Marvel Announces 'Uncanny X-Men'

Today at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Comics announced the return of Uncanny X-Men.

No creative team or characters were named at this time, but the long-running X-Men series is set to return with new issues this fall.

Uncanny X-Men is the series that introduced the X-Men, though it was known simply as X-Men at the time, and has long been considered the flagship series of a line that frequently has as many as four team books with X-Men in its title.

Sales were disappointing in its early days. In 1970, Marvel began using the series to reprint old stories instead of creating new X-Men adventures. It remained that way until 1975, when Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, and Chris Claremont gave the X-Men a soft reboot that introduced many fan-favorite characters and set the X-Men up to become Marvel's biggest franchise. It was during Claremont's 17-year run that followed that the Uncanny adjective was added and the word has become synonymous with the X-Men ever since.

Uncanny X-Men ran uninterrupted through 544 issues before being relaunched as part of the Regenesis publishing initiative that followed the Schism event. It was then relaunched again after the Avengers vs. X-Men event with Brian Michael Bendis writing the adventures of Cyclops' revolutionary X-Men team and then once more following Secret Wars with Magneto leading a morally grey team of X-Men. The title has been missing since the ResurrXion relaunch replaced most of the traditional X-Men titles with color-coded series like X-Men Blue and X-Men Gold.

However, both X-Men Blue and X-Men Gold are ending with their 36th issues, suggesting that Marvel is making room in the line for the return of Uncanny X-Men.

The return of Uncanny X-Men will likely spin out of the Extermination event series. That series is said to tell the final story of the time-displaced original five X-Men who are currently being featured in the pages of X-Men Blue. Their presumed departure from present day and the continuity shifts that may occur in the process will present a turning point for Marvel to once again reshuffle the X-Men comics line.

Are you excited about the return of Uncanny X-Men? Let us know in the comments!