the x-men are heading for a new crossover in January, titled sins of sinister. In the story, the scheming mutant Mister Sinister seems to remake the world in his own image, paying homage to the 1995 apocalypse era, one of the greatest X-Men stories ever.
with almost 60 years of stories under their big yellow belts and world renown as the stars of some of the most beloved superhero tales in all of fiction, compiling the list of the best x-men stories takes some work, but fortunately, we are up for the task.
As we say, there are plenty of new classic stories on this list, so check them out and make sure you stay on top of all the new x-men stories coming out every week in our guide to new x-men comics and collections coming out soon! it is planned for 2022.
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20. asgardian wars
While it often seems like the X-Men during legendary writer Chris Claremont’s career are big enough to sustain a universe of their own, the writer’s dalliances with other corners of the Marvel Universe always provide amusing distractions from the soap operas for everyone. suffocating times of its main story.
‘asgardian wars (opens in new tab)’ is one of those fun little breaks where claremont dives into walt simonson’s world of might and magic.
Loki plans to manipulate Storm into becoming the Goddess of Thunder. but the new mutants are also present. arthur adams art is some of the best of her career, creating clear inspiration for artists like marc silvestri and jim lee to gain popularity for decades to come.
as claremont often does, he gets too involved in explaining to readers facts of the world that might be new to those not following thor at the time. there’s the expected amount of mind control and shape-shifting shenanigans.
but the story itself, while light by comparison to normal x-man fare, still builds on core ideas the writer has returned to again and again when he writes: “a reminder that only humanity carries within itself the power to create paradise on earth, on its own terms, by its own efforts, without the gifts or machinations of greedy gods, which, for better or worse, is as it should be.” /p>
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19. schism (schism #1-5)
After Professor X and Magneto, the two men at the heart of the X-Men are Cyclops and Wolverine. the limited series x-men: schism (opens in a new tab) speaks to the unease evident in the x-men lineup in the ’10s, and specifically the unease of those two characters. With house of m decimating the mutant population, the remaining mutants had to decide which way to go.
for one thing, jason aaron’s handling of wolverine was more in line with chris claremont’s (logan is xavier’s biggest hit) and with that, we see the seeds of the man who would want to reopen a school for young boys talented.
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But Cyclops, while not a failure, feels like one. he has failed his mentor. he has failed his family and his friends. and more than anything, he believes that for the dream to come true, drastic changes must be made.
That is the conflict at the heart of this book, and though it is overlooked due to the ‘regenesis’ era that followed, the schism is one of the strongest works of its time.
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18. age of x
Because of the size of the cast, the penchant for time travel and experimentation, and the general disregard for best practices around such things, the x-men have always been ripe for an alternate reality story. ‘age of apocalypse’ is the biggest, but ‘age of x (opens in new tab)’ is interesting given the state of editorial line at the time.
‘age of x’ would predate the schism (in which the x-men split into two separate factions) by a couple of months, and would feature a world that the x-men are essentially doomed to suffer. Writer Mike Carey offers exciting new takes on Cyclops, Wolverine, and Magneto. but deep down, the story asks “what are we doing?”
In a sense, with the ‘Age of X’ being just another story of the last remaining mutants going against a world that hates and fears them, Carey almost asks readers what’s so appealing about returning to this status? what. over and over again.
If the meta-angle doesn’t convince you, this is a story that solidifies much of what Carey’s career is about. Rogue has taken on the name ‘Legacy’, which makes sense considering how much she is the focus of the main title, called X-Men Legacy at the time. Age of X also pays homage to the original Age of Apocalypse story (more on that shortly) with the legion of ultra-powerful psychic mutants creating a new reality in which he gets to be a hero.
As far as 2010 x-titles go, the x-men legacy and ‘age of x’ specifically, are underrated and sadly often-forgotten parts of x-story.
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17. ‘the saga of proteus’ – strange x-men #125-128
muant x (aka proteus) is first mentioned in a random panel in uncanny x-men #104, but writer chris claremont waits until #125 to let that brew with ‘the proteus saga (opens in a new tab)’. Over the course of the next few issues, we find out that Proteus is the son of Moira Mactaggert.
His reality distortion and ability to jump into other bodies to consume life force make him nearly impossible for the X-Men to handle, except for his weakness to metal.
claremont does a great job with cyclops leading the team testing everyone as they prepare for battle. colossus effectively killing proteus is a bit of an awkward ending considering the x-men are supposed to be the good guys, but it’s framed as some sort of “greater good” action at the time.
‘the dark phoenix saga’ might be the most talked about ‘saga’ in x history, but ‘the proteus saga’ definitely deserves a mention.
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16. messiah complex
house of m changed the course of mutant history in the marvel universe forever. With three simple words, Scarlet Witch brought mutants to the brink of extinction, but made their fight for survival even more desperate and compelling.
