Like most collectors of my era, I grew up reading Chris Claremont’s historic run on Uncanny X-Men, and it continues to resonate with me into my 50s. In a poll for best X-Men cover among Bronze Age fans, I’m guessing that most would select John Byrne and Terry Austin’s iconic cover to X-Men #141, which kicked off decades of alternate timeline hijinx with Days of Future Past, featuring as it does a ready-for-battle Logan and rookie of the year, Kitty Pryde, and serving as an epilogue for one of the most revered runs in comics.
By the time Jim Lee rebooted the X-Men in 1991, Marvel’s mutant roster had grown significantly, requiring several new series to accommodate different teams. By far my favorite (and arguably the most interesting) was Generation X as illustrated by former Vertigo artist, Chris Bachalo, whose illustration chops and penchant for interesting splash pages had made his run on Pete Milligan’s Shade the Changing Man one of the best comic reading experiences of the early 90s.
Knowing that Raul was a big a fan as I of that particular Marvel Mutant team, it was a no-brainer to commission this tribute –and boy, did he knock it out of the park! Tribute commissions have become a large area of focus in my ongoing collecting habits, and this one just raised the bar significantly. I provided the art direction by selecting the specific characters to replace those in the Byrne/ Austin layout, and Raul brought his A game to it with impeccable background detail and even altering the team in the indicia box. Here, Wolverine is replaced by Skin, and Kitty Pryde is replaced by Jubilee. I’ll let you contrast the characters featured on the Wanted Posters (original cover supplied for comparison).
FANTASTIC FOUR #5 pg 9: Silver Surfer by Jim Lee (Joe Chiodo color guide)
