What's it like when X-Men get between the sheets? Sure, you're perpetually surrounded by statuesque mutants in skintight pleather, but chances are your attempts at amorousness will be illegal in several states and freak out your readership.


Here are the five X-Men love affairs that went from uncanny to simply . . . creepy.


5.) Pete Wisdom and Kitty Pryde

Kitty Pryde was the perennial X-sweetheart. Fans adored her for her girl-next-door sensibilities and gumption in the face of danger. For most of her publication existence, her love life consisted of pining for the older, emotionally inaccessible Colossus. Until 1995, that is, when she shacked up with MI:6 agent Pete Wisdom. On paper, there's nothing particularly illicit about their relationship. But when you consider that this story was penned by Warren Ellis, and Wisdom is the archetypal, cigarette-chomping comic manifestation of Ellis' psyche (see: Spider Jerusalem, Elijah Snow, William Gravel)...well, it becomes abundantly clear that Kitty Pryde lost her virginity to Warren Ellis.

4.) Ultimate Scarlet Witch and Ultimate Quicksilver

I'm going to eschew the snark here and simply explain what happened in the comics.


1.) In the series Ultimates 3, Wolverine sleeps with Magneto's lover, Magda.

2.) Magda gives birth to Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who could very well be Wolverine's kids.

3.) Scarlet Witch consummates an incestuous love affair with her brother, Quicksilver. Wolverine watches from the underbrush.

In sum, Ultimate Wolverine watched his (possible) children have sex with each other...from under a hedge. Cold hard fact. Greek tragedy probably has a term for this, but it's just eluding me.


3.) Madelyne Pryor and Cyclops

Again, another rare instance where it's easier to explain exactly what happened.

1.) Cyclops meets Madelyne Pryor, a woman who looks exactly like his dead girlfriend, Jean Grey.

2.) He marries Madelyne Pryor. Their son Nathan is born.

3.) Jean Grey comes back from the dead. Cyke abandons his family to party on a new superteam with his ex-dead X-ex. Maddie sees nary a child support payment.

4.) Mr. Sinister reveals the Madelyne is a clone of Jean Grey that he bred specifically to breed with Cyclops. Maddie goes off the deep end, gains demonic powers, and commits suicide. Everyone promptly forgets about her (she was just a clone).

5.) Cyclops remains a cherished X-hero to this day.


It's worth noting that the Scott Summers deadbeat dad saga was not some fringe storyline but rather the grounds for Inferno, a company-wide crossover in the 1980s.


2.) Wolverine and Every Women He's Ever Dated

For a man of a certain age, it's understandable that Wolverine has had a city bus worth of soulmates in his day. What's a little stranger is how many of them meet a horrible, abrupt death before they even hit 40. (Consult this chart for details.)


1.) Professor Xavier and Jean Grey

In X-Men #4 (1964), Stan Lee and Jack Kirby provided us the mostly forgotten tableau of a forty-something Professor X waxing erotic for an underage Jean Grey. This panel was left unaddressed until the Onslaught saga of the mid-90s, during which the Professor's hidden lust made a creepily unnecessary return for no apparent reason. This plot point then disappeared into the Aether of Hilariously Terrible Silver Age Comic Book Ideas until the mid-2000s, when Robert Kirkman resurrected it during his tenure on Ultimate X-Men.


Dishonorable Mention: Most of the love affairs during Chuck Austen's run on Uncanny X-Men. See: Mystique and Azazel (a.k.a. the real-deal Devil), the teenage Husk and the thirtysomething Archangel, Nurse Annie and Havok the coma patient, She-Hulk and the Juggernaut.