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Marvel editor Tom Brevoort is into his third year as editor of the X-Men comic line, and even he says there have been some growing pains as he's adjusted to the characters and fandom of the venerable mutant team and its spin-offs, saying it's still a "weird fit."

"Most days, yes," Brevoort says with a smile when asked on Word Balloon if he's having fun in his new position. "The god's honest truth is, it's still a bit of a weird fit for me. I spent so long being the Avengers guy and the Marvel heroes guy, that, on the one hand it's the same job. It's 20 pages every month and stories. But the ethos is different. Certainly, the fandom is very different. The things that they care about."

Prior to working on the X-Men line, Brevoort edited Avengers for over 20 years, a totally different corner of the Marvel Universe with different values and appeal among fans. And according to Brevoort himself, the change hasn't been without its challenges as he's come to understand what he sees as the biggest differences between Marvel's mutants and Earth's Mightiest Heroes - namely that the Avengers have a generally agreed upon core roster of nostalgic heroes, while the X-Men have evolved constantly over the years.

Related: To Me, my X-Men: Why Tom Brevoort's Marvel job change is a big deal (and not just for comics)

"It becomes this sort of weird situation where, on Avengers I always knew for 25 years, when in doubt, you could always pivot back to the core. And the core is Cap, Thor, Iron Man, and maybe Spider-Man, Wolverine, past a certain point," he continues. "And with X-Men, it's not that simple, because the core that people want you to pivot back to is all over the map. So it's a learning process. And I've done a lot of experimenting, and trial and error, and we've done some things that worked, and some things that didn't work as well, and some things that worked surprisingly, and some things that did exactly what I was expecting them to do."

Brevoort's own X-Men fandom stretches back to the '70s, when the title first became a best seller. After reading X-Men #1 in the collection Son of Origins of Marvel Comics, he sought out the newest issue of the title, Uncanny X-Men #108, which stars a totally different team from the original five heroes and takes place in space among the Shi'ar empire.

"The only character that was in it that I could recognize was Cyclops. Marvel Girl was in it, but she was Phoenix by that point, and everybody else was gone, and there are a whole bunch of new people there," he reminisces. "And by the luck of the draw, the issue I happened to get also had the Imperial Guard, and the Starjammers, and literally, by the end of that comic, I couldn't have even told you which ones the X-Men were. But that was part of the experience of it."

Related: A frank explanation of why Marvel's X-Men is being revamped (and why the Krakoan era must end) from the man in charge

That's emblematic of his perspective on the desires of X-Men fans, who he says are not unified in their vision of what the X-Men line should be.

"It's not consistent. It's almost generational. So it becomes, even if you have a whole line of books, you can't do everything for everybody," Brevoort states. "You have to pick and choose. What stories are you going to tell, what characters are you going to feature, and where you're even going to feature them. And, depending on which audience member you're talking to, it's either absolutely right or absolutely wrong. So it's a different sort of beast."

To me, my X-Men fans. Want more about Marvel's mutants? You don't need Cerebro to find what you should read next... we made a list!

• The best X-Men comics
• Every Omega-Level X-Men mutant ranked by power
• How to read the Marvel Comics' X-Men in order following the Krakoa era
• Why the Krakoan Age of X-Men was ended by Marvel
• How to watch the X-Men movies in order