It's funny how the X-Men went from being one failing comic book that was close to cancellation to filling an entire corner of the Marvel Universe. Hell, it was the most successful corner for a couple of decades. And then came X-book after X-book. And with each of those books came another variation on the team.
And they weren’t just Men; they were Women and Forces and Factors and Generations. And with this week’s release of Deadpool 2, the X-Force made its big-screen debut. So I thought I'd give some love to the history of the X-Men, including all shapes and sizes, no matter how many chicken men were members.
But first, a quick Honorable Mention. While they aren't totally an X-Men team, the Avengers Unity Squad was an attempt on Captain America’s part to unite X-Men and Avengers into one team that would be the public face of mutantkind. The team fought against Kang and Apocalypse’s machinations, and managed to be a true fusion of the two Marvel Universe families. Havok and Wonder Man, side by side fighting crime: What more could you want out of Marvel Comics than that exact brand of interconnected silliness?
Source: austinbooks.com
10. Astonishing X-Men
The X-Men are superheroes. I know that seems obvious, but for a long time, they weren't really written that way.
They were students and teachers. They were soldiers and operatives. They were Matrix-like badasses in black leather, space travelers, and time pirates. But they hadn't been just straight-up no-frills superheroes in a long time.
And then Joss Whedon and John Cassaday came in and changed all that. Astonishing reads like their response to Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly's work in New X-Men, which took them out of spandex for a while. Then Whedon brought back Colossus, and put them right back in it. It also introduced SWORD and Danger, and gave us a hell of a lot of Lockheed. Honestly, it’s one of the better jumping-on points for X-Men comics.
Reader-friendly and funny, this is a solid, self-contained little series for classic X-Fans and newcomers alike. And the team itself is a classic, and a perfect mix of original recipe X-Men and 2000s recruits. New and old: it brings two great tastes that taste great together.
Oh, and John Cassaday draws great costumes. His Wolverine is an all-time classic, and that Cyclops costume is fantastic. And he draws cat-Beast better than anyone else.
