The X-Men blew past all competitors to become the most popular superteam ever. While their early years were rocky when it comes to popularity, Marvel's merry mutants conquered the industry in the 1980s and since then have become an indelible part of pop culture. As they grew in stardom, Marvel put the work in with the X-Men, doing their best to make sure the property reached its potential.
While Marvel did a lot of damage to the X-Men from 2005 to 2019, they also made a lot of great changes. These adjustments helped the property become more popular than before, overtaking all of its competitors.
10 Putting Out Multiple Solo Miniseries And Ongoings Showed The Characters Were Strong On Their Own
The X-Men are first and foremost a team, but Marvel had no problem giving the characters their own spotlights. Starting with 1982's Wolverine, by writer Chris Claremont and artist Frank Miller, Marvel showed off the members of the X-Men in solo miniseries, with characters like Kitty Pryde, Magik, and Nightcrawler all getting one.
Wolverine got his solo ongoing later in the '80s and once the '90s dawned, plenty more characters would get miniseries and solos. Marvel allowed the various X-Men characters to shine outside the team, expanding on their characters and making them more well-rounded.
9 The X-Men Summer Crossovers Were Big In The 1980s
Marvel and event storytelling have gone hand in hand for forty years. Marvel pioneered event books in the '80s with Contest Of Champions, and its follow-up Secret Wars was massively popular. Unfortunately, Secret Wars II bombed with fans and Marvel halted event books til the '90s. The summer crossover wasn't dead, though, as X-Men books rolled out the most popular ones of the '80s.
X-Men summer crossovers like "Fall Of The Mutants", "Inferno", and more were treated like A-list event books are now, crossing into books outside the X-Men sphere. Marvel showed just how important the X-Men were during this time.
8 The Publisher Puts Their Best Writers On The X-Men
A surefire way to make a comic good is the creative teams attached to the book. The X-Men have been luckier than a lot of comics in this regard. Over the years, Marvel has put the best writing talent they can muster onto the X-Men and their related titles. These talented scribes have turned in amazing X-Men stories, adding to the team's legend.
The X-Men are one of Marvel's most complex properties, and it takes a special talent to get them right. Marvel putting their best writers on the property has paid off immensely, allowing them to soar to heights they may not have otherwise.
7 The Greatest Artists In Marvel History Have All Worked On The X-Men
Marvel has had its shares of influential artists and most of them have one thing in common: they've all worked on the X-Men. From tried and true hands to next big things, Marvel has gifted the mutants with the best artists they can get their hands on, giving X-Men comics some of the most impressive visuals in the history of the medium.
X-Men comics and visual excellence go hand in hand. As important as the right writers are, artists can make or break a comic. Their place in the creative process is just as important, and the X-Men artists have made the often great writing that much better.
6 The Age Of Apocalypse Is Marvel's Top Alternate Universe Storyline
The X-Men have always been the home of Marvel's best multiversal concepts. For proof, one need look no further than The Age Of Apocalypse. One of the most influential modern Marvel stories, AoA was a huge gamble at the time. The X-Men titles were the best-selling in the industry and putting everything on hold for a multi-month alternate universe story in every book could have been disastrous.
Everyone involved brought their A game and what followed is the best alternate universe story in Marvel history. Its legacy is undeniable, and its success spurred Marvel to try and go back several times with less success. The AoA had that certain something, though, and Marvel's gamble paid off.
5 The '90s Were The Decade Of The X-Men
The '90s are the definitive era of the X-Men. They opened the decade with a bang; their sales dominance got a massive boost with the debuts of X-Force #1 and X-Men #1, the biggest selling comic of all time. They were Marvel's cash cow and the publisher made sure no one forgot. The X-Men line would balloon to the double digits on a monthly basis, with solo ongoings, team books, and miniseries.
Marvel gave the X-Men their full attention in an unprecedented way, and it paid off tremendously. The X-Men books were the focus of the entire industry in a way no other comic was before. Everyone tried to copy their success and Marvel's shepherding of the property throughout the decade kept them at the top.
4 House Of X/Powers Of X Revitalized The X-Men After Years Of Editorial Enforced Stagnation
Starting with House Of M, Marvel began to sideline the X-Men. It came to a head after the success of the MCU, as Marvel's lack of the X-Men's film rights pushed the team even farther into the background. The worst came when the company decided to push the Inhumans in place of the mutants, a decision that ended up destroying the Inhumans as an extant concept.
Disney eventually acquired 20th Century Fox, netting the film rights for Marvel and the company immediately put plans into motion to repair the X-Men. House Of X/Powers Of X, by writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva, was the vehicle for that, introducing a new status quo for the team. Since then, the X-Men have become Marvel's biggest books, dominating the industry.
3 Grant Morrison's New X-Men Was Revolutionary
The X-Men may have been the biggest books of the '90s, but fans had grown a bit tired with the convoluted nature of the team. Marvel brought in Grant Morrison in 2001 to shake things up, and what they gave the company was a revolution. Rechristening X-Men as New X-Men, Morrison's unleashed their gonzo imagination on the X-Men and created timeless stories.
Morrison's New X-Men was couched in X-Men concepts that were tried and true, but the way they presented them took concepts like the school and make them new again. Morrison's ideas would be aped by writers that came after them and their creativity is still an untouchable monolith in X-Men history.
2 Chris Claremont Made The X-Men The Biggest Stars In The Industry
There is one factor in the success of the X-Men that can't be denied and that's writer Chris Claremont. Claremont was given the book after Giant-Size X-Men #1 and spent seventeen years on Uncanny X-Men, the longest run by any Marvel writer. Under Claremont's stewardship, the X-Men conquered the comic industry, a huge deal for a book that had been all but canceled before he joined it.
Claremont combined soap opera antics with superheroes, sci-fi, horror, and brought out the queer undertones of the X-Men when that was verboten. His time on the book was a monumental success and Marvel putting him on the book paid off better than anyone imagined.
1 Giant-Size X-Men #1 Paved The Way For All The Success That Followed
Before Giant-Size X-Men #1, by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum, X-Men was a book that reprinted old stories. It was all but dead in the water but Giant-Size dropped and redefined the X-Men forever. Introducing a new international team consisting of Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, and Thunderbird led by Cyclops, it gave the X-Men everything they needed to succeed.
Without this roster change, the X-Men never would have become the biggest book in the industry. It was the most important change in X-Men history, one that took them to dizzying heights and created some of the greatest comics of all time.