This Week In Retro: X-Men (1992) (Patreon)

March 1992: Make Mine Mutants

by Diamond Feit

As a life-long fan of comic books, movies, and video games, there's a question I am forced to ask myself (and all of you): Who is the best superhero team of all time, and why is it the X-Men? They are neither the strongest, the smartest, the longest-running, nor the most consistent group of good samaritans, but they have the best concept fueling all their adventures. Unlike most superheroes, the X-Men were born with their super powers and the world hates them for it. That they choose to protect the rest of humanity despite facing that persecution is an eternal contradiction with unlimited storytelling potential.

The X-Men were not my introduction to Marvel Comics (that honor went to ol' Web-head) but their collective predicament quickly bumped them to the top of my list. By sheer coincidence, I got into the series during the "Mutant Massacre," a shockingly dark crossover saga about villains hunting down outcasts living underneath New York City and murdering them. None of the other comic books I had read to this point were about genocide, a word I had only recently learned in Hebrew school, making this tale of mass-slaughter almost relatable.

Whether mutant extermination is on the line or not, the X-Men are the best superhero team because they're always conflicted about their role in the world. Their most-frequent foils are other mutants who disagree with the X-Men about using their powers to defend humankind. Even amongst themselves, the team seldom agrees on the best course of action and members frequently walk out on one another, only to return later when they are reminded they have no better place to be.

Another issue at the heart of the X-Men is their recruitment method. Professor Charles Xavier operates a private school where he seeks out troubled youths, welcomes them as students, then secretly trains them to become crime fighters. Is offering a sense of place and community to scared kids (who often have nowhere else to go) only to turn them into child soldiers ethically defensible?

We are not going to find a definitive answer to any of these questions, and that's okay, because another thing that makes the X-Men so great is how perfectly they translate to video games. Developers have their choice of colorful heroes with fabulous powers to build a game around, with a bountiful selection of enemies to battle as well. There are plenty of X-Men who can stand their ground as a solo character, or they can be deployed as a team where their abilities compliment each other.

Case in point, this month marks 30 years since the X-Men made their arcade debut in a giant-sized beat-em-up that absolutely ruled my world in 1992. X-Men is a loud, shallow video game designed to suck coins straight from the pockets of children. It is also completely awesome and serves as a grand stage for the X-Men as superheroes.

Konami's X-Men is not the first video game to star the eponymous mutants, but it certainly is their first good video game. In all their previous outings, either on the NES or on home computers, the X-Men were handicapped by the limitations of 8-bit hardware. The larger-than-life heroes found themselves shrunk down to minuscule size, forced to scamper through overhead action levels like rats in a maze.

In Konami's hands, the X-Men shine. The company had already shown a flair for beat-em-ups starring other people's characters, with fun-tastic arcade releases like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1989 and The Simpsons in 1991. These titles relied on the licenses to draw in prospective players, but anyone who actually inserts a credit and starts punching bad guys will immediately latch onto how delightful it feels to smack buttons and make cartoon characters fight other cartoon characters. The fact that these machines allowed up to four people to cooperate only added to the madcap mayhem.

Just as the X-Men have always featured more than a quartet of heroes (their initial lineup was five in 1963, not including the wheelchair-bound Professor X), X-Men supports up to six players at once. Perennial leader Cyclops is the default first player, supported by metallic strongman Colossus, the ferocious Wolverine, weather-wizard Storm, agile acrobat Nightcrawler, and disco diva Dazzler. That's a remarkably diverse lineup for a 1992 video game, with two playable women (one more than Street Fighter II) and two people of color…even if one of those colors is blue.

In order to fit six superheroes on the screen and allow six human beings to fight side-by-side without elbowing each other to death, X-Men shipped in an extra-wide cabinet. This massive machine comes fully adorned with images of the cast wrapped around the sides, plus dedicated controls and coin-slots for each player. Beyond this eye-catching exterior, the action unfolds on two adjacent horizontal monitors, offering a widescreen view decades before such aspect ratios became the norm. Even compared to today's 1080p visual standards, X-Men requires letterboxing to fit on a flatscreen TV or monitor. It's just that huge.

We've set the stage so far by describing the X-Men and why they're great, but what makes X-Men a great arcade experience? It starts with the X-Men themselves; for the first time in a video game, they resemble the superheroes they are on the printed page. After ditching their identical uniforms in the late 60s, the 80s X-Men had distinct outfits both in color and in style. The twin-screen display allows for large character sprites showcasing their signature costumes, with ample real estate for all six heroes to spread out and remain visible.

