In 1991, Marvel revised the entire lineup of X-Books, centered on the launch of a second X-Men series, simply titled
X-Men. With the return of Xavier and the
original X-Men to the team, the roster was split into two strike forces: Cyclops' "Blue Team" (chronicled in
X-Men) and Storm's "Gold Team" (in
Uncanny X-Men).
Its first issues were written by longstanding X-Men writer
Chris Claremont and drawn and co-plotted by
Jim Lee. Retailers pre-ordered this book at 8 million copies, but probably sold closer to 3 million copies.
[12] Another new X-book released at the time was
X-Force, featuring the characters from
The New Mutants, led by
Cable; it was written by
Rob Liefeld and
Fabian Nicieza. Internal friction soon split the X-books' creative teams. In a controversial move, X-Men editor
Bob Harras sided with Lee (and
Uncanny X-Men artist
Whilce Portacio) over Claremont in a dispute over plotting. Claremont left after only three issues of
X-Men, ending his 16-year run as
X-Men writer.
[13] Marvel replaced Claremont briefly with
John Byrne, who scripted both books for a few issues. Byrne was then replaced by Nicieza and
Scott Lobdell, who would take over the majority of writing duties for the X-Men until Lee's own departure months later when he and several other popular artists (including former X-title artists Liefeld, Portacio, and
Marc Silvestri) would leave Marvel to form
Image Comics. Jim Lee's X-Men designs would be the basis for much of ...
