Looking at their success over the years, it’s easy to point to when the X-Men truly broke out and became superstars: the 1980s. 1974’s Giant-Size X-Men #1 set the team’s new course, and suddenly we were introduced to the Shi’Ar and the Phoenix, Magneto showed up, and John Byrne joined the book as main artist, all important building blocks of success. However, it wouldn’t be until 1980, when fans got what is generally considered the best X-story ever: “The Dark Phoenix Saga”, that things truly took off. This was the first big story of the 1980s, and it was a winner right out the gate. From there, the team’s adventures would get better and better, allowing them to become true superstars.
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Uncanny X-Men became the bestselling comic in the ’80s and stayed that for the rest of the decade, joined by numerous mutant books, from ongoings like New Mutants to best of all time miniseries like 1982’s Wolverine. People call the ’90s the decade of the X-Men, but everything people talked about in the ’90s was already there in the ’80s. Looking back at the decade, these fives things are the most important parts of X-Men in the ’80s, and they helped make the team the most important at Marvel.
5) The Best Villains in Comics
The X-Men have some amazing villains, and the best of them came from the ’80s. Sure, Magneto, Juggernaut, the Sentinels, and several other mutants bad guys have been around since the beginning, but most of the fan favorite villains came from the ’80s. Even several important ones who debuted in the ’70s, like Mystique and Sabretooth, wouldn’t become important until the ’80s. Mister Sinister, Apocalypse, Mojo, the Hellfire Club, Shadow King, the Reavers, Ahab, Nimrod, Legion, Pyro, Avalanche, Destiny, Spiral, the Marauders, and Madelyne Pryor are ’80s babies. The X-Men comics were stacked with villains, and that played a massive role in the success of the team and their spin-offs.
4) The New Mutants
It’s impossible to downplay the importance of the New Mutants to the X-Men comics of the ’80s. The teen team introduced readers to some of the coolest mutants ever and soon became the cornerstone of the mutant side of the Marvel Universe. Back then, most of the X-Men spin-offs books, like Magik, X-Terminators, and Fallen Angels, all spun out of the team’s adventures. The young mutants injected a sense a youthful energy into the X-Men books, allowing creators to take the metaphor of mutants in all new directions, creating new stars like Mirage, Cannonball, Karma, Magik, and Sunpot. The New Mutants were legends from the beginning, and allowed the X-books to go in directions they wouldn’t have otherwise.
3) The X-Men Books Boasted the Best Artists Ever
Uncanny X-Men had amazing art right from the beginning. Dave Cockrum was one of the best artists of the ’70s, and he drew Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men for several years in during the decade of disco, until John Byrne came on as regular artist. This kicked off a run of amazing artists that would work on X-Men comics throughout the ’80s. Cockrum would return after Byrne left and a who’s who of amazing artists would draw Marvel’s merry mutants: Paul Smith, John Romita Jr., Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Rick Leonardi, Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Miller, Marc Silvestri, John Buscema, and many, many more all worked on books like Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, New Mutants, and the various other X-books. The X-Men set a new standard for art in comics in the ’80s, changing the industry forever.
2) The Rise of Wolverine
X-Men was a hit right off the bat, and the book’s cast became some of the most beloved heroes in comics. One character, though, jumped ahead of the others in the estimation of fans and that’s Wolverine. The clawed mutant was everything that fans wanted, a gruff, violent loner with a heart of gold. He was the book’s rising star, and the 1980s would see him hit the stratosphere. He got his first solo series in 1982, and was the star of Uncanny X-Men, drawn by some of the greatest artists in comics. He began to appear across the Marvel Universe, with books like Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1 and Captain America Annual #8 seeing him branch out. He became the biggest star in comics, and he did it with style and aplomb.
1) Chris Claremont
Chris Claremont started writing the team with 1974’s X-Men #94, and wrote the book until issue #278. He built the team slowly but surely, establishing the perfect bedrock, so that when he got to the ’80s, he could cook like few writers before him. Claremont wrote the greatest X-stories of the ’80s: “The Dark Phoenix Saga”, “Days of Future Past”, God Loves, Man Kills, the Brood Saga, Wolverine (Vol. 1), “The Demon Bear Saga”, “Mutant Massacre”, “Lifedeath”, “Fall of the Mutants”, “Inferno”, and hundreds more. Claremont mastered the superhero soap opera with the team and their spin-offs, all while giving readers some of the coolest sci-fi and fantasy ideas and concepts in the comic industry. Claremont became a legend, and his work on the team in the ’80s made them into true superstars.
What’s your favorite part of ’80s X-Men comics? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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