DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
Why are the xmen always brought up in a list conversation? Wolverine sure, but the others? The movies can't even keep their shit in order when it comes to the xmen. The only stand outs are logan, charles, and max. The rest are rotary/cookie cutter. Hell, a friend of mine didn't even know that havok and cyke are brothers until I told him. Outside of mahvel fans(and even then I'm not sure) and comic readers, who the hell knows about the xmen?
xmen are brought up as A-List because they are, you're going to be hard pressed to find a more popular comicbook team in the past 30 years than Xmen or Teen Titans. The last 6-7 years have seen the avengers re emerge and to a degree the FF4 but that compared to the utter frenzy that was the Xmen for 3 decades is nothing. I dont know if your anecdotal evidence about Alex Summers is even relevant. You do realize when you use that for your point of view , then harken back to only "mahvel" fans knowing the expanded roster, your talking about a time when FAR more people read comics. A lot of people love Iceman, Rogue, Archangel (fuck Angel), Storm, Colossus,...basically the old blue and gold teams from the relaunch is the defacto team at this point.
They hit it big during the bronze age of the 70's and stayed that way till the early - mid 2000's. They've had to share with the avengers ever since ultimates/disassembled/civil war etc etc.