The two biggest teams in the Marvel Universe are easily the Avengers and the X-Men. While they were once less popular and important than the Fantastic Four, that has changed over the decades and they’ve vaulted to the top of the line when it comes to popularity and, honestly, story quality. These two teams brought together the most popular heroes of their various communities and put them in universe-shaking adventures. The teams have had a lot of similarities over the years, and both of them have been integral to the development of the House of Ideas, allowing them to keep their stranglehold on the sales charts for decades.
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However, as similar as they can be, both teams are honestly pretty different. For every similarity you can find, you can find an even bigger contrast. These are the seven biggest difference between the Avengers and the X-Men, showing how unique each of them is.
7) No One in the Superhero Community Likes the X-Men
Let’s not mince words: none of the other superhero teams like the X-Men very much. A big reason for that is that the X-Men are always under the gun. The team exists not just to use their powers for good, but to protect mutants. The status quo of the Marvel Universe is anti-mutant, and many of the other heroes defend that status quo. The men and women of X are fighting for their people, and the rest of the heroes don’t really seem to care about the plight of mutants. This has given the mutant group a standoffish attitude that has made a lot of heroes not like them. Everyone loves the Avengers, but the X-Men don’t have that kind of affection.
6) Everyone Wants to Be an Avenger
The Avengers have fielded many different teams, and just about every roster of the group has had an issue where someone talks about how happy they are to be a member of the Avengers. The team is the greatest assemblage of heroes ever, and everyone wants to be on the team. They are the top of the food chain, have access to the funds of the Stark family, get the coolest headquarters, and often have the best technology (outside of the Fantastic Four). They’re the varsity team, and everyone works hard to get there. The X-Men, on the other hand, aren’t a team that anyone really wants to join, they’re usually forced to by the circumstances of their lives.
5) The Avengers Are the Superhero Military
The Avengers have had quite a history, but one thing is apparent when you look at their adventures: they’re the superhero army. To begin with, they’re led by Captain America, who is a government agent most of the time, or at least a freelancer who works with the government. The government has had oversight over them, and they have a relationship with SHIELD. They have been a part of the superhero national security apparatus in the past, and they will be again. They’re an army of superheroes meant to battle against the most powerful threats. Meanwhile, the X-Men are as much teachers and rescue workers as they are an army of mutants.
4) The X-Men Are a Found Family
The X-Men’s history has been quite varied, with different eras of the team having different marching orders, as it were. Sometimes, it’s superhero stuff, sometimes it’s teaching and rescue, and sometimes it’s just mutants hanging around together and getting into hijinks, but one thing that unites all of their various roles: that the team is a found family. Mutants often lose their families when their powers develop. They’re kicked out of homes and the X-Men give them a new family. The bonds between the team become familial in a way that the ones between the Avengers just don’t.
3) The Avengers Are More Powerful
The Avengers have the most powerful heroes ever. While the X-Men have fielded characters like Storm, Iceman, Jean Grey, and Xavier, as well as various other Omega-level mutants, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have been the most powerful team for ages. Members like Thor, Hercules, Hyperion, Captain Universe, Ares, the Sentry, the Hulk, the Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Sersi, and so many more are some of the most powerful heroes in the history of the comics. They’re the most powerful team in the Marvel Universe and they dwarf the power level of the X-Men.
2) The X-Men Are All About Civil Rights
The X-Men were brought together for one reason: to further the dream of Charles Xavier. Professor X dreamed of a world where mutants and humans lived in harmony, and he opened his school to train mutants to do good in the world so the rest of the world started to look at mutants positively. Since then, the team has been all about civil rights, fighting for the rights of mutants to have the same kind of life as everyone else. Sure, they save the Earth and the universe, but they also hold those in power responsible for their crimes against the oppressed in a way that the Avengers just don’t.
1) The Avengers Are All About Saving the World
The Avengers were brought together to stop Loki from taking over the world, and that’s basically been their job ever since (not just stopping Loki, obviously; you get it). The Avengers exist to defend the Earth from every enemy out there, and that’s their whole thing. They don’t care about changing the status quo because they are constantly on the lookout for threats to everything (and also some of them make loads of money profiting off the status quo, like Iron Man). Sure, the Avengers will go on missions where the world isn’t at stake, but the team exists for no other reason than to save the day. That’s their job and they’ve gotten very, very good at it.
What differences do you see between the Avengers and the X-Men? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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