Uncanny 2000

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

Gold Team

The X-Men Gold Team circa 1991 by Art Thibert, who not only inked Whilce Portacio on Uncanny X-Men, but followed Jim Lee as penciller of X-Men for a few issues.

All New, All Defunct

As our month of John Byrne art draws to a close, we still have several more months worth of material!  Until the next John Byrne month, we leave you with this re-interpretation of Uncanny X-Men #114's cover.  Fear not, readers, we will be back next week with much more Unpublished X-Men!

http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/commissions/commissions-covers/commissions-xmc/XM114-new.jpg.php

Uncanny X-Men 113

For your consideration:  The unpublished cover for Uncanny X-Men #113, presented with the slightly different published version.

Unpublished art from:

http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/oa/oamarvel/oamarvel-xmen/

Uncanny X-Men #114 Unused Splash Page

This image comes to us from http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/gallery/.  The published version appears below.

Days of Future Past

 This art, credited below as the cover of a Days of Future Past TPB, originally appeared as the "chromium" cover art to Marvel Collectible Classics #2, which reprinted Uncanny X-Men #141 and #142.  All apologies for the quality of the scans, but these are far better than the "chromium" cover itself, which does not photograph well.

New New Mutants

There's so much John Byrne unpublished material floating around that instead of doing a John Byrne week I decided to dedicate a whole month of Unpublished X-Men to John Byrne material.  There's easily enough artwork to do an entire blog of just John Byrne art.  To start with, I thought I would introduce the genesis of what later became the New Mutants.

Kitty Pryde

  In 1978 John Byrne did this original character design for Kitty Pryde. Below the art John wrote this note to Chris Claremont: "My concept here is that Ariel should be not so much a new member of the X-Men per se, but rather the first member of a second team, a kind of "X-Men in training" team, which could possibly also include that black kid from F.F. 203.  They'd all (However many there are - say 5?) wear this modernized version of the original x-costume, and each would occasionally go on missions with the first team.  Should the concept prove viable, we might even do "interlude" episodes with these youngsters on missions of their own. The thing to avoid, of course, would be the "Legion of Substitute X-Men" Stigma"

Caliban

In the book X-Men Companion II, interviewer Peter Sanderson asked John Byrne:  "Now, back in the days when she was called Ariel, it seemed you folks were working on a character Caliban.  How did that concept evolve?"  Byrne replied:  "Oh, I was just in a comics shop at one point and I said "Ariel" and somebody said "Caliban" and it was like, "Of course if we're going to have an Ariel, we must have a Caliban."  So- (...) He was going to be an incredibly ugly Living Cerebro kind of character, whom we would never see entirely.  We would only see bits and pieces of him.  And he would live in this dark room in the back of the mansion and Kitty would be able to relate to him for some reason.  Chris defined the situation as being that she can't stand Nightcrawler because he is "wrong" somehow, he is a human done sideways, but Caliban was so hideous and so deformed that he was a broken thing, like a bird with a broken wing, and she could relate to him on that level."

Byrne's comments refer to Ariel and Caliban, characters in Shakespeare's The Tempest.  Notice that John Byrne's description of Caliban's powers in the above image differ from the powers mentioned in the article.

Caliban appeared as a drastically different character in Uncanny X-Men #148 drawn by Dave Cockrum.

Willie Evans Jr.

Peter Sanderson went on to ask why Caliban was never introduced during John Byrne's tenure on the X-Men, and Byrne replied "Because Shooter killed the concept of a second team of X-Men, the X-Men in training, because he said it sounded too much like the Legion of Substitute X-Men, so it died right there and Kitty became the only one who ever made it into the book. (...)  Kitty, Caliban, and Willie Evans Jr, that little black kid who was in the Fantastic Four about three years ago, who made the monstrous versions of the FF, were the only ones we were sure were going to be in it."

Willie Evans Jr. was a mutant who could create and animate solid matter with his mind.  He first appeared in Fantastic Four #203 by Marv Wolfman and Keith Pollard.  There weren't many good images of him in the issue, because in the story he was hospitalized, and had created nightmare versions of the FF while he slept.  I have included an image of Willie and one of his creations, Grunt, from the Marvel Phoenix Force Handbook.

The New Mutants as published bears some striking similarities to Byrne's original concept, so much so that John Byrne posted in his forum:

"One slightly amusing -- perhaps even bordering on ironic -- moment that came out of the birth of the New Mutants was Shooter calling me up one day to ask if I intended to "make trouble" over this book. It seemed he actually remembered the idea had originally been mine, and wanted to know if I intended to make any "claim" on the book -- like, for royalties, for instance.  I assured him that if Chris promised to make no "claim" on ALPHA FLIGHT, which was also in launch mode at that time, I would make no "claim" on NEW MUTANTS.  (Chris' only contribution to Alpha Flight, as some of you may recall, had been the name of the group.)"

