk) 18:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

As an example, your first source doesn't back the claim that Shadowcat or Storm will be part of the All-New X-Men line-up. Morwen (Talk) 18:18, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Also All-New X-Men is not a team in itself, and Uncanny Avengers is an Avengers team with some members who are also happen to be X-Men.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

in short i want to ask please can you tell me then how should i make the current roster section. because i think its really great and important for specific comic book or team article . so kindly you all any suggestions???--Shoxee1214 (talk) 18:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, we don't know about that do, we. It could well be a team in itself for all we know. And as to what Uncanny Avengers is, that would also need a reliable source, but I don't think we should take an editorial line that it's definitely not an X-Men team while it is still so ambiguous. The team hasn't even been formed yet in the primary source material as it has been released, so we have no clue. Morwen (Talk) 18:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

My view is that I don't think there should be a current roster section, because of concerns about recentism and synthesis. Morwen (Talk) 18:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Your list of roster member is not the most recent. All of Utopia's members letf after Avengers vs. X-Men and the arrestation of Cyclops. Also, the New Mutants have been disbanded. Recently, in the last number of Wolverine and the X-Men (vol. 1), Kid Omega, Pixie, Anole and Armor graduated and stop being student to be official members of the X-Men. This is a recent list of X-Men members :

Angel
Anole
Armor
Beast
Chamber
Cyclops
Deathlok Prime
Doop
Firestar
ForgetMeNot
Frenzy
Emma Frost
Husk
Iceman
Jubilee
Karma
Kid Omega
Krakoa
Kymera
Lockheed
M
Magik
Marvel Girl
Nightcrawler
Northstar
Pixie
Psylocke
Dr. Kavita Rao
Dr. Cecilia Reyes
Shadowcat
Storm
Warbird
Wolverine --Antoinejd (talk) 02:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

References=

Back to the original topic at hand, irregardless of whatever kind of sources behind it, a roster table is not needed. Besides the fact that this was already shot down once before at the beginning of August, as seen at the very top of this discussion page, it is not needed. Most of the books these days have a very fluid roster, and there's a chance that it would need to be changed on an almost weekly basis, and with how little some of these other pages get changed around to be kept up to date with stuff that happened months ago, this could easily get out of date fast. Also, the basic X-Men list is already in the info box, and if users really need to know about a certain book's roster, they can go to that book's actual page, where there are other roster sections that actually makes sense as to their inclusion, instead of stuffing it all into one already overly long page. 68.33.140.207 (talk) 02:12, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

In other media

The § In other media section currently just has {{Main|X-Men in other media}} that I felt tempted to change to {{Main|X-Men in other media|X-Men (film series)}}, because while the X-Men in other media article has a small § Films section, it once again has a {{Main|X-Men (film series)}}, which annoyed me a tad. Maybe this article should have a bunch more internal links in the § In other media section? Thoughts? --82.136.210.153 (talk) 18:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

X-Men as superheros?

A recent large edit was made to the lede, with the major change being to state that the X-Men are not superheros. I've reverted this for discussion here, as it was a rather important change to (and lengthening of) the section. If nothing else, I feel significant sources would be required to demonstrate such a claim. Note that the X-Men are mentioned several times on Wikipedia's own Superhero article. Aawood (talk) 11:48, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Husk & Jean

I second adding both Husk and Jean back to the X-Men members list. Husk has been shown several times back with the X-Men in the Nightcrawler series, and she's a school staff member again. And if Beast thought it was so important to bring the young, original X-Men to the present, that they had an important role to play, then it doesn't make much sense that this important role would be getting demoted from full X-Men to simply students. Heck, they're the stars of what's basically the flagship X-Men title, not a secondary book about students. I say they should both be added back. They're both listed as active members on the List of X-Men members page. (I would, however, not note anything about Jean being time displaced--I'd just add Jean back to the list.) DeadpoolRP (talk) 06:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Husk, I will agree to. I was a bit hasty there because I don't read the Nightcrawler title and the last I'd seen of her, she hadn't retaken any position at the school. The problem with the Jean thing though, is that it was just her that had a the time displaced designation after it, something that I think should be included. What happened with the others? It needs to be all or nothing. Same thing should be done on the List page as well. There is a major difference between the original and the TD versions, so that should be noted. 68.48.6.38 (talk) 01:36, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that this is just a simple list of current members of the team--it's not meant to be a detailed list explaining exactly who each member of the team is; that's why there's a link at the bottom of the list to the page that is a detailed list of members, giving real names and including past members and explaining when everyone joined and who different characters with the same names are and so forth. All this list needs to say is that Jean Grey (and X-23, for that matter) is a member of the team. Which Jean Grey? It doesn't matter for the purposes of this list! People can go to the List of X-Men members page to find out more details. Just off the top of my head, there are several other characters on this exact same list that share names with other Marvel characters and/or have prominent alternate versions running around: Angel, Blink, Box, Marvel Girl, Warbird, X-Man, etc. And yet no one complains about needing to clarify exactly which version is a member of the X-Men (and the same goes for the Avengers and X-Force and Guardians of the Galaxy and so forth). If they want to know the details, they can go to the more detailed list. Similarly, there's no contradiction in listing Jean (since she's time-displaced) and not listing the other original X-Men twice (since there are time-displaced versions of them on the team as well as their modern counterparts): yes, there are currently two Angels and two Beasts and two Icemen on the X-Men, but why would you list them twice? When there were two Scarlet Spiders on the New Warriors at the same time, I'm fairly certain they didn't list Scarlet Spider twice on the main New Warriors page (or include some kind of parenthetical notation about the real names of the assorted Scarlet Spiders)--if you wanted details about which Scarlet Spider or Spiders were on the team, you could go the the List of New Warriors members page and find out. And the same goes for when there were two Turbos on the team! (Or it would have if Wikipedia had been around back then, I guess.) This is comics--there are lots of characters with the same names and alternate reality/future/past versions running around. There's a decades-long history of it, in fact, and not just at Marvel! Don't over think it or try to explain too much on a simple list. Add Jean and X-23 and let people look into things further themselves if they want to know more or have questions . . . DeadpoolRP (talk) 09:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)