"When the X-Men started, Stan Lee was thinking about prejudice," Morrison told MTV. "Mutants can talk about civil rights as a stand-in [for other races]. Then it became a metaphor for gayness and gay culture, about coming out, having pride. But to me, it was about a war against youth."

Morrison expounded on his idea by expanding Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning, including more students such as Dust, Angel Salvadore, Beak, quintuplets the Stepford Cuckoos, Quentin Quire, and the Omega Gang. But Morrison also expanded the faculty and had Professor X out himself as a mutant. Some of the storylines involved school shootings, student gangs, and drug use that enhanced mutant abilities.

"There's a lot of 20th Century stuff in there, about how adults hate kids, the fetishization of children, and the lies we tell to young people," Morrison said.

No matter who writes X-Men as a comic or film, though, Morrison said X-Men will still have the same message that crosses race, gender, sexual preference, and age lines.

"It's never going to be a metaphor for circus clowns or midgets!" he laughed. "Although maybe it should be. But it's always a conflict between the need to change and the need to stay stagnant. It's a basic myth, 'Here is the past and here is the future,' that can be applied to a lot of different social situations."

Which comics do you think Josh Schwartz should draw from for "X-Men: First Class"? Would Morrison's "New X-Men" be good source material?