The X-Men have had an extended and storied journey since their creation. Created by author Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, they might go from being canceled to probably the most common comics within the business. Among the greatest creators within the business have labored on their books, telling stories that have defined the team and hidden gems that everyone forgets about it.
These creators have helped give the staff their identification, taking Lee and Kirby’s civil rights allegory staff and increasing upon the idea, making a franchise that has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of followers around the globe.
10 Roy Thomas
Roy Thomas has an attention-grabbing place in Marvel historical past. He was the man who typically took over for Stan Lee after he left a e book, with this one and Avengers being the largest of his profession. Working with artists like Neal Adam, Thomas would take Lee and Kirby’s begin with the e book and run with it, increasing on Xavier’s origin and introducing new mutants like Havok and Polaris.
Havok and Polaris would go on to grow to be massive components of the X-Males, with Havok even leading the team on multiple occasions. Thomas did an amazing job throwing new and attention-grabbing foes on the groups and constructing on the idea.
9 Joss Whedon
After Grant Morrison left Marvel, it was time for the X-Males to alter once more. Marvel went outdoors the world of comics and bought author/director Joss Whedon to write a new flagship book, Astonishing X-Men. Whedon would take a again to fundamentals method with the staff, bringing the staff again to its superhero roots, together with the return of the extra traditional superhero costumes.
His work closely echoed Claremont’s and targeted on Kitty Pryde, a fan favourite character who typically bought misplaced within the shuffle. After Morrison’s revolutionary work with the mutants, Whedon’s extra traditional method set the staff in a brand new course.
8 Louise Simonson
Louise Simonson by no means wrote Uncanny X-Males, however she nonetheless has an enormous place in X-Males historical past. She created X-Issue, bringing the unique 5 X-Males again collectively for the primary time in years and would flesh the characters out immensely. She’d additionally work on New Mutants, serving to to create the subsequent technology of mutants.
Simonson was liable for the creation of some massive mutants, like Cable and Apocalypse, who would go on to become one of the most popular and deadly villains in the Marvel Universe. Simonson labored carefully with Chris Claremont, serving to to usher the X-Males via one among their hottest occasions and bringing so much to the mythos of the group.
7 Jason Aaron
Jason Aaron began his time with the X-Males by writing a fan favourite run on Wolverine. Finally, he could be liable for the restricted sequence, Schism, which might see Wolverine and Cyclops come to blows and break up the staff in half. Aaron would observe the adventures of Wolverine and the scholars and school of the brand new Jean Gray faculty in Wolverine and the X-Males and Superb X-Males.
Aaron’s splitting of two of the most important X-Men modified the established order of the X-Males books for years and eventually gave Wolverine his probability to shine as a staff chief. Aaron’s WatX would refocus on the college features of the X-Males, introducing a bunch of recent younger mutants and fleshing out Quintin Quire, making him a fan favourite.
6 Brian Michael Bendis
Whereas Bendis wrote two X-Males books, Uncanny X-Males and All-New X-Males, his largest change to the mutant staff did not are available both of these books- it was in the event series, House Of M. On the finish of this story, Scarlet Witch would fatefully utter three words- “No Extra Mutants”- and alter the X-Males for over a decade.
Depowering the overwhelming majority of mutants, it fully modified the X-Males. Getting ready to extinction, the staff needed to adapt to a completely new paradigm. Whereas Bendis would make some adjustments in his later X-Males work- bringing the previous variations of the unique X-Males into the current in All-New and highlighting a extra militant Cyclops in Uncanny- none of those adjustments can match Home Of M‘s seismic change to the staff.
5 Jonathan Hickman
Hickman has solely been writing the X-Males for the reason that summer time of 2019 however he is already massively modified the franchise. Giving the mutants their very own nation was an impressed alternative and a logical extension of Grant Morrison’s work virtually twenty years earlier. He would take a well-known supporting character, Moira MacTaggert, and make her into probably the most essential mutants ever.
Hickman rapidly modified every thing readers knew in regards to the X-Males and it has paid dividends to date, igniting essentially the most fertile time for the staff since their ’90s heyday and bringing them again to the forefront of the Marvel Universe.
4 Fabian Nicieza
Fabian Nicieza would begin with the mutants on New Mutants, with Rob Liefeld, and would assist co-create X-Drive with the artist. He would take over X-Males with problem twelve and keep on the e book till problem forty-five, writing the e book via one among its hottest intervals and dealing on tales just like the X-ecutioner’s Music, Age of Apocalypse, and The Phalanx Covenant.
Nicieza was additionally a co-creator of Deadpool, serving to make a personality that might have a meteoric rise in reputation. Nicieza introduced the e book via an enormous increase interval, satisfying readers and holding the X-Males on the prime of the gross sales chart.
3 Scott Lobdell
Scott Lobdell was the author of Uncanny X-Males all through the ’90s. One of many essential architects of the X-Males line on the time, Lobdell was integral within the creation of lots of the largest tales of the time, additionally labored on Excalibur and X-Issue, and created the brand new younger mutant staff, Era X. It is secure to say that with out Lobdell, the ’90s comics scene would have been very completely different.
Whereas the standard of Lobdell’s work was at all times hit and miss, he stays probably the most essential writers to have labored on the staff, writing the flagship e book and holding it as among the finest promoting comics of the ’90.
2 Grant Morrison
Taking up the X-Males in 2001, Morrison would deliver his gonzo writing fashion to the staff and fully redefine them for the twenty first century. Focusing extra on the college and adjustments to the mutant race than superhero antics, Morrison’s New X-Males was a breath of recent air after the convoluted continuity of the ’90s. Taking away the flashy costumes and highlighting the staff as academics and rescue employees, he would concentrate on so much on Cyclops and provides readers some surprising twists and turns all through his time on the e book.
Morrison introduced a way of newness to the X-Males that they’d by no means actually had earlier than. Morrison made mutants really feel like the long run and whereas Marvel editorial did their greatest to erase the extra revolutionary features of his run after he went again to DC out of spite, future creators like Aaron, Remender, and Hickman would run together with his ideas and use them to make their very own adjustments to the X-Males.
1 Chris Claremont
Whereas Len Wein was the one who introduced the X-Males again to prominence with Large-Dimension X-Males, it could be Chris Claremont who actually took the brand new staff and ran with it, fully altering them and making the X-Males into the juggernaut they’re as we speak. Chris Claremont spent over a decade on X-Males, placing out among the biggest tales in comics historical past and fully altering the best way readers checked out mutants.
With out Chris Claremont, the X-Males could be very completely different. He made the characters into effectively rounded people and created just about every thing that everybody loves about them. Chris Claremont took the X-Males and made them into the most well-liked comedian ever.
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