The X-Men have become the bestselling team in comic history, and they’ve done that on the backs of some of the greatest stories ever. The team was able to grow past their inauspicious beginnings to become the five-hundred pound gorilla of Marvel, the group and its members overtaking the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four as the most popular franchise at the House of Ideas. Over the years, the team has given readers some of the most talked about stories ever, but there are loads of amazing stories that fans just don’t really talk about anymore.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Everyone’s heard of amazing stories like “The Dark Phoenix Saga” or “Days of Future Past”. There are some stories that get all of the ink, but they aren’t the only great stories that fans need to read. These ten X-Men stories are awesome, and we need to talk about them more.
10) Avengers:/X-Men Utopia
Everyone thinks of Avengers vs. X-Men when they think of crossovers between the two teams, but they should think about the superior Avengers/X-Men: Utopia, by Matt Fraction, Marc Silvestri, Luke Ross, Terry Dodson, and Mike Deodato Jr. This story pit the X-Men, now living in San Francisco, against Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers, as the villain tries to take control of the mutant community during “Dark Reign”. It’s a fantastic crossover story between two very different versions of the teams, and if you haven’t read it yet, you’re in for a treat.
9) X-Men (Vol. 2) #42-43
Paul Smith is one of the greatest X-Men artists ever, and he made a return to the team that no one talks about after “Age of Apocalypse”. X-Men (Vol. 2) #42-43, written by Fabian Nicieza along with Smith, was a two-issue story that saw the Acolytes find Holocaust, frozen in M’Kraan Crystal matter, after X-Men: Omega #1. What follows is two issues of battle, as the son of Apocalypse awakens in a strange new world surrounded by people talking about his father’s greatest enemy, Magneto. This story is just a fun little palette cleanser after the madness of “Age of Apocalypse”, and it’s an unsung gem.
8) Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #281-287
The ’90s were the decade of the X-Men, but there’s an important stretch of the team that gets overshadowed, and that’s the early days of Uncanny X-Men after the 1991 reboot, which was ruled by X-Men (Vol. 2). Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #281-287, by Jim Lee, John Byrne, Scott Lobdell, and Whilce Potracio, followed the Gold Team as they met with the Hellfire Club, got pulled into an attack on the villains, and had an interdimensional adventure, all while Bishop comes back to the present to hunt down Trevor Fitzroy. In this seven issue run, the team sees two major deaths, learns that Colossus’s older brother is still alive, and gets a new member. It’s ’90s as all get out, but these seven issues have a wonderful charm to them that will keep you coming back.
7) Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #273-278
Chris Claremont’s 17-year run writing Uncanny X-Men has some amazing stories, but one that doesn’t get talked about enough came at the end of his run. Uncanny X-Men #273-278 does get talked about, sort of, but only one issue get any attention: issue #274. That issue is the first appearance of the “Savage Land Rogue” costume, but everything else about these six issues is forgotten. We got a cool X-Men in the Shi’Ar Empire story as the Savage Land story was going on, all of that drawn beautifully by Jim Lee. This is peak ’90s X-Men, and if you haven’t read these issues, hunt them down.
6) “Here Comes Tomorrow”
New X-Men has become a legend for X-Men fans, with writer Grant Morrison dragging the team into the 21st century. Everyone talks about “E Is for Extinction”, “Assault On Weapon Plus,” or “Planet X”, but all of the stories are amazing, especially the last story from Morrison’s run. “Here Comes Tomorrow” takes place a hundred years after the events of “Planet X”, on a world ravaged by the Beast of the Apocalypse. This is Morrison doing their “Days of Future Past” and it’s fantastic. It has the world-building, it has the action, and it has killer art from X-Men legend Marc Silvestri. It’s a flawless story that will knock your socks off.
5) “Children of the Atom”
Writers Joe Kelly and Steve Seagle took over X-Men and Uncanny X-Men in 1997 and gave readers a short but amazing run with the team. There’s going to be two of their stories on this list and the first is “Children of the Atom”, from Uncanny X-Men #360 and X-Men (Vol. 2) #80, with artists Chris Bachalo and Brandon Peterson. A new group of X-Men is recruited by someone who appears to be Xavier, who had been gone since “Onslaught”, and the two teams clash. This is a simple two-issue story, and it’s a lot of fun. It also leads into the next story on this list, paying off a major plot line.
4) “Hunt for Xavier”
“Onslaught” changed the Marvel Universe, with the X-Men books losing Xavier to Bastion. The X-Men’s founder would play a minor role in “Operation: Zero Tolerance”, but would disappear after that story. The search for the character would play a role in the Kelly/Seagle run, and would culminate in “Hunt for Xavier”, by Kelly, Seagle, Chris Bachalo, Adam Kubert, and Leinil Yu. This story follows the team as they search for their mentor, all while an enemy who knows all of their secrets also begin the same search. This is awesome X-Men action, a story that will surprise you with how good it is.
3) “Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire”
The X-Men went through a lot in the ’00s, especially after House of M. In 2007, Captain America writer Ed Brubaker joined the team with X-Men: Deadly Genesis, a story that introduced readers to the third Summers brother Vulcan and led into “Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire”, with artists Billy Tan and Clayton Henry. This 12-issue epic took a team of X-Men into space to stop Vulcan from destroying the Shi’Ar Empire. This is sci-fi X-Men action at its finest, a story that pays homage to the classic stories starring the Shi’Ar and is the last great cosmic X-Men story with the aliens.
2) “Supernovas”
Mike Carey’s run writing the X-Men is the second longest in the team’s history, and it all kicked off with this awesome little story. “Supernovas”, by Carey, Chris Bachalo, and Clayton Henry, saw Rogue bring together a rather contentious team — Iceman, Cable, Cannonball, Mystique, Sabretooth, Lady Mastermind, and Omega Sentinel — to help protect the post-House of M mutant race. The team is given their baptism by fire immediately, as they find themselves in the crosshairs of the Children of the Vault, powerful posthumans created to destroy mutants. This story is an exciting little X-yearn, full of awesome characterization and great action.
1) Generation Next
Generation Next is part of “Age of Apocalypse”, which gets talked about all the time, but a lot of people don’t really talk about this particular part of the story very much. Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo’s four-issue series tells the story of the young X-Men going on a quest to save Illyana Rasputin, as part of the plan to undo the doomed AoA timeline. However, things don’t go as planned, and this book gets dark and shocking real quick. This book leaned into the fact that none of these characters were ever going to be seen again to give readers a brutally realistic story about a suicide mission that we don’t often get out of superhero comics.
What your favorite unsung X-stories? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
Most Viewed
-
Image Courtesy of Studio Bones -
Image Courtesy of Science SARU
