X-Men (film series) films and plot points that are conveniently ignored in later films. He also criticized 20th Century Fox for not mapping out the series from the beginning. Richard George of IGN stated that the success of the first "X-Men" film paved the way for comic-book film adaptations such as the "Spider-Man" series, "Fantastic Four" (2005), "V for Vendetta" and Singer's "Superman Returns". Chris Hewitt of "Empire" magazine called the first "X-Men" film as the "catalyst" for films based on Marvel Comics characters, stating "Singer's 2000 film is the catalyst for everything that's come since, good and bad. Without it, there's no
Dark X-Men of Charles Xavier's X-Men, to which they had no official connection (much like Osborn's Avengers team was pretending to be the real Avengers). At the 2009 Emerald City ComiCon, writer Matt Fraction confirmed that the Dark X-Men would not be featured in a title of their own, but would rather be featured in "Uncanny X-Men" during the crossover with "Dark Avengers". In an April 16 interview with Comic Book Resources, Fraction explained the whole idea behind the Dark X-Men was to create three teams; Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers, Scott Summers's X-Men, and Emma Frost's new "Dark" X-Men. Comic book writer