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-= REC.ARTS.COMICS.MARVEL.XBOOKS =-
   Frequently Asked Questions
   Part 2

   Version 2003.02, last updated November 2003
   URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/racmxFAQ/faq2.html


------------------------------
Subject: Table of Contents


Part 2:

     HISTORY OF THE X-TEAMS AND X-TITLES
      * The 1960s and 1970s: Early history
      * The 1980s: An explosion of new titles
      * The 1990s: Claremont's exit, mega-crossovers
      * 2000 and beyond: New (and newer) directions


------------------------------
Subject: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE X-TEAMS AND X-TITLES

Please note: Background information on the creators and the X-titles 
editorial offices is based on over a decade's worth of interviews, 
articles, and personal questions, and as such is not directly 
attributed here. Now that some of Marvel's staff members are on Usenet, 
they are welcomed to correct and amend any of the answers listed below. 
Individuals who are looking for more recent summaries of plots and 
events would do well to visit Paul O'Brien's X-Axis Reviews website at 
http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk/ .


------------------------------
Subject: The 1960s and 1970s

In 1963 (our time, not Marvel time), Professor Charles Xavier gathered
together a group of five young mutants to help them train their powers. 
He also hoped that they could help protect innocents from "evil 
mutants," as well as do good deeds for the rest of humanity. This group 
was called the X-Men, after the eXtra-powers that each member possessed 
(the resemblance to Xavier's last name was not entirely coincidental). 
This original team consisted of Cyclops (Scott Summers), Marvel Girl 
(Jean Grey), Iceman (Bobby Drake), Angel (Warren Worthington III), and 
the Beast (Hank McCoy). The book was written by Stan Lee and pencilled 
by Jack Kirby. Magneto was the villain of the first issue, and his 
fiendish plot was to terrorize a missile base to prove how tough he was. 
Havok (Scott's brother Alex) and Polaris (Lorna Dane) were semi-regular 
members who later joined the team. Mimic (Calvin Rankin) was briefly a 
member, and Changeling pretended to be Professor Xavier for a while.

The original X-Men title was "cancelled" after 66 issues, due to low 
readership. It became a reprint title, reprinting original stories it 
had shown only a few years earlier, while the X-Men went to supporting 
roles in titles like Amazing Adventures and Ka-Zar Quarterly.

This all changed with the introduction of the "new" X-Men in Giant-Size
X-Men #1, which came out in 1975. Written by Len Wein and penciled by 
Dave Cockrum, it had the original team captured by the Living Island of 
Krakoa, who manipulated Xavier into bringing together a second team of 
mutants to help feed its unholy hunger: Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner), 
Wolverine (Logan), Banshee (Sean Cassidy), Storm (Ororo Munroe), Sunfire 
(Shiro Yoshida), Colossus (Piotr Rasputin), and Thunderbird (John 
Proudstar). This new team succeeded in rescuing the old heroes, and most 
of the new recruits stayed on to form the team that would make the X-Men 
comic book legends. The title restarted with X-Men #94, with Chris 
Claremont taking over for a sixteen-year run as writer. Soon after, 
Thunderbird died and Sunfire quit, while Angel, Jean, Iceman, Polaris, 
and Havok left the team on good terms. Soon afterward, Jean Grey joined 
the infamous shuttle mission and "died", and Phoenix entered the picture 
in X-Men #101. X-Men became The Uncanny X-Men with issue #114. 


------------------------------
Subject: The 1980s: An explosion of new titles

Kitty Pryde (of many names, notably Shadowcat) was introduced to the 
team in UXM #129, just as the Hellfire Club intrigue and the Dark 
Phoenix Saga were getting underway. The Phoenix Saga left Jean Grey 
dead on the moon in UXM #137, which led to Cyclops' departure in #138 
and Kitty (first called Sprite and Ariel) joining in #139. Cyclops 
returned just in time to join the team in space for the Brood Saga, 
UXM #161-167.

Around UXM #160, Claremont and then-editor Louise Jones (who was yet to 
marry Walt Simonson), concieved a new title that would focus on the 
school aspect of the X-Men, instead of the superheroics. Apparently 
someone in Marvel had decided that there should be a companion book to 
the X-Men, and Claremont was anxious to avoid what he called a "West 
Coast X-Men" book.

