All month-long we'll be featuring top five lists about either the Avengers or the X-Men. Here is an archive of all the past top five lists!
In this installment, we'll look at the writers who have written the most issues of X-Men (X-Men in this instance means X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, New X-Men, X-treme X-Men and all of their respective annuals, one-shots, etc. Like X-Men Omega would count as would Dark Reign: The List - X-Men).
Enjoy!
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Mike Carey would be on the list if I counted X-Men Legacy. He'd be #3, actually. But it's not really a traditional X-Men title. It's more like a satellite book, like X-Force, X-Factor, etc. Jason Aaron likely will be on this list soon. Roy Thomas and Ed Brubaker both put in good showings (so did John Byrne if you count his Claremont run as being a co-writer). The last writer cut was Matt Fraction, who wrote about 40 issues of X-Men, including a few one-shots. If you gave him credit for the Dark Avengers issues he wrote that tied in with Uncanny X-Men during the Utopia crossover, he'd be on the list. I don't think you should count the Dark Avengers issues, though.
5. Grant Morrison
Morrison just sneaks past Fraction with 42 issues written (#114-154 plus one Annual)
4. Chuck Austen
Isn't that amazing? Austen's run lasted about as long as Morrison's but just a LITTLE bit longer.
3. Fabian Nicieza
Nicieza is a few issues ahead of Austen. His run on X-Men was surprisingly not as long as you might think, as he left Marvel for Acclaim around 1995. He'd actually be behind Austen if he hadn't scripted The Magneto War.
2. Scott Lobdell
Lobdell is by far the #2 guy on this list. He practically doubled Nicieza's output, which seems surprising since they seemed to be peers for so long. And I'm not even counting the issues he dialogued early on (as come on, scripting is one thing, but just adding dialogue? I don't think that should really go on your resume as having written the issue in question).
1. Chris Claremont
Claremont's probably written nearly three hundred issues of X-Men, possibly even more (#94-278, the 2000 return, the 2001-2004 X-Treme X-Men run and the 2004 return). He obviously is the face of the X-Men comic book franchise.