This article comes to us from Kevin, a historian in his day job and an X-fan in his spare time who sometimes gets the two confused. He tweets at @MagnetoRocks. It was written in 2019.
The newest era of X-Men opens with something old. In the first pages of this summer’s House of X #1, Charles Xavier stands under the branches of an immense plant organism, looking down at naked, writhing figures as they emerge slowly from strange golden balls. He smiles beneath the large Cerebro helmet that covers the upper part of his face – beneficently or creepily depending on your perspective – and then utters his most classic line: “To me, my X-Men.”
Except how classic is it really?
It is certainly ubiquitous in modern X-comics. Only a week before House of X #1 was published, the final issue of the previous era closed with Storm shouting the familiar phrase as she and the bulk of the X-Men returned from the Age of X-Man reality to save the day in Uncanny X-Men #22. Before that, she used it in the recent past while leading her own team in Extraordinary X-Men.
Earlier in the same recent volume of Uncanny X-Men, the cry was at the center of a gorgeous double page spread as a psychic message sent out by Jean Grey to all of mutantkind. Many other characters have also deployed this rallying cry in recent years; Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin, for example – but it has gone beyond the X-Universe. Deadpool has joked about the catchphrase, and Spider-Man has shouted it while leading a team of mutant trainees. It has even led to spin-off phrases; both a future version of Charles Xavier and the 616 Magneto have at times had cause to declare “To me, my Brotherhood!”
Outside of the 616 universe, the unlocking of every X-Man in the 2013 video game Lego Marvel Super Heroes is greeted with an achievement named “To me, my X-Men”. Jonathan Hickman himself has previously revealed his fondness for the phrase when he greeted the official announcement of his role writing the X-Men Franchise in March 2019 by tweeting “To me, my X-Fans!”
Yet all of the references cited above are conspicuously recent, within the last decade. They are also, notably, all said by characters other than Professor Xavier, with whom most fans associate the cry. In truth, “To me, my X-Men” is a far more modern addition to X-canon than many readers think – and, perhaps more surprisingly, it has only rarely been said by the Professor himself.
The answer which will come to mind for many fans is the Silver Age, as the sort of imperious declaration which Stan Lee’s Charles Xavier was prone to making. Upon inspection, however, the phrase “To me, my X-Men!” never appears independently throughout the 1960s. The closest approximation appears in the final panel of X-Men #1, which does indeed include a thought bubble from Xavier ending with the line ‘To me, my X-Men!’ – but not by itself. These words appear only as the end of a longer sentence running on from the previous line. The full sentence reads “And now, return to me, my X-Men!” Somewhat less catchy, and certainly less iconic. Not particularly impactful, either, since it would not be referenced again for many years to come.
Still, it is a start; surely the origins of the X-Men’s battle cry lie here, appropriately in their very first issue. When, then, did it first appear its abbreviated and best-known form?
The answer is: Later than you’d think.
If an iconic X-Men element does not appear in the Silver Age, then it frequently finds its origins in Chris Claremont’s seminal 16-year run on Uncanny X-Men. Not so here, as “To me, my X-Men!’ is entirely absent from the franchise in both the 70s and the 80s. Nor, as far as I can tell, did it debut in the aftermath of his departure, in the early 90s era which produced both the X-Men’s greatest commercial peaks and their broadest pop culture relevance yet. It is never once uttered in the animated series, nor either of its 2000s follow-ups.
The earliest instance of “To me, my X-Men!” which I can locate is in an entirely unexpected place: Excalibur #93, published in January 1996, over three decades after the longer psychic command which ended X-Men #1. Even more bizarre is the context in which it appears, as the first line of the issue and part of a string of commands apparently issued by Professor X. Not so unusual, perhaps. But in a twist, this turns out not to be Xavier at all, but rather Excalibur regular Pete Wisdom in a bald cap. You read that right. Professor X’s most famous line is first spoken not by the Professor himself, but by a British secret agent who had been created less than a year previously. Wearing a bald cap.
So, did this appearance in Excalibur lead to the phrase becoming established as an X-Men mainstay?
It did not. Months after this issue, at the beginning of Marvel’s now-annual massive crossover for 1996, the (truly dire) Onslaught: X-Men, Charles Xavier telepathically summons all of his students with the words: “Come to me, my former students! Come to me, my X-Men!” This formulation would be repeated in other stories, such as a 2000 issue of Marvel Comics X-Men by Mark Millar. The very fact that writers were not using the truncated line in the precise context where it made complete sense is a pretty good sign that it was not yet considered iconic. As far as I can tell, the line did not appear again between 1996 and 2001, and if it did sneak in somewhere – there are a lot of 90s X-Men comics and I can’t rule it out entirely – then it certainly wasn’t imbued with much significance.
