Byrne Years

The best art team on "X-Men" always was composed of John Byrne and Terry Austin. Not only did they have a crisp dynamic style, but they have defined the look of the X-Men. Their probably greatest achievement (apart from contributing to the best run the series ever had) was making Wolverine cool.

John Byrne took over from Dave Cockrum in 1977 at the end of the star spanning saga of Phoenix and the X-Men visiting the Shiar empire. Already in the first issue the tight and exact pencils with a really cool looking Colossus. Terry Austin embued those pencils with a great line-dynamic and hatching that gave Byrnes art texture and gravitas.

Byrne and Austin would stay on the series for a whopping 35 issues. During this time (together with writer/scripter Chris Claremont) they sent the X-Men to the savage land, to Japan, to fight the the seamingly omnipotent Proteus, through the pangalactic but still intimate Dark Phoenix saga, to top it all off they helped create the days of the future past with an alternate future history of the world.

In 1981 Byrne and Austin left the book. John Byrne went on to revolutionize the "Fantastic Four" by taking them back to their roots. LAter he would revamp Superman.