The original forum post can be found in this thread:

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40626&PN=190&TPN=1

Of course, the concept of new students was later used in New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod, introducing completely new characters who would form a team that Kitty Pryde refused to be a member of.  It's still fun to imagine what could have been if these concepts had been used, since at the time everything Claremont and Byrne had done with the X-Men had been a huge success!

Secrets Behind The X-Men

Instead of posting some unpublished artwork today, I decided to draw your attention to a blog called Secrets Behind The X-Men.  It has several well researched articles regarding stories and concepts that didn't make it to print.  One of the most recent articles mentions Sketch, a character who was originally designed to become a new X-Man.

Sketch and the X-Men by Adam Kubert

The entry reads: "When Claremont took over Uncanny X-Men and X-Men vol. 2 in 2000, the idea was to introduce a new X-Man in each series. The one was Thunderbird in X-Men vol. 2. Claremont told about the other in Wizard #103: “She’s actually an animation artist from Japan. She draws things and they come to life. We call her Reanimator.”  However, when she was introduced in Uncanny X-Men #383, it was under the name Sketch. And then she was never seen again. Claremont commented on it to Cinescape.com in 2001: ”Also lost in the shuffle: More on Sketch.”

The site is filled with tons of information about ideas that never came to fruition.  As a fan of Chris Claremont's X-Men stories, I was sorry that his return to the X-Men was cut short.  However, counting X-Treme X-Men, X-Men Forever, a third turn on Uncanny X-Men, Excalibur, New Excalibur, Exiles and GeNext, his output on X-Men related titles nearly equaled the number of issues on his first historic run.  For further reading, check out :

http://secretsbehindthexmen.blogspot.com/

Marc Silvestri Week

I don't have any new information on this art that was apparently produced for the Fall of the Mutants story in Uncanny X-Men 225-227.  This colored art by Marc Silvestri and Dan Green appeared in Classic X-Men #28.

Steve Uy

Steve Uy's website features this amazing Uncanny X-Men cover that was never used. There are several more X-Men covers on his site, along with a lot more of his brilliant artwork. 

http://steveuy.tumblr.com/

Almost Unpublished

Sometime in the 1990's, Dave Cockrum was assigned several fill-in issues, one for Uncanny X-Men and one for New Mutants, which were not used.  In 2008, two years after his death, the stories were finally published as X-Men:  Odd Men Out.  It's a real treat to see Dave back on the X-Men, pick up this issue if you can find it.  There's some more preview art and a tribute to Dave at Comic Book Resources:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17157

And now for something completely different...

Check out this blog featuring X-Men with Googly Eyes:

Link: http://xmenwithgooglyeyes.tumblr.com/

More Uncanny JRjr

Here is another cover from John Romita Jr's second run on Uncanny X-Men.  It appears to be labeled for issue #316, however his last published issue was #311. This art was later printed in Uncanny X-Men Annual #18.

The Uncanny JR jr

Gaze in amazement at this unused cover by John Romita Jr.

Some would argue that it is an improvement over the one that was actually used for Uncanny X-Men 310.

Paul Smith

Here is an unused cover by Paul Smith.  I believe it may have been intended for Uncanny X-Men 453, since both 452 and 454 did have covers by Paul Smith, and issue 453 featured this particular team of X-Men in the sewers beneath Paris.

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.

Stan Lee Presents!

In the spirit of continuing to cover material related to Giant-Size X-Men #1, I present this painted piece by Dave Cockrum.  This paperback presented the original comic in black and white, with several panels on each page.  Dave's painting really makes the characters come alive.

If you're interested, the book can be purchased at Amazon.com by clicking here.

All New, All Different: Revisited

In 1983, Marvel published Special Edition X-Men, which was basically a reprint of Giant-Size X-Men #1, with a new backup story by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum.  It also featured a great wraparound cover by Dave.

Here is a page by Dave that wasn't completely used in published book.  As shown, the top panel was used, and the story jumps ahead to show Kitty Pryde and Magik already in the water.

The inside front cover of the book also has a pinup of the X-Men by Dave.  This was used many years later as the cover of Back Issue Magazine #29.  Interestingly, the magazine mentions that Dave had intended to use the illustration as an Uncanny X-Men cover during his second run on the title.  It's unclear which issue this artwork was originally intended for.

To purchase Back Issue Magazine #29, or to check out other publications by TwoMorrows, click here.