We are super stoked about X-Men: Days of Future Past’s release on May 23rd, so we decided to do a little retrospective about how the iconic X Men series began.

In 1963, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the first X Men comic; the ‘X’ stood for ‘extra’ power that normal humans lacked.  In the first comic, Charles Xavier was a man with vision in two senses of the word: he was a telepath who first spawned the idea of training mutants in his Westchester mansion to use their powers for the good of humanity.  Charles Xavier’s original student crew consisted of Cyclops, Iceman, Archangel, Beast and Jean Grey. They were pitted against Magneto and his catchily-monikered Brotherhood of Evil Mutants which included Astra, Toad, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Mastermind. This incarnation of the X Men only lasted until the late 60’s, when the original comics were disbanded.

The second wave of X-Men comics started up in 1975, and these featured some of our favorites from the newer movies including wolfman Wolverine and Storm, who you didn’t want to piss off in case those eyes glazed over and she casually threw a tsunami at you. If you’ve seen the other X-Men movies you’ll know that Jean Grey (played by the lovely Famke Janssen) was dispatched in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, so she’s ancient history in this movie. However, we’re happy that the inimitable Hugh Jackman is back playing his 387th reprisal of Wolverine (it might be just us, but it sure feels like that many), Halle Berry plays Storm and, of course, the architects of the whole good vs evil spirit of the franchise Charles Xavier and Magneto have made it from the original comics.

Interesting fact that some of you buffs may know: Mystique (played by Jennifer Lawrence in this chapter of the franchise) first appeared in a spin-off comic series, Ms Marvel, which featured super heroines from Marvel, in 1978. Jennifer’s real life boyfriend Nicholas Hoult is reprising his role as Beast, one of the original X-Men from the comic book series, and we also look forward to seeing stellar original X-man character Iceman adding some cool to this red hot film. Amongst the new characters, American Horror Story’s Evan Peters is bringing baddie Quicksilver to life for the first time, Lucas Till plays Havoc. We can’t wait!