The X-Men are one of Marvel’s biggest success stories. The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Avengers were all basically famous from the beginning. However, the X-Men were one of the lower tier Marvel books of the Silver Age, and were almost cancelled. However, Giant-Size X-Men #1 changed everything for the team, and writer Chris Claremont and artists Dave Cockrum and John Byrne made X-Men (soon to be Uncanny X-Men) into a sales titan. Marvel would soon take advantage of this, creating more mutant teams, starting with the New Mutants. Since then, the X-Men have become Marvel’s most fertile team concepts, with multiple spin-off groups getting their time in the sun. The X-Men’s various satellite groups have had their ups and downs, but those ups have included some of the best superhero teams in the history of comics.
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The various X-teams are usually inspired in some way by Xavier’s dream, but take it in unique directions. These X-teams have allowed characters who weren’t popular enough to be on the main team to shine, making new icons that would eventually rise through the ranks. These ten X-teams took the ideas of the X-Men in entirely new directions, creating iconic teams that enthralled fans for years.
10) The Marauders
The Krakoa Era was extremely inventive in many ways, but not the team names. Most of the team books used the names of older mutants teams, and Marauders was no different, using the name of Mister Sinister’s group of killers (there’s a certain irony that the team that works for Emma Frost was named the Marauders, meanwhile Sinister’s team was called he Hellions, which once upon a time was the name of Emma Frost’s team of young Hellfire Club mutants). The Marauders worked for the Hellfire Trading Company, which was run by Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw, working to ship Krakoan medicines into country that didn’t sign a treaty with Krakoa, as well as rescue mutants trapped in those countries. The team was led by Kate Pryde, and consisted of Storm, Iceman, Bishop, and Pyro. Marauders was one of the most popular early Krakoa Era books, focusing on Kate’s relationship with Emma and their battle against Shaw. While the book’s quality fell off as it went on and the second version of the team wasn’t great, the Marauders made a huge impression on fans. They have power and experience, and readers got some great drama from them.
9) The Brotherhood
X-Men Red (Vol. 2) was one of the best books of the latter Krakoa Era. It was set on the terraformed Mars, which was made the home of Krakoa sister island Arakko and its martial mutant culture. Storm had earned her place among the leadership of Arakko, and was joined by Magneto and Sunspot. The three of them, along with the Fisher King, formed the Brotherhood (based on Magneto’s old Brother of Evil Mutants), working together to keep the people of Arakko free from the machinations of both the Krakoan Quiet Council and the Arakkii Great Circle. The four of them were the nucleus of the team, and were an amazing little quartet, each of them working against their foes from the inside. The relationship between Storm and Magneto alone is worth the price of admission, with the mystery of the Fisher King and Sunspot’s nonchalant yet intelligent manner rounding the group out.
8) X-Force (Cable’s)
Rob Liefeld being made artist of New Mutants made the book hot again, and he would eventually get to revamp the team as X-Force. Let’s be real for a second — X-Force wasn’t exactly a great X-book from the writing standpoint in the early days (although scripter Fabian Nicieza tried his best). However, X-Force is one of the coolest X-team ever. Cable, Cannonball, Boom Boom, Warpath, Rictor, Sunspot, Shatterstar, Domino, and Feral were the definition of aura in the early ’90s. If I’m being honest, the team got way better once Cable left, but even with Cable, this is one of the coolest teams in the history of X-Men lore. Cable made the former New Mutants into soldiers and their adventures were a lot of fun.
7) Hellions
Hellions was the best part of the first two years of the Krakoa Era. The Hellions is one of the coolest X-team concepts ever. Mister Sinister was tasked with bringing together the most unhinged mutants on Krakoa and use their rage to do the work that no one else wanted to do. Psylocke, Greycrow, Havok, Empath, Wild Child, Nanny, and Orphan-Maker were an extremely entertaining mix of personalities, combining humors and pathos wonderfully. Sinister’s manipulations of the team made things super interesting, as they never knew if what they were doing actually needed to be done or that Sinister was just using them for his own aggrandizement. This is the book that allowed Kwannon, the second Psyclocke (Psylocke is very complicated), to become a star, trying to work with the broken members of the team while also forced to do Sinister’s bidding. This team wasn’t exactly the most powerful, but they more than made up for that with their skill and the excellent interplay between members.
6) X-Force/X-Statix
By the end of the ’90s, X-Force had fallen far from grace. The extreme image first, substance approach of the team (I just want to say that after Liefeld left, X-Force became a much better book, especially when writers Jeph Loeb and John Francis Moore came onboard) didn’t age well, and the X-Force were basically a dead franchise by the dawn of the 21st century. However, Marvel decided to completely change the team, allowing Peter Milligan and Mike Allred to cook on the team. X-Force became a celebrity mutant team, basically a reality show version of X-Force, and fans loved it. X-Force went on the most dangerous missions, with members dying constantly. That makes giving you a roster kind of hard, but there were a few mainstays of the team — Doop, Mister Sensitive, Anarchist, U-Go Girl, and Dead Girl (most of whom also eventually ended up dead) — who survived longer than others. Legal troubles with Rob Liefeld saw X-Force become X-Statix, and the team became one of the brightest spots at Marvel in the early days of the ’00s. X-Force/X-Statix is an amazing team with a great concept, and it would be nice if Marvel put their adventures back in print for a new generation to discover.
