Love them! Especially Wolverine! Is he overused? I'm okay with that, because I am part of the target audience. They only induce me to read more books...
I love the main theme of the X-men comics (minorities, genocide, hate crimes), most of the characters and the storytelling of these books (the Claremont-Byrne collaboration, the Morrison-era, and Astonishing by Whedon and Cassaday are all-time classics). Okay, there were some very weak stories in the second half of the nineties, but most of the time a bad X-men comic is above average! The actual creative team (Fraction, Kyle, Yost and others) does a good (and sometimes great) job, too.
I think, most of the X-men characters have the potential to deal with real life issues, but they work in simple superhero and adventure/entertainment stories as well (so I'm okay with the vampires)! I like Wolverine, because he has the widest variety of stories. He is authentic in all his roles (samurai, kung-fu fighter, spy, weapon, assassin, private investigator, teacher, loner, leader, lover, drunken bar fighter, zen budhist, feral, punisher, avenger, x-man, adventurer and so on...) There is a Wolverine for all seasons! Most of the comic book characters have a limited playground, but Wolverine is not one of them!
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