So when did “To me, my X-Men” really enter the X-Men lexicon in a more lasting way rather than as a throwaway in aside title? In late 2001, at the end of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men #116, Charles Xavier has just shot the then-mysterious antagonist Cassandra Nova in the head and apparently killed her. With blood still dripping down his face, he declares that enough is enough, and it is time for change. As his team gather around him, he declares: “To me, my X-Men.” Strangely enough, the moment is presented as a familiar one, and the line is – at least in my reading – already treated as a familiar catchphrase. It is no surprise if readers then and now both passed over this moment without seeing it as a momentous precedent. It also seems unlikely that Morrison was knowingly quoting Ellis’ issue of Excalibur, unless he believed that it too was referencing an earlier story. Given Morrison’s well-known reverence for the Silver Age, could it be that he was deliberately calling back to the ending of X-Men #1 but either misremembering or deliberately tweaking? It seems very likely.
Yet here too, there was to be another twist; the next issue would reveal that this was not the real Xavier at all, but rather Cassandra Nova herself after taking over his body. For the second time in a row, Charles Xavier’s most famous line appeared while being said by someone who was not Charles Xavier masquerading as him. It would recur three more times in Morrison’s run, first used by Fantomex in New X-Men #130 and then twice by Professor X – finally the real Charles Xavier this time! – in New X-Men #146.
For the remainder of the 2000s, “To me, my X-Men!” would make sporadic appearances here and there. Warren Ellis, author of its original appearance in Excalibur, would reference the line once again in an issue of Nextwave in 2006: “To me, my X-bait!” Perhaps its most iconic usage would come from Joss Whedon at the end of Astonishing X-Men #23 in the same year, when it is Cyclops who shouts the line after blasting his alien adversaries on Breakworld, cementing his role as the team’s permanent, badass leader. Even after this high-profile appearance as part of a climatic splash page on a bestselling run, however, the phrase appeared only rarely; in an issue of Wolverine: First Class, or an early issue of the third volume of New Mutants. In January of 2011, it finally made its first ever appearance in an issue of Uncanny X-Men, a mere 529 issues after Xavier’s first telepathic call, when the enigmatic villain Lobe shouts it out ironically as he spreads a drug which bestows mutant powers.
The final milestone in the development of “To me, my X-Men!” came with the dawn of Marvel Now! In 2012. The catchphrase was notably missing during Avengers vs X-Men, another absence which seems telling. Having an X-Man shout the warcry as a counterpart to their opponents’ famous “Avengers Assemble!” seems too perfect of a comic moment to omit, unless it did not yet possess similar status. In the aftermath of the crossover, however, it suddenly began to appear everywhere. During the 2013-2015 era, the phrase appeared or was referenced in Uncanny X-Men, All-New X-Men, Uncanny Avengers, X-Men Legacy, a Battle of the Atom Special, Deadpool, and Spider-Man and the X-Men – the list goes on. Its new prominence has continued well into the aftermath of Secret Wars as it became virtually a ritual of passage for team-leaders to shout in the first issues of each new series. This brings us full circle to the status quo with which we began, where the phrase can be treated as a ubiquitous and easily recognizable catchphrase for the entire franchise, instantly recognizable to creators and fans alike.
In sum, it seems that despite a bizarre first appearance during Excalibur in the 90s, Grant Morrison deserves the bulk of the credit for popularizing “To me, my X-Men!” as an important line. It is unclear whether he knew that he was coining something new; he may well have believed that he was simply referencing the final, much less quotable line of X-Men #1. Indeed, this sort of Mandela Effect may also be responsible for so many X-readers today assuming that the catchphrase dates in its recognizable form to the Silver Age even as they themselves read comics throughout the years when it rarely or never appeared at all. For the decade after Morrison, the line was used only occasionally, most memorably by Whedon, before passing into increasingly frequent use in the 2010s. It is only after 2013 then that we can really call “To me, my X-Men!” ‘iconic’ or widely referenced.
In a final irony, the period after 2013 is also an era in which Charles Xavier has largely been dead. Not only was the real Professor X apparently just the fourth person to use his most famous catchphrase behind the motley crew of Pete Wisdom, Cassandra Nova, and Fantomex, but the number of times he has done so can be counted on one hand. In a bold era of new beginnings for the X-franchise, perhaps Hickman allowing Professor X to deliver the line most associated with him is actually a radical departure after all.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
