Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I've one over the years.
As the rumors build that Fox might actually do an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover in the future, I figured I'd spotlight the five best X-Men/Fantastic Four comic book crossovers over the years...
Enjoy!
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Onslaught
This was more like a general Marvel Universe crossover, but it is fair to say that the Fantastic Four were particularly involved because Onslaught (a psionic being who was the result of the mixture of Professor Xavier and Magneto's "bad" selves becoming sentient on his own) specifically kidnapped Franklin Richards, the mutant son of Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, to help power him. Franklin and Onslaught's other prisoner, Nate Grey, turn on Onslaught...
After Onslaught breaks free from his armor, he turns out to just be an energy being, a being that planned on taking over the form of other mutants to give him a body. The heroes realized that if they sacrificed their OWN bodies, they could trap him and allow the X-Men to destroy him once he was made corporeal, and thus the Fantastic Four sacrifice themselves along with the Avengers and then the X-Men destroyed them all (and Onslaught)...
Franklin Richards, as it turns out, just used his reality warping powers to create another Earth where he placed all of the "dead" heroes, but that was something we learned later on.
"X4" (X-Men/Fantastic Four)
This 2005 mini-series by Akira Yoshida and Pat Lee's Dreamwave Studios (I have no idea how much art Pat Lee himself did on this series - maybe he did the vast majority, I honestly don't know) did not have a ton of plot, as it seemed more like it was designed to spotlight Lee's art. First, the X-Men and Fantastic Four team-up (specifically Invisible Woman, Thing, Wolverine, Emma Frost, Gambit and Nightcrawler) to stop a Brood attack on a space ship just outside of Earth, but when they return, their space ship gets hit by the same cosmic rays that gave the FF their powers. Sue and Ben are immune to the rays, but they have a shocking effect on their mutant comrades...
The Brood then rear their ugly heads again and so the series becomes dealing with the transformed X-Men PLUS the Brood's outright invasion of Earth. Yoshida came up with some fun ideas for this series.
"Thresholds" (Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four Annual 1998)
Marvel did a bunch of team-up annuals in the late 1990s and they had some intriguing match-ups that worked really well. The X-Men and the Fantastic Four teamed up well enough here in a story by Joe Casey with art by Paul Pelletier and Leo Hernandez (and a host of inkers). Reed and Sue and Beast and Dr. Cecilia Reyes are at the opera while Ben and Johnny are playing poker with the X-Men. However, some jealous scientist (think "This Man, This Monster" style jealousy) tries to get "revenge" on Reed Richards by using the Psycho-Man's emotional control box to wreak havoc at the opera, while the activation of the box summoned one of the Psycho-Man's robotic minions from the Microverse to go get the box - that robotic minion fought the Thing, Wolverine and the X-Men while the heroes at the opera deal with their wild emotions...
5. "Seven Against the Stars" (X-Men: The Hidden Years #8-10)
In this three-parter, writer/artist John Byrne followed up an unresolved plot point from the first run of the X-Men, where Professor X faked his death to help prepared for an alien invasion of Earth by the Z'Nox. Using the people of Earth's joined consciousness, Xavier was able to affect the Z'Nox's general emotionless attack of Earth and drive them away. The problem is that the Z'Nox are now free to just attack another world. The Fantastic Four and the X-Men (who, at this point in time, were just Jean Grey, Cyclops and Beast) decide to follow the Z'Nox and stop their threat before they attack another world...
Great Byrne artwork, with inks by Tom Palmer. Byrne was so good at capturing that early 1970s Marvel feel.
4. "We Have to Fight the X-Men!" (Fantastic Four #28)
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Chic Stone have the Puppetmaster take control of Profesor X and through him, force the X-Men to fight the Fantastic Four in this classic Silver Age meeting between the two groups, but ultimately they break free and team-up to work together against the Puppetmaster and his partner in crime, the Mad Thinker (and the Mad Thinker's robot minion, the Awesome Android)...
Classic Kirby/Lee goodness!
Go to the next page for the top three!
3. "The Fantastic Four vs. the X-Men!" (Fantastic Four vs. X-Men #1-4)
Chris Claremont came up with quite a hook for this mini-series, which involves the X-Men in conflict with the Fantastic Four over whether Reed Richards can save the injured Kitty Pryde from, in effect, de-corporealizing. That would normally be a simple thing for Reed to try, but Claremont introduces a diary of Reed's where it suggests that he KNEW that the cosmic rays would penetrate the space ship of the FF way back when - so is Reed really some Machiavellian jerk like Doctor Doom? He begins to doubt himself, which leads to conflict when he turns the X-Men's pleas down at first as he doesn't trust himself to fix Kitty. So Doctor Doom steps in to offer HIS aide. He just wants the X-Men in his debt. In the end, it turns out Doom fabricated the diary and Reed ends up saving Kitty's life...
This was a surprisingly important series for the X-Men, since it fixed Kitty after her injuries in the Mutant Massacre. But boy, it sure did get dark there in the beginning of the series, when it seems like Reed really was a psycho jerk.
2. "Ou La, La - Badoon!" (X-Men Annual #5)
This classic Chris Claremont effort, drawn by Brent Anderson and Bob McLeod, is just a good old fashioned science fiction epic where the Fantastic Four and the X-Men (including Kitty Pryde's first official mission as a member of the team) have to go to the kingdom of Arkon (who the X-Men aided two Annuals earlier) to stop a Badoon attack. Johnny, Reed and Ben are captured so it is up to Sue, the X-Men and Sasha (of Arkon's people) to save the day...
This was just a great action story, with excellent artwork by Anderson and McLeod. Claremont manages to throw in some good Wolverine brooding there, too.
1. "Days of Future Present" (1990 X-Men and Fantastic Four Annuals)
This crossover was remarkable because it involved three writers, and yet the three writers (walter Simonson, Louise Simonson and Chris Claremont) were so in sync that the crossover felt like it was practically written by one person. The story is a sequel, of sorts, to the classic Days of Future Past storyline, as the adult Franklin Richards visits the present day and reconnects with his former love, Rachel, who had traveled to the present years earlier and is now host to the Phoenix force. However, the evil Hound master, Ahab, has traveled to the present, as well.
The issue is, why is Franklin acting so strange? What if this is NOT Franklin?
Ahab, meanwhile, is quite the threat - check him out in X-Men Annual #14, drawn by Art Adams and Dan Green...
This was a touching story and it involved a lot of major moments, like the X-Men meeting Cable, the X-Men meeting Gambit, Jean Grey meeting Rachel - lots of big stuff.
Okay, that's my list! Agree? Disagree? Let me know!