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Guide to X-Men Comics

X-Men #1, cover dated September 1963, was the last major Silver Age release from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The series, renamed later on as Uncanny X-Men, would become the flagship of the X-Men line of books, .

Many thanks to then Marvel Publisher Martin Goodman for rejecting Stan Lee's first title pick for the series which was "The Merry Mutants". Good call, Mr. Goodman.

The original X-Men series would have a rocky beginning, eventually being cancelled with issue #66 (March 1970). From #67 to #93 Marvel would publish reprints of the earlier issues.

With #94, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum would stage a comeback, introducing a new team of X-Men led by original team lead Cyclops and including uber-popular Wolverine.

Superstar writer/artist John Byrne embarked on telling the lost tales of the X-Men from #66, when the series was cancelled, to right before the new X-Men arrived in #94. The twenty-two issue series was called X-Men The Hidden Years.

1983 saw the publication of the New Mutants and the start of what would become a vast line of X-Men books. Much like the early X-Men tales this book would bring back the focus of Xavier's being a school young mutants.

Another return to the original X-Men roster would happen in X-Factor, a series published from 1986 to 1998. X-Factor would be formed by the original team in part as a reaction to Magneto's leadership of the Xavier School.

Of all the X-Men, the biggest breakout star was Wolverine and in 1988, he got his own series. The series has been restarted over the years with four volumes to date but continues to be published.

Also in 1988, Marvel launched Excalibur, this provided X-Men fans with stories of a different more European feel since the Excalibur team was located in England.

In 1991, an new series called the X-Men began. From 2001 to 2004 it was called New X-Men. It is still being currently published under the title X-Men : Legacy.

One of the most popular of X-Men series would be Whedon and Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men. Started in 2004 the series is still in publication and presents readers with a smaller than usual group of X-Men allowing more room for characterization.

In 2010, a second X-Men series was started.