Psylocke Two In One

Two renditions of Psylocke by Bruce Timm

Mike Zeck 3 of 3

Here's the final X-Men Classics cover by Mike Zeck and Tom Palmer.  The other two covers can be seen here:

http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/search/label/Mike%20Zeck

X-Men 33 - The Outcast

Professor H was nice enough to step away from the wayback machine long enough fill us all in regarding one of the rejected covers for X-Men 33, and provides a color version of the cover as well:

"Gil Kane's X-Men cover ran into problems.  First, several changes were made, including the positions of both hands on both Marvel Girl and Cyclops, Cyclops' eye-beams were added, and a lot of minor rendering lines were added or redrawn on the main figure's hands. 

But then, the Comics Code apparently thought the main figure of "The Outcast" was too frightening.  So The Outcast was replaced by The Juggernaut (who had been on Werner Roth's rejected cover in the first place).  Juggernaut's hands were left unchanged from the previous version.  The figures of Marvel Girl & Cyclops were replaced with Iceman and Angel, and their floating heads were replaced with the faces of Cyclops and Marvel Girl-- taken directly from Roth's cover! 

(See this post "http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/2013/06/x-men-33.html" for a look at Werner Roth's unused cover.)

Roy Thomas & Gil Kane would go on to collaborate on a wide variety of books, including the creation IRON FIST. 

For Gil Kane's cover, for contrast, my choice of colors, first on "The Outcast" and then on the background, was designed to highlight their otherworldliness and evil, as well as reflect the manic intensity of Kane's art. I didn't even bother trying to make it similar to the published version, and I specifically wanted it to be as "wild" and "demented" as possible.  I feel this manages to capture the look of the era (1967 was the "summer of love" and "psychedelia" after all) but also comes close to almost looking like a "black light" poster."

(Note that the second version is inked differently, and Cyclops is using his powers.)

(As always, you can catch Professor H in his wayback machine @ http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/)

Jay Anacleto

Jay Anacleto produced two versions of this image - one of Phoenix and one of Dark Phoenix.

New Defenders House Ad

Featuring three fifths of the Original X-Men.

If anyone knows who the artist is, please comment below.

Mutant X 2000

I learned about Colleen Doran's unused cover for Mutant X 2000 from her Twitter page:

https://twitter.com/ColleenDoran/status/330434958520897538

The published cover is by Tom Raney.

El Libro Del Destino

From Spanish blog El Libro Del Destino, the story behind this Colossus commission by Rick Leonardi:

http://ellibrodeldestino.blogspot.com/2011/12/commission-by-rick-colossus-leonardi.html

Update! -- Blog reader and X-Pert Ryan from Uncannyxmen.net informs us that the image from yesterday's post was taken from a Dark Phoenix poster.

Here's the updated post:

http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/2013/06/rick-leonardi-phoenix.html

  And here's the published image:

Rick Leonardi Phoenix

Apologies for the poor scan - I'm not sure what the origin of this Dark Phoenix image is, but the art is by Rick Leonardi and Terry Austin.

Update! -- Blog reader and X-Pert Ryan from Uncannyxmen.net informs us that this image was taken from a Dark Phoenix poster.  Here's the published image:

Rick Leonardi Week - New Mutants 38

James Henry, a fellow connoisseur of unpublished X-Men art, was kind enough to send this scan of his recently acquired New Mutants 38 cover art.  This cover by Rick Leonardi and Bill Sienkiewicz is similar in concept to the published cover by Art Adams.  Along with the published cover, I've included the cover art for New X-Men 27 by Paco Medina - a homage to the original.

Havok by Todd Nauck

From Todd's twitpic account:

http://twitpic.com/c8xe2b

Sixth Line-Up

I have a soft spot for Rick Leonardi's artwork, and this particular X-Men roster, most likely because this was the era when I started reading X-Men in the late 1980's.  This image comes from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Master Edition, and more team rosters can be found here:

http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/search/label/Line-up

X-Men 33

Professor H. has provided not only the unused cover art for X-Men #33, but he also took the time to create a color version.  The original art is by Werner Roth, and the published version is by Gil Kane.  However, please take the time to notice that the floating heads on the published version are taken from Roth's unused cover art.  Professor H can be found in his wayback machine here:

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/