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With Hugh Jackman’s brilliant X-Universe swan-song Logan available on demand from Virgin Movies, there’s no better time to remind ourselves about what we love most about the X-Men movies.

Marvel’s merry mutants often get up to an array of bewildering exploits - full of time-travelling escapades, world-ending catastrophe and enjoyably super-powered melodrama. And while their adventures are never less than unpredictable, it’s hard not to notice a few tell-tale signs you’re definitely watching/starring in an X-Men movie…

Your past becomes your future’s present

 Or something.

Yep, the X-Men timeline is the literal definition of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey; a convoluted, bamboozling temporal back-and-forth that has seen timelines rewritten, future selves meeting past selves through the medium of time-travelling proxy-telepathy, bleak future dystopias that may or may not be canonical, and parallel universes that tinker with real-world events via a decidedly sci-fi twist.

If you ever meet a younger version of yourself from a futuristic alternate timeline, we’re pretty Magneto’s not too far away. Which version of Magneto on the other hand…

You can wear latex-leather and everyone’s totally fine with it

When the original X-Men debuted back in 2000, a lot was made (in the fan-nerdy comics community anyhoo) about how Xavier’s super-team had ditched day-glo spandex for more ‘acceptable’ black leather.

And while the movies have slowly edged back towards a more colourful latex style (Psylocke’s purple ‘swim suit and murder-gloves’ combo was definitely erring on the bold rather than realistic side of things), the fact that head-to-toe bike leathers were ever considered ‘casual wear’ in the X-Universe says a lot about its fashion-sense.

Try wearing that get-up when you next nip to the shops for a pint of milk, and let us know how that goes.

Horrendous catastrophes are accompanied by a cosy vintage soundtrack

Bryan Singer’s knack for creating show-stopping CGI-stuffed action scenes have meant both X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse have boasted some of the series’ greatest moments yet.

Their visual spectacle are only matched by their barnstormingly memorable vintage soundtracks.

If crazy stuff is going down, and you suddenly hear the sound of Annie Lennox or Jim Croce start to croon, things are probably about to get super slo-mo-y and super-amazing.

You spot the same grizzled beardy man in every history lesson

Everyone’s favourite mutton-chopped, claw-happy grump-hero is no spring chicken. And from what we know of Wolverine’s past and future across all nine movie appearances, he’s nearing (if not already celebrated) his 200th birthday.

Throw in Logan’s propensity for getting involved in almost every key event in modern history (the American Civil War, World Wars I & II, and countless others), and there’s every chance the eagle-eyed amongst you could spot him in each and every school History lesson.

Half your besties are blue

There must be something in the water, because while colourful faces are common in the X-Universe, the pigment of the genetic mutations seem to have an overwhelming tendency to turn everyone blue.

From Beast to Mystique, Nightcrawler and then Big Bad Apocalypse, blue’s a common shade of bad-ass.

Seemingly adorable small children are secretly blood-thirsty psychopaths

Appearances can be deceiving when it comes to the X-Men, and that holds no truer than when we’re talking about the super-powered kiddies who pop up (and often eviscerate) throughout the series.

Logan boasts one of the best movie superhero kids ever, in the form of the angel-faced but devil-angered Laura, while it’s her teen friends who unleash the full force of their r-rated fury on the movie’s villains at the close of the movie.

Then there are the X-Mansion kids who help drive away Stryker’s forces in X-Men 2 - from sonic screams to metal-skinned beefcakes, even the cutest of tweens can surprise.

Logan is available on Virgin Movies. Find it in On Demand > Movies