In 1961, Marvel Comics editor/writer Stan Lee, artist Jack Kirby and several other illustrators produced a number of superhero titles which stressed character personalities and personal conflict as much as action and adventure, including The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man. The X-Men was one of the last titles of this Silver Age renaissance, appearing in September 1963.
Though sales did improve while Adams illustrated the book, it was too little and too late, and Marvel stopped producing new issues of The X-Men in 1970 with issue #66. The series continued by reprinting old issues and the X-Men appeared in other Marvel comics — including prominent appearances in Marvel Team-Up, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America — but faded to near-obscurity.
Amid the success, internal friction split the X-Men books' creative teams. Claremont left after only three issues of X-Men due to clashes with Marvel editors and with Lee, ending his fifteen-year stint as X-Men writer. John Byrne took over scripting duties (but this didn't last). Months later, Liefeld and Lee left Marvel with several other popular artists, including Silvestri and Portacio, to form Image Comics. In the 2009 New York Comic Con, Claremont announced that he will return to his series in a new self-contained continuity entitled X-Men Forever. Claremont's first three issues of X-Men were reprinted in 2009 as a kick-off to the series.
The X-Men are a superhero team in the Marvel Comics Universe.[1] They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1 (September 1963). The basic concept of the X-Men is that under a cloud of increasing anti-mutant sentiment, Professor Xavier created a haven at his Westchester mansion to train young mutants to use their powers for the benefit of humanity, and to prove mutants can be heroes.[2] Xavier recruited Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Beast and Jean Grey, calling them X-Men because they possess special powers due to their possession of the X-Gene, a gene which normal humans lack and which gives Mutants their abilities. Early on, however, the X in X-Men stood for extra power which normal humans lacked. It was also alluded to that mutations occurred as a result of radiation exposure.