This spinoff book had no title for a long time, until the creators 
decided to use the term which they had just been using in their design 
meetings for it: the New Mutants. This was also a tribute to the 
Kirby/Lee X-Men, since the original name for that comic was going to be 
"The Mutants," until someone convinced Stan Lee that not enough of the 
buying public knew what mutants were to make it a sensible title. 
Claremont was the writer of the New Mutants, and Bob McLeod was the 
first penciler. The New Mutants debuted with Sunspot (Roberto DaCosta), 
Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Psyche (Dani Moonstar), Karma (Xi'an Coy 
Manh), and Cannonball (Sam Guthrie). They fought Donald Pierce, a 
renegade member of the Hellfire Club, in their first appearance. Over 
the years, they were joined by Magma (Amara Aquilla), Magik (Illyana 
Rasputin, Colossus' sister), Cypher (Doug Ramsey), and Warlock (an 
alien being, not to be confused with the cosmic superhero of the same 
name). The title was cancelled and rebooted after issue #100.

Kitty Pryde was demoted to the New Mutants for a short while, but soon
rejoined the X-Men team as Shadowcat. Rogue joined the team in UXM #171,
and Phoenix II (Rachel Summers, daughter of an alternate Jean Grey) was
introduced in the late 180s of the title. Meanwhile, former X-Men team
members Angel, Beast, and Iceman all resurfaced in "The Defenders", 
retitled "The New Defenders", for a couple of years. Cyclops, on his own
leave of absence, met and married Madelyne Pryor, who looked like Jean. 
Together, they had a son, Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, who was 
born in UXM #200 while the New Mutants and X-Men were in Asgard.

Around the time of UXM #200, a third team/title was introduced.  These
would be mutants disguising themselves as humans to help fight mutant 
hatred. Bob Layton was the writer and Jackson Guice was the penciler, 
and the title was called X-Factor, after the genetic trait that the X-
Factor members would be hunting down. Heavily promoted in the Marvel 
trade press, the original X-Factor consisted of Cyclops, Iceman, the 
Beast, Angel, and Jean Grey. Marvel attempted suspense by keeping the 
mysterious "fifth member" unrevealed, but since the four men were known 
going in, it was obvious that they were going to resurrect Jean Grey for 
the title. X-Factor found themselves bringing in Rusty Collins, a 
pyrokinetic, in their first appearance. They, too, trained young 
mutants, bringing in Tabitha Smith (of many codenames including 
Meltdown) and others.

Soon after that, Chris Claremont came up with an idea that would prove 
to be the bane of straightforward storytelling in the X-Titles: a 
crossover. While crossovers were used in comics at that time (especially 
at Marvel--see Secret Wars II), a multi-title crossover on the scale of 
the Mutant Massacre (a title used in partial irony) was pretty new. In 
it, X-Men Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Shadowcat were badly hurt, while 
X-Factor member Angel lost his wings. Psylocke (Betsy Braddock), Dazzler 
(Alison Blaire), Longshot, and Havok joined the X-Men in the following 
months.

The Mutant Massacre crossover was so popular that the editor of the X-
Men, Ann Nocenti, decided to hold another one to help keep sales up 
during the competitive summer months. Claremont agreed, and presented 
the Fall of the Mutants--unique in that while it was a "crossover," none 
of the characters of one book met the characters of the other two books. 
However, the result was tons of bloodshed--Angel became Archangel, Doug 
Ramsey was killed, and the team of X-Men, plus Madelyne Pryor, was 
killed. Of course, Madelyne and the X-Men were resurrected, but were 
invisible to scanners. They went to Australia and were joined by silent 
teleporter Gateway.

With the interest in the X-titles remaining at a high level, Classic X-
Men was created to reprint the adventures of the "new" X-Men, beginning 
with Giant-Size X-Men #1. Unlike most reprint books, Classic X-Men also 
had up to four new pages inserted into the old story, sometimes not with 
the most smooth of seams, written by Claremont and drawn by some current 
artist, which would expand upon the old story. Each Classic X-Men also 
had a brand new story that took place around the time of the reprint. 
The first run of new stories in Classic X-Men were written by Claremont 
and drawn by John Bolton. When the press of Claremont's writing didn't 
give him time to write any more in Classic X-Men, a few other writers 
were allowed to do some, but eventually Marvel removed the backup 
stories (last backup: #44, the Rogue origin story) and the new "filler" 
material, and retitled the book X-Men Classics, which reprinted 
unaltered copies of Uncanny X-Men. This title was cancelled at #110 
(which reprinted UXM #206).

