X-Men

People are being born with abilities nobody asked for, and the world is deciding what to do about them.

Before this, superhero films were a genre studios had mostly given up on. This one plays it straight, in black leather rather than costumes, and takes the persecution seriously enough that the fantasy has weight.

Its two leads are old friends on opposite sides of a question about whether you negotiate with people who fear you. That argument runs through every film that follows in this continuity, and it is never resolved.