‘messiah complex (opens in new tab)’ might be a bit long at 13 issues for a story like this, but essentially the x-men, the marauders, the acolytes, the looters, the purifiers, and the predator x are out to get the first mutant baby to be born since the annihilation, when all but a relative handful of mutants lost their powers thanks to the scarlet witch.
the crossover as a whole is a bit lopsided, being told into 13 issues by five different writers who were writing books that were quite different in tone at the time, but still get the job done.
In a weird way, the x-men prevailing in this story is one of the most significant events in x-men history because the baby turns out to be hope summers and she’s crucial to the resurrection process that takes place. currently carries out. line ‘reign of x’ x-men.
But if you’re looking for a story that feels nostalgic in every way, this is the story for you. it’s simple and straightforward, featuring characters you love and little tricks you probably don’t like.
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15. mutant massacre
Depending on how you feel about the crossover events, ‘mutant massacre (opens in a new tab)’ will arouse either your anger or your praise.
Originally intended to be told solely within the main X-Men title, it was expanded to intersect with all X titles of the time, as well as other non-X-Men Marvel titles, Thor, Power pack and daredevil. the rest is history.
but mutant massacre did what so many great chris claremont stories did: it reminded us of what the x-men stood for, created a real sense of dread about their plight, and upheld the x-men’s underdog status. throughout this story, the x-men go through the wringer.
colossus has to use lethal force and is quadriplegic for a while. kitty is trapped in her intangible form. they can’t even save all the morlocks and sabertooth makes them realize that not even the manor is safe. Mister Sinister also emerges as a deadly new villain, solidifying this arc as one of the most exciting and memorable in Claremont’s career.
(to the point that the ‘age of the apocalypse’ continuity would actually flip to make the dark beast part of the impetus for the sinister attack on the morlocks in the first place. how about apples ?)
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14. fall of the mutants
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while ‘the fall of the mutants (opens in a new tab)’ is probably best remembered for leading into the inner x-men era, it’s the smaller moments of this crossover that really deserve to be highlighted . Although the main conflict with the adversary and the force of freedom doesn’t have the same impact as the team’s clashes with other villains, writer Chris Claremont took the time to show us the world around the X-Men and how it was affected. by them even if they didn’t realize it.
For example, Colossus walks through the site of a battle with the Juggernaut and recognizes that his adventures have repercussions for the people who live in these places. Claremont also spawns the idea that humans aren’t just uncomfortable around mutants, but superpowered beings in general. Other than that, additions to the X-Men canon, such as Fate’s mystique and still nebulous romantic relationship defined as well as it could be for 1987, are notable for being quite forward-thinking for the time.
‘the fall of the mutants’ is an odd crossover, as the three titles involved never intersected, but the story did allow claremont to play around with some ideas to help freshen up the x-men’s second perpetual act.
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13. ‘the magneto test’ – uncanny x-men #200
It is said that the best villains are those with whom you can feel that you agree. For his part, Magneto has made some valid points over the years in his quest for mutant supremacy. But Claremont never wanted the Master of Magnetism to remain the same mustachioed villain he had been in the Silver Age.
‘the trial of magneto (opens in new tab)’ is the culmination of years of growth for magneto as a character. readers began to see a softer side of him in issue 150, but now, 50 issues later, we see a man who recognizes the weight of what he’s done and is ready to repent.
Of course the charges against him are dismissed, but since he’s turned the page, this leads directly to him taking over as headmaster of the xavier school and training the new mutants.
It’s a big step for magneto and understandably Claremont had trouble seeing it in the ’90s.
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12. ‘gifted’ – amazing x-men #1-6
‘gifted (opens in a new tab)’, the opening salvo to joss whedon’s amazing x-men run, brought back the colossus, helped redefine cyclops, and introduced a mutant cure (providing part of the plot for x3: the final battle).
Of course, in true whedon fashion, the script’s dialogue and ingenuity sometimes outweigh the impact of the plot, but whedon brought characterization to the fore, and that allowed him to organically build as many “wow” moments as possible . the work of him.
and it never hurts to have artist john cassaday by your side. After years of unadorned leather, Cassaday’s reimagined outfits for the team still exude an understanding of each character’s history. For many, cassaday costumes are the essential look of characters more than before or since.
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11. ‘wounded wolf’ – strange x-men #205
wolverine is essential to the x-men, and barry windsor-smith is an essential wolverine artist.