5) Generation X
With the New Mutants becoming X-Force, the X-Men no longer had their teen trainee team. This changed when Generation X formed. Emma Frost’s Massachusetts Academy was made into a satellite school for the X-Men and opened for students. Banshee joined Emma, with Jubilee joining the school, and an all-new group of mutants were brought in — Chamber, Skin, Husk, Synch, Penance and Monet (with Mondo joining later). Generation X was the ’90s version of the New Mutants and gave the teens of the time a group of heroes they could sympathize with. There was everything you could want from a teen team — romance, impetuousness, and some crazy secrets — and was the beginning of the path that would make Emma Frost a hero. One of the coolest things about the book is that it definitely played with mutation as a curse, as characters like Chamber, Skin, Penance, and Monet’s lives were wrecked by their powers, but then showed how the team was able to deal with their problems and accept themselves. Generation X is an underrated ’90s gem (the art by Chris Bachalo and inker Mark Buckingham is amazing and completely unlike anything in X-history), with one of the most interesting teams in X-Men history.
4) Original Excalibur
Excalibur has only had one good incarnation and it was the original. Nightcrawler, Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde’s best codename), and Phoenix II left the X-Men and joined up with Captain Britain and his girlfriend Meggan to become the mutant defenders of England. This team had it all; it was powerful, there was a great interplay between members, and the most out there fun concepts. The multiversal Captain Britain Corps played a big role in the book and there was all kinds of magic shenanigans. Excalibur didn’t play into the common X-Men tropes, and that helped to shine. Excalibur itself is one of the best X-Men series of all time during the Chris Claremont/Alan Davis years, especially when Davis took over as writer and artist. Davis’s run brought in new members like Cerise and Kylun, and went wild with Otherworld, a mini-multiverse run by Opal Luna Saturnyne and her sister Roma. Excalibur as a team is all about the quirkiness, and it makes the team the most unique X-team ever.
3) X-Factor (All Incarnations)
The X-teams can be quite complicated, changing pretty often, but none of them are as varied as X-Factor. X-Factor was founded by the O5 — Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman, and Angel/Archangel — where they would pretend to be an anti-mutant force that would rescue young mutants — but that was only the beginning. The next incarnation of the team in the ’90s became the government mutant team, working with Valerie Cooper. The team went underground for a time before folding in the late ’90s, but would return in the ’00s as a mutant detective agency from the late great Peter David. They would later become a corporate mutant team, go back to being detectives in the Krakoa Era, and would come back as a government mutant team again in “From the Ashes”. Every incarnation of X-Factor had a cool concept, and the team has had a veritable army of members — Jamie Madrox, Havok, Polaris, Quicksilver, Sabretooth, Mystique, Monet. Forge, Strong Guy, Rictor, Shatterstar, Wolfsbane, and many, many more — onboard. I would honestly say the only time the team was anything less than great was in the last year of X-Factor (Vol. 1) and the “From the Ashes” team. That’s an insane run of quality that basically no other X-team has.
2) New Mutants
The New Mutants were the first X-Men satellite team, and they’re still one of the best. The original team — Cannonball, Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, and Karma — were brought together by Xavier to form the next generation of X-Men and they were immediately a hit. Characters like Doug Ramsey, Warlock, Magma, Boom Boom, Magik, Bird-Brain, and Legion would all join the team at times (with members like Cable, Rictor, Warpath, Shatterstar, Chamber, and Mondo joining the team in the years to come), and became the definitive teen mutant team in Marvel comics throughout the ’80s. We’ve had several reboots of the team over the years, giving readers some of the best mutant stories ever. The New Mutants showed that Marvel could still create great teen teams, and created characters that would become monumentally important in the years to come. New Mutants (Vol. 1) remains one of the coolest X-books even almost forty years later, and the New Mutants are much more iconic than they get credit for being.
1) Wolverine’s X-Force/Uncanny X-Force
In the early days of the X-Men’s San Francisco era, Cyclops decided that the reduced mutant race needed a team willing to destroy threats before they could attack them. Cyclops dusted off X-Force and gave Wolverine his choice of killers. Wolverine’s original X-Force included heroes like Warpath, X-23/Wolverine II, Elixir, Domino, Wolfsbane, Archangel, Vanisher, and Caliban. Wolverine’s team ended up going against Bastion and a group of resurrected anti-mutant bigots, dealing with the deadliest threats to mutants. Cyclops disbanded the team after Bastion’s defeat, but Wolverine and Archangel brought together a second roster, recruiting Pyslocke, Fantomex, and Deadpool, with Deathlok and The Age of Apocalypse‘s Nightcrawler joining as time went on (later, Fantomex’s living UFO E.V.A. takes on a human form as joins the team as well). The group had to deal with threats like Apocalypse, the Final Horsemen, the legacy of Weapon Plus, and Daken’s Brotherhood of Mutants. Wolverine’s X-Force/Uncanny X-Force took the idea of the original X-Force, mutants soldiers doing the jobs no one else would do, and took it to its logical conclusion. X-Force (Vol. 3) and Uncanny X-Force (Vol. 1) are basically the best X-books from 2008 to 2012, leaping over the other X-teams to become the greatest.
Who do you think is the best X-team? Sound off in the comments below.
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Image Courtesy of DC Comics -
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