For a long time, Chris Claremont opposed giving Wolverine a solo title. 
Claremont feared that overexposure would ruin the mysterious nature of 
his background which helped make him so popular (Marvel solved that 
dilemma by making Wolverine's revealed past so confusing that nobody 
could figure it out). A few Wolverine limited series came out, such as 
"Wolverine" and "Kitty Pryde and Wolverine", but neither fulfilled the 
thirst for more Wolverine stories. Wolverine finally got an ongoing 
series, previewed in the new weekly comic, Marvel Comics Presents. In an 
attempt to cut down the "fanboy" appeal, which Claremont feared was 
driving requests for the title and would ruin its long-term prospects, 
he deliberately set the popular mutant in an unpopular setting for young 
fans--the exotic South Seas of Madripoor. Based more on old movies than 
pop comics, Madripoor was both an attempt by Claremont to write the 
character in a setting he found fun, as well as to confound the fanboys 
who were just looking for "cool" action scenes. By putting Wolverine 
into yet another personality, as "Patch," Claremont also could keep 
mystery up around the mutant without revealing his ever-appealing "true 
background."

By this time, X-Factor's hidden agenda of pretending to be mutant 
hunters while actually saving mutants had been exposed. They were living 
as just another mutant superhero team in Ship off the coast of New York. 
At the same time, some of the X-Men who were separated during the Mutant 
Massacre and Fall of the Mutants had moved to England and set themselves 
up (with some established English heroes) as Excalibur. Chris Claremont 
wrote and Alan Davis pencilled the book. The first members were Captain 
Britain (Brian Braddock), Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, her dragon Lockheed, 
Meggan, and Phoenix II, and they were challenged by Mojo's Warwolves in 
their first appearance. The book was cancelled with #125.

Around this time, Claremont planned to do one last crossover that would 
clear up a bunch of loose ends, finalize some old plot threads, get rid 
of some old characters, and answer some old questions. It was called 
Inferno, and was distinctive for how non-mutant titles worked themselves 
into the story without being required reading (like Spider-Man's 
appearances in Inferno). Basically, two demons teamed up with Madelyne 
Pryor (who was revealed to be Sinister's clone of Jean Grey and called 
herself the Goblyn Queen), and gathered babies for a sacrifice that 
would allow them to take over the world. Scott and Maddie's son was one 
of the babies. The X-Factor kids and the New Mutants teamed up to rescue 
the babies, while X-Men and X-Factor met, saw the real true Jean Grey 
was alive, and trounced Sinister. 

Claremont hoped that Inferno would be so unwieldly that no one would 
want another crossover. It didn't work. Inferno just made people want 
more "X-overs". This meant more writers had to be called in, and it
increased the chance that artists and writers would mess up continuity 
and otherwise have their quality of work suffer. Despite the fact that 
crossovers end up producing lower quality work from all involved in the 
stories, poorly-planned and ill-plotted crossovers continued for years.

After the events of Inferno, the team was "joined" by mall rat Jubilee 
(Jubilation Lee). During various events, most of the team ended up going 
through the Siege Perilous, which sent characters all over the world and 
"resurrected" them in new situations (such as Havok as a military leader 
in Genosha, Colossus as an artist in New York, Rogue split from the 
Carol Danvers persona in the Savage Land, and Psylocke as an Asian 
ninja). Poor Storm had been deaged by Nanny and thought dead, though she 
ended up as a child thief with Gambit (Remy LeBeau) in New Orleans. A 
short-term team of backup X-Men was formed on Muir Island with Legion, 
Forge, Siryn, Banshee, and a few others. They went looking for the other 
X-Men.

Shortly after this, Claremont was getting burned out on the X-titles. He
was writing most of the issues while working on novels, and he started 
to fold under pressure from editorial influences as to what should be in 
the X-titles (as well as his own recycling of old ideas). Wolverine and 
New Mutants were the first books he resigned from. Wolverine was moved 
to a variety of writers, eventually settling on Larry Hama for a long 
stretch, while New Mutants was passed on to Louise Simonson. 

Somewhere around here Rob Liefeld stepped in. He was brought over to New 
Mutants because Marvel thought a young penciler might better relate to 
young characters. Bob Harras, the editor of the X-titles (note that the 
titles had grown large enough that a group editor was needed to keep 
them all together) thought the title of "New Mutants" was oxymoronic on 
a book approaching its one hundredth issue, and wanted a change in the 
focus of the book to match the change of title. So, he put Rob Liefeld 
on New Mutants as penciler, with Louise Simonson as writer. Cable was 
introduced as their mysterious leader. Half of the team left. The 
remainder was kidnapped by former X-Factor assistant Cameron Hodge and 
taken to Genosha where they were put on trial. 