‘wounded wolf (opens in new tab)’ features a showdown between logan, lady deathstrike and their henchmen that humanizes the old knucklehead in ways that speak to the character’s heart. windsor-smith’s work here is exciting and inventive, as falling snow fills the pages, but never hinders the artist’s intentions.
claremont’s penchant for occasional solo adventures with his characters showed us how he could juggle them all without letting them feel flat or neglected.
wolverine’s concern for young katie’s power and his decision to let deathstrike live are crucial to understanding who logan is. she can be brutal and unyielding in battle, but she is not without compassion.
‘wounded wolf’ is one of the best examples of claremont’s character work and stands out of all time.
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10. age of the apocalypse
in a move that can’t be exactly replicated these days considering the way everything is so intertwined with the internet now, x-men fans in the ’90s replaced everything they were reading with entirely new titles in a whole. -new dimension.
The unstable (and incredibly powerful) mutant David Haller had a plan to go back and kill Magneto, but ended up killing his father, Professor X, instead. this led to an alternate future where the apocalypse ruled the world – the titular ‘age of the apocalypse (opens in a new tab)’.
The ’90s get a bad rap for indulging in the worst of comic art, but this remains one of the best stories of the decade for its sheer audacity. the characters we had come to know and love were forced into quite different roles in the ‘aoa’ timeline, and seeing how they changed (or stayed the same) is interesting, to say the least, and probably couldn’t work that well. with any other superhero team.
and with artists like joe madureira, chris bachalo, steve epting, andy kubert and more on board, ‘age of apocalypse’ still exists solidly in the golden age of x-men art.
A spiritual sequel, ‘age of x-man,’ copied the concept of transporting characters to an alternate world, but it didn’t have the same level of surprise and novelty as the first time.
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9. ‘mutant genesis’ – x-men #1-3
‘mutant genesis (opens in a new tab)’? His first thought is probably, ‘wait, really?’ but let me explain.
Although Chris Claremont’s storied X-Men career ended unceremoniously with this brief arc as Marvel shifted the balance of power from writers and editors to artists, all it takes is one look at the characters envisioned by jim lee, and anyone on the planet can tell you who they are.
To this day, Lee and Claremont’s X-Men #1 remains the best-selling single issue of all time with over eight million copies. The story within the pages may seem a bit sparse to some, but Claremont’s comment on the end of his time with Marvel is undeniable, and Jim Lee delivers some absolutely monstrous pages.
Say what you will about the ’90s, but without this, we may never have had the x-men: the animated series.
He didn’t say anything.
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8. ‘lifedeath i & ii’ – strange x-men #186, 198
strong women have been a mainstay since the beginning of chris claremont’s career and the storm is without a doubt one of the best. From her humble beginnings as a street thief to her evolution into a leader and a goddess, Ororo Munroe has never proven to be an easy hero to beat.
‘lifedeath i & ii (opens in a new tab) ‘ show us a storm who is struggling with the loss of his powers, but eventually finds strength in the situation. Claremont’s scripts deal with loss, forgiveness, coping, and surviving trauma, and Storm learns that there is more than one way to have power.
and if you need any other reason to consider this story, barry windsor-smith presents some of his best work on the x-men with the expressiveness that oozes from these pages.
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7. ‘the breeding saga’ – strange x-men #161-167
At first glance, Brood feels like a knock-off or homage to the popular alien movie franchise, but ‘The Brood Saga (opens in new tab)’ is a perfect example of how Chris Claremont could invent seemingly insignificant things. details.
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artist dave cockrum told wizard magazine in 1993 that the hatchling was initially conceived when claremont wrote “miscellaneous alien minions” in the script for uncanny x-men #155 and cockrum “…drew the looking thing most horrible [he] could think of…”
It would take seven issues before the hatchling became a real threat to the X-Men, capturing and infecting them in Uncanny X-Men #162, leading the team to face their mortality.
Wolverine takes center stage as the only one who can seemingly survive the infection, but that allows Claremont to use him to ground the story a bit as we watch the rest of the X-Men struggle with their situation. Plus, we see character work that would be expanded upon later: Peter and Kitty’s blossoming romance, Cyclops’ wrath bubbling under the surface, and even Nightcrawler and Wolverine’s frank discussion of religion.
uncanny x-men meanders its way into ‘the brood saga,’ but that’s part of its charm. Claremont’s ability to create believable threats to the X-Men seemingly out of thin air is what made his career so beloved.
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6. x-men: first season
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are visionary creators in their own right, but their early take on the X-Men is a product of its time: it’s telling that none of their stories appear on this list.
but still, those formative years laid the foundation for everything chris claremont and others have built in the decades since. could there be a better way to contextualize them given what we know now?
turns out yes.
enter dennis ‘hopeless’ hallum and jamie mckelvie. With McKelvie’s humanity and clean work on display, Hopeless takes readers through some of those early years of interactions between the original five X-Men and refocuses them for modern audiences.
