Marvel Lost X-Men's Core Identity That Made Them Special

When Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko launched Marvel's golden age, they created heroes who felt genuinely different—characters with personalities and depth that resonated with actual people instead of just cape-wearing archetypes. The X-Men embodied this perfectly, their stories grounded in real struggles despite the mutant superpowers. CBR's arguing that Marvel has somehow lost that secret sauce that made the franchise click, abandoning whatever made readers care about these characters in the first place. It's a pointed critique of where the property stands now.