But I'm talkin' 'bout Bishop

I enjoy Dave Cockrum's alternate take on Bishop's hair.  It's also good to see that he embraced newer characters.  

Classic Steve Leialoah

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Instead of posting some unpublished artwork today, I decided to draw your attention to a blog called Secrets Behind The X-Men.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/

More Jean Grey

More Jean Grey by Phil Noto to be precise...

Art from : http://philnoto.tumblr.com/

Updates and corrections

The good news is, I have located the color version of the cover for X-Men 75 posted on Monday.  As for yesterday's post, I discovered that the art was published as a variant cover for Avengers Vs. X-Men #9.  Both posts are being updated with new information.

Avenger Angel - Updated

Now that Avengers VS X-Men is over, I presume it's safe to call this promotional image by Salvador Larroca unpublished.  This image appeared along with other alternate covers on various comic news websites, but did not appear as an alternate cover for any of the issues.  The likely reason is that by the time the series came out, Angel no longer appeared in this costume.

Update!

Shortly after posting this, I discovered that this image was used as an alternate cover for Avengers Vs. X-Men #9.  The cover image is posted below the promo art.  Unpublished X-Men promises more diligence in our fact checking, we stand unwavering against the army of variant covers coming at us from all sides!

Dusty Abell and Drew Geraci -Updated!

This unused cover for X-Men 75 by Dusty Abell and Drew Geraci comes to us courtesy of Drew's website. Drew writes: "For whatever reason, this was pencilled, inked, colored, then rejected, used instead in a reduced format for Diamond distributor's solicitations catalogue for X-Men #75. Maggot and Marrow, the ones with the smoking potato bugs and bones respectively, have a special place in history as the LEAST popular X-men members ever. It was fun seeing Dusty audaciously sign his name in the style of the X-men logo."

Drew's site can be found here:

http://www.drewgeraci.com/rarepin.html

For the record, I thought it was a refreshing change of pace to see new X-Men introduced after years of the same cast.  However, Marvel seems quick to dismiss new characters and rehash the ideas of Stan and Jack. On the other side of the coin, these days the X-Men change cast members at least every time they change writers.  Which is to say a lot. //End rant

Update!

I finally located the color version that Drew spoke about!  The image appeared in Marvel Vision, their monthly catalog, and the right side was unfortunately chopped off.

Rogue by Adam Hughes