As every fan knows, the X-Men made their Marvel Comics debut in 1963. Like other Marvel crime-fighters, these oddly assorted mutants have both superpowers and terrible personal hang-ups. Now an established writing partnership has novelized the X-Men movie from 20th Century Fox.
The storyline follows the recurring X-Men theme of mutants being feared and persecuted by humanity -- not helped by the minority who use their powers for evil. Here the comics' bad guy Magneto is less wicked than misguided, aiming to defuse prejudice with a Machine that pumps superpowers into ordinary folk, such as anti-mutant US Senators. Unfortunately this scientific genius neglected to research the side effects.
Meanwhile, telepathic Professor Charles Xavier teaches his X-Men recruits to handle their abilities and neuroses: Cyclops (destructive red-eye beams), Rogue (drains souls), Storm (controls weather), Wolverine (super-strength, extensible claws).
""I opened this school, a place where mutants could be safe from persecution. This is a place where they could not only learn to focus their powers, but also learn that mankind is not evil. Just uninformed.""
Colourful, kinetic fight sequences abound, especially towards the climax of Magneto's master plan. These scenes cry out for stunning artwork on lavish film SFX; our authors do their best with mere words. Their competent story-telling will be best appreciated by comics' aficionados and lovers of the movie, who'll have clear images of Marvel's bizarre, exotic characters and costumes.
-- David Langford in Amazon.com

The first X-Men movie novelisation is a lot shorter than the third, and suffers a bit because of it, and it looks like the writers were told to play it straight, and not given the license or room to extrapolate and throw in embellishments to improve the book as a whole. Otherwise, it is a solid retelling of the Wolverine and Rogue saga, as the learn of the X-Men and finally realise what his plan is.

This leads to the confrontation at the Statue of Liberty to prevent a whole bunch of world leaders turning into genetic goo.

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