Injecting some truly Claremont melodrama, Hopeless offers a fuller picture of the Silver Age adventures of the X-Men and the people who would become the X-Men we know and love.
x-men: season one (opens in a new tab) is a great start for any fan who wants to dive in with these gifted young men.
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5. x-men: god loves, man kills
Anyone who claims that the X-Men is not a metaphor for marginalized people in contemporary times probably hasn’t read X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (opens in a new tab).
chris claremont introduces william stryker, a reverend with a big bone and intolerant to messing with mutants. The charismatic leader convinces his followers to take humanity into their own hands and the X-Men have to team up with Magneto to stop him. more than ever, this is ground zero of the metaphor that fuels the x-men. It is not just that they are feared and hated. this is a story about what happens when the world emboldens hate and enables the worst parts of humanity.
and it would be a crime not to mention brent anderson’s incendiary artwork. While he’s probably not one of the first names you think of when you talk about x-artists, his output here is stellar. There’s a disconcerting darkness to the proceedings that befits the more mature tone, and Xavier’s nightmarish visions are rendered with startling intensity.
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4. ‘e is for extinction’ – new x-men #114-116
Just as his first film made its way into theaters and changed everything we thought about superhero movies, Grant Morrison’s union with Marvel’s merry mutants a year later provided a similar revitalization for the X-Men in the comics.
morrison changed everything by changing the tropes they knew they had a little more to give. With artist Frank Quitely, they redesigned the team’s wardrobe for the new millennium, privileging black leather over flashy spandex, and canonized the idea of secondary mutations further empowering the mutants who experience them, while reducing the core team to a more sustainable and iconic. few.
The result is the beginning of an era of new growth for the X-Men that still saw Morrison fall into the patterns that specifically define the X-Men. Over time, the cast grew and the adventures of the soap opera filtered through Morrison’s new psychedelia, allowing them to comment on the legacy of the greatest superhero comics team with their work.
‘e is for extinction (opens in new tab)’ is a reminder that the potential these characters have is limitless, and that is why they have endured.
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3. house of x/powers of x
This may seem like a high placement for the most recent story on the list, but it seems almost impossible to overstate how thoroughly Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva reinvigorated the X-Men franchise with House of X/Powers of X. It’s arguably the biggest sea change we’ve seen happen to Marvel’s merry mutants since giant-sized X-Men #1.
Revelations about the many lives of Moira Mactaggart, the establishment of Krakoa as a mutant homeland, and resurrection protocols made the world sit up and take notice of the X-Men in our world and theirs. Hickman’s knack for heady sci-fi gave the characters direction for the first time in years, ending an era of stops and starts that failed to capitalize on the fact that at one point the X-Men dominated editorial line. from marvel.
In a way, Hickman throws down the gauntlet to the rest of the Marvel Universe, creators, fans, and characters alike, with a single line from Magneto: “Now you have new gods.”
yes, and there’s never been a better time to be an x-men fan.
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2. ‘days of future past’ – strange x-men #141-142
penciler john byrne deserves most of the credit for this one, as writer chris claremont just didn’t want to do another story with sentinels, no matter how much byrne wanted to draw them.
so while the artist admits the plot is loosely borrowed from a doctor who episode, ‘days of future past (opens in new tab)’, it still stands as two men at the height of their creative prowess who they find opportunity and potential in these now timeless characters.
it is impossible to deny the trade in this story. It only has two numbers, but the feeling of fear and hopelessness in the face of this possible future is palpable. kitty pryde walking through a cemetery that is full of his friends while all the odds are stacked against him: that’s the kind of image that sticks with the audience and the character.
claremont and byrne were experts at making readers feel like it could all be over at any moment for the x-men, and that’s part of what makes their team so great, and it’s also why ‘Days of Future Past’ stands as one of the most well-known and beloved X-Men stories in history, and even inspired a film adaptation.
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1. ‘dark phoenix saga’ – strange x-men #129-138
if there is one story that defines the x-men above all others, it is ‘the dark phoenix saga (opens in a new tab)’, in which the tumultuous creative relationship of chris claremont and john byrne begins to come to an end with one of the greatest superhero stories ever told.
The Claremont soap opera-style plot and characterization come to the fore as readers get a front row seat to Jean Grey’s corruption. kitty pryde joins the team. shi’ar, lilandra and the imperial guard are added to the myths thanks to dave cockrum; Suddenly, the world of the X-Men has become something much bigger.
The effects of this story cannot be overstated. Jean’s sacrifice to defeat the Dark Phoenix would define the X-Men forever, and while the Phoenix has a habit of rising from the ashes, it never lessens the impact of his initial death.
jean was more than a friend, lover or teammate for these characters. she’s also the first of many amazing women to join the x-men, and in future issues, we might see just how much of a linchpin she really was to the team up to that point.
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