Thursday, December 19, 2013

X-Men 50th Anniversary Variant Covers

Here's the combined image of all 12 X-Men 50th Anniversary covers:


(Tip of the hat to Gerry Turnbull for finding the combined image!)

And here are the Art Adams (New Mutants) and Walt Simonson (X-Factor) covers.




6 comments:

  1. Thanks for this! It's really cool-lookin' in full like that! I'm having trouble identifying two iterations of the team as represented, though. Moving left-to-right and then down, I see:

    1. Original (1980s) X-Factor
    2. Brian Wood's (current) X-Men (colloquially, the "X-Women")
    3. The New Mutants
    4. Wolverine and the X-Men
    5. Some Claremontian X-Men team that never actually existed (X-isted... hehe)
    6. Uncanny X-Force
    7. Generation X
    8. 1990s X-Men
    9. ?????
    10. Original X-Men
    11. Age of Apocalypse X-Men
    12. ????? (Who's the guy in the white? Cable? Magneto? What's with that dangly thing between his legs? It REALLY weirded me out at first)

    Can anyone help me with the ones I don't recognize?

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  2. 5 - Roy Thomas/Neal Adams' version of the original X-Men
    9 - Claremont's X-Treme X-Men
    12 - Styfe? Cable?

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  3. 12 is actually 'Age of X', a 2011 story line from X-Men: Legacy by Mike Carey. And yes, it's an alternate reality thing (the guy in the white is Magneto).

    -MarvelFan

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  4. I tried writing something like this before, so if that actually worked, Jason, you can ignore this one. But I think the internet swallowed my first draft!

    Anyway...

    Thanks for the help, Jason and Anonymous!

    I messed up the Thomas/Adams thing because I have SUCH a strong association with Jean in that costume and UXM #137. But now that you mention it, that Angel costume should have been the dead giveaway. Ugliest costume EVER.

    Second of all, isn't it a little weird that the only homage to the Claremont era is from X-Treme X-Men? I guess that's probably because there was no "definitive" Claremont team, but still... the dude wrote HALF the history of the X-Men! It seems like his work should be better represented than it is.

    Third of all, I'm also a bit surprised that neither the team from the Morrison run, nor the team from the Whedon/Cassaday run made an appearance. Those are recent, and really popular. I mean, come on - TWO versions of the O5 but no Claremont and neither of those runs? It's a bit weird, I think.

    Still, that's pretty cool. Not cool enough that I'll actually buy all 12 of those issues, but cool enough that I would consider a poster, if there were one.

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  5. I remember the 20th anniversary, back when Marvel was under much better leadership with Jim Shooter.

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  6. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that they used artists that were available at the moment. I mean, every team on the picture is drawn by an artist who actually worked on that team and is closly associated with it. Maybe Frank Quietly and John Cassady were too busy...By the way, here's a link to a high resolution image (if that's ok with you Jason): http://i.newsarama.com/images/i/000/119/973/original/XMEN_ANNIVERSARY_FINAL.jpg?1387477296

    -MarvelFan

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