Uncanny X-Men - Roy Thomas II.

X-Men v1 #55-66.

And they fought happily ever after....??

Roy Thomas returned to the X-Men for one final stretch of issues, starting with 55 (1969) and ending with 66 (1970). The only exception was the penultimate issue, 65, which was filled in by Dennis O'Neil. This was before he became famous, of course.

As for the art, issue 55 was drawn by good old Don Heck and Werner Roth, and issues 64 and 66 were done by, respectively, Don Heck alone and Sal Buscema, but most of the work, 56-63 and 65, was by the legendary Neal Adams. Adams was pretty much one of the best artists in the industry during the Bronze Age. Just a few years after his stint on X-Men, he and Dennis O'Neil did some very important work at DC which did a great deal to help them catch up to Marvel after the revolution of the sixties. This included redefining Batman, essentially making him the character he is today. Adams has also been one of the foremost advocates of creators' rights in the comics industry.

By the way, Stan Lee still received first billing as editor.

Uncanny X-Men - Gary Friedrich, Arnold Drake.

X-Men v1 #44-54.

As of this moment... the X-Men no longer exist as a team!

Roy Thomas left the X-Men in 1968. He'd be back in less than a year.

It's safe to say that his immediate successor, Gary Friedrich, was probably only a fill-in. Thomas plotted the first arc, which was concluded in a crossover with his own title, Avengers. Friedrich only wrote one of his four issues independently. #47 was co-written with Arnold Drake, who then took over for the remaining six issues until Thomas's return. Stan Lee was still credited first.

The art team for the eleven issues was more consistent. Issues 44-49, and 52, were all laid out by Don Heck and penciled by Werner Roth. 50-51 were done by the famous Jim Steranko, 53 by Barry Smith (who would later, as Barry Windsor-Smith, do some unforgettable work on Thomas's Conan the Barbarian title I mentioned last time) and 54 by Don Heck by his lonesome. Iceman's and Beast's respective origin arcs in the back-ups of issues 43-46 and 51-53 were drawn by George Tuska and Werner Roth respectively.

Uncanny X-Men - Stan Lee.

X-Men v1 #1-19.

"Don't miss this fabulous 1st issue!"
"In the sensational Fantastic Four style!"
"The strangest super-heroes of all!"



X-Men #1, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was cover-dated September 1963. The book started off on a bimonthly schedule. Lee would stay on writing duties for nineteen issues, the last of which was cover-dated April 1966. Kirby penciled only eleven of them, and did the layouts for several issues as well before disappearing completely with #17. Seven of the eight remaining issues were drawn by Jay Gavin (Werner Roth). The art was competent throughout, never outstanding. I won't have much more to say about it.