They were teens with mysterious mutant powers, trained by a genius telepath to protect the world from evil. They were “The Strangest Super‑Heroes of All.” The X‑Men! In this Sentinel-sized collector’s dream, the first 21 X‑Men stories from 1963–1966 have been meticulously reproduced from the most pristine of these rare comic books—in the fourth volume of TASCHEN’s Eisner Award-winning series.
When Martin Goodman asked Stan Lee to deliver another new team book for his line of comics, he had no idea he’d be getting something like The X-Men. What they started out as was a charming, ragtag team of misfits, devised by Lee and Kirby to be mutants-youngsters born with “X-tra” powers thrust upon them not by accidentally crossing paths with cosmic rays or a nuclear blast, but by the fate of birth, led by a no-nonsense professor who trained them to become heroes that could protect the world from menaces, mutant and otherwise.
The foundation of a pop-culture phenomenon
The first years of storytelling laid the foundation for much of what has put the X-Men at the crossroads of comics and popular culture: Hounded by a public that fears and misunderstands them, mutant-kind find themselves at the heart of their own civil rights struggle; Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast, and Iceman found safety amongst themselves despite the challenges that set them apart from others in society; and Professor Xavier lined up against his ideological foe, Magneto, who had assembled a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to take the fight directly to humankind.
Close in size to the original artworks, this XXL-sized edition features the first 21 stories of our favorite oddball superheroes from 1963-1966. In addition to these seminal tales are an original foreword by modern X-Men mastermind Chris Claremont, reliving the heyday of Lee and Kirby’s foundational years, and an in-depth essay by X-Men writer Fabian Nicieza alongside original art, photographs, and memorabilia from the early years of X.
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