When I was younger, the changing lineups of the X-Men were of particular importance to me. Growing up in a time of Marvel Universe handbooks, I was happy to see Dazzler join the group, thrilled to see Havok return to active duty and even interested in whatever the hell Longshot was all about. But, somewhere along the way, my interest in the ever-changing mutant conga lines waned, and I wasn’t sure that I even knew who all of the players were anymore, especially when Cable, Northstar and other guys I thought of as “Not X-Men” actually were X-Men. Still, there’s a special place in my heart for the Jean Grey-led gold team circa 1993, the Storm-led Australia team and the short-lived six-man team from 1966/1967, leading to today’s mutant query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) never cared for the circa-1992 cartoon lineup, lacking as it did Nightcrawler, The Mimic or punk-rock Storm, asking: Which X-Team is the Best X-Team?
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My favorite is Claremont/Byrne X-Men and shortly after that. Giant Size X-Men #1 team plus Kitty are the essential members.
I can’t really pick one favorite team or one favorite run, but being a fan of the earlier versions of the X-Men as a small group of young adults rather than a bustling school of mix-and-match mutants, I really enjoyed the early run of “Ultimate X-Men” and the animated “X-Men: Evolution”. They both took the early team concept and sprinkled in concepts from later teams and stories while also reinterpreting events. Reading or watching those felt a lot like when I first started reading my brother’s old X-Men comics when I was a kid.