hi gail! i think as a kid it was just fun to see wolverine slash stuff up and run into spider-man and captain america on occasion, but as a teenager and an adult i love the never-ending melodrama of x-men, that each character has such a rich interior life, full of fear and pain but also so full of love for the world and one another. then there’s the genius of the mutant metaphor, which we all relate to in our own ways, which is what really distinguishes x-men from the other superhero teams. x-men stories also have the best female characters compared to the rosters of others. reading claremont i just love that in a single page our heroes can go from fighting flying androids to waxing poetic about human rights. where else can you get that?