The X-Men are Marvel's greatest franchise. The Avengers may be the biggest name in pop culture but they can't really compare to the X-Men when it comes to the variety of stories and what those stories mean. For almost sixty years, the greatest creators in comics history have worked on the X-Men, creating timeless stories that are often more than just superheroes beating on each other.
While there have been bad X-Men stories, the best X-Men tales have changed comics forever. The X-Men have dominated the sales charts for decades and for good reason: there are few comic franchises that can tell stories like the X-Men.
10 Giant-Size X-Men #1 Was All-New, All-Different
The X-Men were the least successful Marvel team of the Silver Age, their book was relegated to reprint status until 1974. That was the year Giant-Size X-Men #1, by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum hit. The story introduced the All-New, All-Different team- Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, and Warpath- and gave the comic industry new icons.
Wein and Cockrum delivered an amazing story as Professor X brought the new team together to rescue the older X-Men team from the living island Krakoa. It's an epic story that holds up all these years later and without it, the comic industry would be very different.
9 X-Men (2019) #7 and #18-19 Were The Highlight Of Jonathan Hickman's Run On The Book
The current Krakoa era of the X-Men hasn't produced as many greatest of all time stories as most fans hoped for, but there are some. Writer Jonathan Hickman's X-Men told short stories and the best ones were issue #7, with artist R.B. Silva, and #18-19, with artist Mahmud Asrar. These three issues told the Vault story, where Wolverine, Synch, and Darwin travel into the Vault to battle the posthuman Children of the Vault.
Issue #7 introduced the plotline as the trio entered the massive Master Mold holding the Vault where time moved differently. Issues #18 and #19 cataloged the centuries they spent in there surviving, growing, and changing, and the sacrifice they made to finally escape. It's easily Hickman's best X-Men story and a highlight of the era for the team.
8 X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills Is Timeless
X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, by writer Chris Claremont and artist Brad Anderson, is one of the most powerful X-Men stories ever told. As the Reverend Stryker and his Purifiers target mutant children for death, the X-Men team up with their arch-foe Magneto to put down the religious ideologues and save mutant lives.
Claremont used the story to talk about the hypocrisy of organized religion and bigotry and it, unfortunately, holds up because of the subject matter is still relevant to this day. Anderson's art is amazing, the perfect accompaniment to Claremont's script. God Loves, Man Kills is an example of something the X-Men do better than just about any other Marvel book; critiquing society.
7 Operation: Zero Tolerance Is A '90s Classic
The '90s aren't considered the greatest time for comics, but there are some forgotten X-Men gems from that era. Operation: Zero Tolerance is the best of them. Running through all of the X-Men books of the time, it saw the government initiate Operation: Zero Tolerance after the Onslaught affair. Bastion and his Prime Sentinels attack mutants and the X-Men have to fight back.
Operation: Zero Tolerance had it all; great art, a killer plot, and a perfect villain. The fact it ran through so many different books made it a varied story, as each book dealt with something different. It's a highpoint of mid-'90s X-Men comics and a must-read.
6 X-Men: Mutant Genesis Is The Best Magneto Story Of All Time
Chris Claremont's seventeen-year tenure as writer of the X-Men made him one of Marvel's most influential modern writers and his last X-Men story is one of his best. X-Men: Mutant Genesis, by Claremont and artist Jim Lee, closed out the Claremont years, launched the adjectiveless X-Men book, and introduced the Blue and Gold Teams.
Pitting the Blue Team against Magneto and his new servants the Acolytes, the story was a crash course in what made the X-Men and Magneto such an amazing rivalry and had some of Lee's best Marvel art ever. It's wonderfully written, an action-packed story that captures the power and majesty of Magneto like no other story.
5 X-Men: Days Of Future Past Was A Trendsetter
Uncanny X-Men #141-142, by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne, did a lot of heavy lifting. While dystopian X-Men futures ruled by Sentinels are now nothing new, they were when "Days Of Future Past" dropped. The story brought the dystopian future plotline to comics in a big way and it remains one of the best alternate timelines stories in Marvel history.
"Days Of Future Past" changed the X-Men and comics forever. Beyond being a trendsetter, it's also one of Claremont and Byrne's finest outings, a two-issue epic that still knocks readers' socks off even forty years later.
4 The Age Of Apocalypse Is A Classic Like Few Others
The Age Of Apocalypse is the most beloved Marvel story of the '90s. Running through two bookend issues, 9 four-issue mini-series, and a two-issue quarterly, it deposited the X-Men in a hellish alternate reality ruled by Apocalypse. In this world where the X-Men were founded by Magneto and acted as the last resistance to Apocalypse's reign, Bishop still remembers the other world and knows how to change things back.
The Age Of Apocalypse combines powerful world-building with amazing art, great heroes and villains, and a variety of epic stories that all filter into one amazing blowout of a final issue.
3 X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga Is A Masterpiece
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga, by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne, is the type of story that needs no introduction. It's one of the most influential X-Men stories of all time and the crown jewel of its entire Marvel era. The tale of Jean Grey's fall to the power of the Phoenix and the X-Men's desperate attempts to stop her are holy writ for X-Men aficionados.
It's one of the best examples of Claremont as a writer, as his poetic prose propels the story along to its epic and heartbreaking ending. Byrne's pencils are amazing, selling the action and pathos of every chapter. It's a masterpiece that has few peers.
2 E Is For Extinction Presented Mutants As The Future Like Never Before
E Is For Extinction, by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely, is the opening salvo of Morrison dragging the X-Men into the 21st century after the boom and bust years of the '90s. Pitting the X-Men against new villain Cassandra Nova, Morrison threw away the playbook to create a truly modern take on the X-Men that borrowed from the past but still felt entirely new, hence the name change of the book to New X-Men.
E Is For Extinction is twenty years old but holds up surprisingly well all things considered. It was a revolutionary take on the X-Men and has served as inspiration for the best X-Men tales that came after it.
1 House Of X/Powers Of X Redefined The X-Men Completely
The Krakoa era of the X-Men has brought about changes presaged by Morrison's run, and it all began in House Of X/Powers Of X, by writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva. Hickman is a singular talent and he threw some amazing changes at the X-Men, giving them a new home on the mutant island of Krakoa and power in the world like never before.
Hickman changed the character of Moira MacTaggert forever and traveled into alternate futures to show how the war between humans and mutants could end. He set up the X-Men for a new era and while one can argue how successful the non-Hickman books of the era have been with what he left them, House Of X/Powers Of X is beyond reproach.