As in the comics, the X-Men's mutant powers are the main attraction here, even if some liberties had to be taken with their individual abilities. Players will spend the bulk of their time in X-Men mashing the basic attack button or, if they're wise, using jump attacks to stay mobile. Each character has a third button dedicated to a "mutant power" attack, one that instantly kills regular enemies and knocks bosses off their feet. The stock is limited, however, with additional uses draining the life bar.

Cyclops can fire his eye beams, Storm summons cyclones, Dazzler hurls bursts of light, and Wolverine slashes with his claws. Nightcrawler's signature teleportation method has been reimagined as a rainbow-tinted dash attack, and Colossus gains a brand-new energy spark that explodes outward from his body. It must feel as incredible as it looks, for he bellows a mighty roar each time, one loud enough to be heard by nearby players over the din of the arcade.

So the X-Men look great in X-Men, but they're not alone. Legions of robot Sentinels are sent to stop our heroes from completing their mission, arriving on screen in assorted colors and exploding into even more once they are dispatched. Every level ends in a boss battle against a famous (or not-so-famous) antagonist from the X-Men's past, upgraded to make even a six-on-one fight seem fair. Pyro's bursts of flame cover half the screen, Juggernaut carries a cannon, and Wendigo is at least nine feet tall, so he didn't need any help. As always, the final battle is against Magneto, but the game includes a curve ball by introducing Mystique in an earlier stage. She mimics Professor X to lure the X-Men into a trap, then returns later disguised as the master of magnetism, forcing players to defeat Magneto twice.

I've had a lot to say about the way X-Men looks, but respect must be paid to its unique soundscape. Like a lot of Konami games, the soundtrack is packed with bangers, but there's a twist: Much of the game's audio is peppered with spoken dialogue. Having voices in an arcade game was hardly ground-breaking in 1992, but in X-Men, the voice samples are woven into the music like another instrument, adding to the beat. On top of that, every boss in the game has their own catchphrase, and they say it so often they'll interrupt themselves, transcending language and turning their pithy phrase into a mantra.

1992 would turn out to be a momentous year for Marvel's motley mutant crew, with Konami's arcade game gobbling up coins all summer long, followed by the debut of a cartoon series on Halloween. It's hard to claim "synergy," however, as the two versions of X-Men look substantially different; if anything, Konami's lineup is ripped from the failed 1989 animated pilot "Pryde of the X-Men." The 1992 animated squad, on the other hand, would end up becoming the backbone of Capcom's 1994 arcade fighting title X-Men: Children of the Atom, eventually taking on the entire cast of Street Fighter in the Marvel vs Capcom series.

This means that as popular as the X-Men would remain for the rest of the 1990s, leading directly to their feature film debut in 2000, Konami's X-Men were not the stars in this X-celebration. Arcades put a premium on floor space and the dedicated six-player cabinet could not support any other games (Two and four-player ROMs were also produced, but the experience was not the same). Whether the license posed a problem or home consoles just weren't up to the task, Konami never ported X-Men to any other platforms, so when the game faded from arcades it simply disappeared from view.

X-Men made a surprise return from the ether in 2010 as a downloadable title on the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Arcade. This version was reframed for HD televisions with added support for online play and was well-received at the time, even though playing the game without any need for coins does rob the experience of any urgency. Sadly, as is often the case with licensed properties, X-Men was delisted a few years later, so unless you already bought a copy, it is no longer available on any consoles.

Funnily enough, despite Marvel being a bigger brand today than ever before, the X-Men aren't the marquee name they once were. The team hasn't shown up in a console video game since 2011's infamous X-Men: Destiny, a game that had to be removed from store shelves and destroyed due to a judge's mandate. On the big screen, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been frustratingly mutant-free for its entire run due to a rival corporation owning the X-Men film rights.

Disney has since bought said rival, so we may very well see an X-renaissance before too long (the '92 cartoon is available on Disney+), but it's unlikely Konami's X-Men will benefit from any such revival. At this point Konami barely makes video games anymore with the company's original characters, so there's little reason to expect a 30-year-old licensed title to resurface. I'm not heartbroken about it though; as long as marginalized people yearn for a champion to push back against their oppressors, and a man with indestructible claws in his arms looks cool, the X-Men will have fans.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.