Age of X is a 2011 X-Men storyline that spanned the pages of X-Men: Legacy and New Mutants. It was written by Mike Carey.
For 1000 days, Fortress X has been the last bastion of the mutantkind. Created by Magneto, it is defended everyday by the Brotherhood of X, the mutant resistance that fight tooth and nail to live to the next day against an unending army of anti-mutant soldiers armed with high-tech weaponry — but something is wrong. Something doesn't make sense. And it's up to the mutant known as Legacy to figure it out.
Tropes in Age of X include:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Most of the mutants:
- Scott in particular had his eyelids removed and was restrained and used as a means of execution called the Basilisk. Victims included his parents and brother.
- Most of the Guthrie kids are dead and Paige blames Sam because he chose to focus on their mission at the time.
- Adaptational Badass: Again, just about everyone, some more than others:
- Sam is the head field leader of the resistance.
- Hellion has spent years without hands and now has mechanical ones that he moves with his telekineses. It sticks when reality goes back to normal.
- Adaptational Villainy: The Hulk and Punisher are both anti-mutant bigots in this world.
- Body Horror:
- A techno-virus fused Tony Stark with his armor, the tech slowly "digesting" him so that he was essentially a dead body animated by his armor, prompting him to refer to himself as "Steel Corpse".
- Bruce Banner believes that being infused with mutant DNA caused him to become the Hulk.
- Crapsack World: Most mutants are dead. All that’s left of mutant kind is less than a hundred who fight tooth an nail against an invading army every single day.
- Dying as Yourself: When General Castle takes remote control of Steel Corpse, Stark explicitly asks the other Avengers to kill him.
- Evil All Along: Legion’s stepmother Moira is actually a rogue personality of David’s and is responsible for the 616 X-men being pulled into this Crapsack pocket reality in the first place.
- Heel Realization: Most of the Avengers have this when they realise that the mutants they're trying to hunt are basically just people born differently rather than any of them being naturally "evil".
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Avengers ultimately sacrifice themselves to stop Hulk being used as a suicide bomber against Fortress X.
- Hive City: Fortress X, the safe haven for mutantkind, is a single gigantic structure pieced together from several Manhattan buildings including the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and Grand Central Station.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Mutants in Fortress X have been convinced that psychic powers and seeing the future are impossible, when in reality those mutants with such gifts have been kept isolated to prevent them realising the truth about their false reality.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Banner killed his fiancé and various colleagues when he first transformed into the Hulk, although he blames the mutants for it rather than explore the true nature of the Hulk.
- Invisible Woman betrayed the rest of the Fantastic Four after a mutant they were harbouring attacked her son, but she's clearly regretted that particular decision ever since.
- Promoted to Love Interest: A number the couples are comprised of people who have never even had Ship Tease in the real world.
- Iceman is dating Psylocke
- Namor is dating Storm
- Basilisk is married to Frenzy. Frenzy opts to keep these memories and joins the X-Men after things go back to normal.
- Spotting the Thread: One of the first clues to the true nature of their situation is that some of the soldiers who try to break in to attack Fortress X are the same soldier each time.
