Uncanny 2000

Enrique Breccia produced two versions of the cover to Uncanny X-men 2000 before the final painted version.

Happy Anniversary!!!

I just realized that January 24th marks one year of blogging about Unpublished, Rare, and Commissioned X-Men art.  For those new to the blog, we tend to feature unused art on Mondays, rare but published art on Wednesdays, and Commissions or Sketches on Fridays.  Here are a few highlights of the first year:

To show my commitment to unpublished X-Men art I hit the ground running, and reached into my personal stash to bring you a rare scan of an unused page from X-Men Special Edition by Dave Cockrum:

http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/2012/01/all-new-all-different-revisited.html

I restored the artwork from Uncanny X-Men annual #3, to correct a major oversight in the printed version:

http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/2012/03/uncanny-restoration.html

And with much help from Professor H., a classic piece of unpublished art by Barry Windsor-Smith was reimagined as if it had been published.  Roy Thomas himself was thrilled to see this artwork!

http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/2012/06/barry-windsor-smiths-first-cover.html

Stay tuned, because we've got a lot more rare and unpublished artwork coming in the next year!

Classic Steve Leialoah

Uncanny Restoration

 1979's X-Men Annual #3 featured a cover by Frank Miller and Terry Austin.

However, a printing error resulted in the full cover art not appearing on the final cover.

As seen in this black and white version, there was a color overlay that was omitted when the final cover was printed.

However, while other blogs might be content to merely show you the original art, Citizen X is not!  Through the magic of Photoshoppery, I have meticulously restored the cover to closer resemble what may have been the artist's original intentions.  Gaze onward in amazement!

That is all for now, students of the X.

All New, All Different...

Welcome to The Unpublished X-Men, a collection of rare X-Men art.  While this site will feature a lot of unpublished material, it will also show promotional art, commissions and material not published in the main X-Men books.  I had planned on starting with Giant-Size X-Men #1 from 1975, and working my way forward, backward, and sideways throughout the history of the X-men.  To begin with, I would like to feature a number of covers based on the design of Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum's popular cover:

Here's the original iconic design by Gil and Dave.

This What If? cover turns the formula around by featuring the original team.

This Marvel Age cover does the same, but they left out Jean Grey,

since her return from the dead was supposed to be a big surprise

for X-Factor #1.  Note the costume designs, which would change

before that issue came out.

Uncanny X-Men Annual #10 featured Art Adams designs for the

New Mutants, who had to come to the rescue of the X-Men.

Uncanny X-Men 254 by Jim Lee featured the X-Men supporting cast defending Muir Island from the Reavers.

Excalibur 45 shows the Technet as the "N-Men" by Alan Davis.

X-Men 45 by Andy Kubert shows the X-Babies reinvented for the 90's.

This Carlos Pacheco cover shows the new mutants who joined

the team all to briefly in X-Men 70.

X-Statix #1 by Peter Milligan shows old and new members of the ever changing roster.

X-Men Deadly Genesis by Marc Silvestri shows the team of

Giant-Size X-Men #1 as skeletons, an eerie foreshadowing of

the story of Professor Xavier's recruiting a new team of X-Men 

who were destined to die.

Giant-Size X-Men #3 by Dave Cockrum and John Cassaday, sadly,

may be Dave's last X-Men work.  After Dave did this cover, he 

became too sick to complete the interior story.  That story was

 completed by Neal Adams out of respect for Dave.

X-Men Legacy 233 has a comical Deadpool variant cover.

The cover of the Uncanny X-Men Omnibus features a painted version of the original cover by John Watson.

Astonishing X-Men 32 gives us a Marvel Superhero Squad

variant cover.

X-Men Giant-Size shows the very first X-Men in their original

costumes.  The story takes place in the past and the present.

Giant-Size Defenders #1 may be the only cover on this list not X-Men related.  There are many other covers and parodies of the original cover, and they will be featured in later posts.  For now, I've concentrated on covers produced by Marvel Comics.  Add a comment if you know of any that I've missed!