This led to the X-Tinction Agenda, where all of the various characters 
of X-Factor, X-Men, and New Mutants reconnected. Warlock was killed, the 
kids were rescued, and everyone tried to figure out how they should 
proceed. The New Mutants and X-Factor kids stayed with Cable (except 
Wolfsbane), while the others contacted Xavier in space (where he'd been 
since UXM #200). They soon fought the Shadow King, and again tried to 
figure out what to do. So, around UXM #281 and X-Factor #71, there was a 
massive reshuffling of teams.


------------------------------
Subject: The 1990s: Claremont's exit, mega-crossovers

Only a few months after the X-Tinction Agenda crossover, the New Mutants 
title was replaced by X-Force, with Rob Liefeld as "plotter" and 
penciler, and Fabian Nicieza as scripter. New characters Feral (Maria 
Santos) and Shatterstar (Gaveedra 7/Ben Russell) and old character 
Thunderbird (James Proudstar, brother of the original Thunderbird) had 
shown up in the last issues of New Mutants, and helped to form the new 
X-Force team. X-Force was perhaps best summarized by its main character, 
the cyborg Cable. In the Marvel Universe, Cable stood for "taking the 
fight" to the bad guys. In the real world, Cable stood for a change 
towards action and fight-fests, as opposed to the usual slower-paced, 
character-focused issues of Claremont. Young hordes of fans bought 
X-Force with glee, making its first issue the highest shipping comic in 
modern comic history up to that time. Both ideas proved to be spurious. 
Cable ended up "taking the fight" to the villains about as often as the 
X-Men did. 

Debuting within months of X-Force, the new X-Men title (not the same as 
Uncanny X-Men, which had been referred to in abbreviation as X-Men) was 
created to further saturate the X-Men market, and, more importantly, 
saturate the then fan-favorite art of X-Men artist Jim Lee (teamed up 
with by-then co-star Chris Claremont). Five different covers were offered
to fanboys and speculators, who bought multiple copies.

Seeing the figures, the powers-that-be at Marvel decided that current 
fans must be attracted more to art than writing, so they promoted a new 
generation of young artists and emphasized many more merchanizing tie-ins, 
emblazoned with the new art styles, that one could buy to "fit in" with 
the X-Men experience, including t-shirts, posters, pins, and so on.
Unfortunately, the fan-favorite artists were not happy that they got 
little to no return on their work when their art from an Uncanny X-Men 
issue was reprinted on a poster or t-shirt. For these reasons, as well as 
various claims of "creative control," the leading artists of the X-titles 
left Marvel and founded Image Comics where, with complete legal control 
over their new characters, they would make as much money as they could 
over the merchandizing of their own creations. 

Meanwhile, the preferred treatment of the artists over the other creative 
staff caused stress among the creators. Fed up, Chris Claremont finally 
left the titles with X-Men #3 and UXM #281. Claremont and other writers 
(including New Mutants writer Louise Simonson) stated in interviews that 
their main reasons for leaving were annoyance over the amount of editorial 
nit-picking in their stories, and sense of powerlessness given the amount 
of editorial favor for the artists as compared to the writers. 

X-Men continued to sell, and Jim Lee stated in interviews that he had 
plans for the title all the way up to issue #50, but before a year was up 
he was already working at Image. This left Bob Harras in a pickle. He had 
no artistic staff, and many of the writers who had been working for him 
had already left the X-titles. To fill the creative gap on the main titles, 
Harras recruited a bunch of new artists of varying ability, as well as two 
Marvel in-house writers, Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza (Fabian was also 
an editor at Marvel, while Lobdell had a second career as a stand-up comic). 

X-Men became a companion book of Uncanny X-Men. There were supposed to be 
differences in members, purpose, and focus between the two books, but the 
ongoing crossovers and Marvel's scrambling to cover the "X-odus" (as the 
departure of the creative staff on the X-titles was called) made it 
essentially a twice-monthly book coming out under two different titles. 

X-Factor, meanwhile, had undergone yet another change of direction. It
lost the original members to the new X-Men title, and picked up a bunch
of mutants that had been lurking in the background of Marvel stories for
decades as their main characters: Havok, Polaris, Multiple Man (Jamie 
Madrox), Wolfsbane, Strong Guy (Guido Carosella), and Forge. This "new" 
X-Factor was well received due to the excellent work of the new creative 
team of writer Peter David and penciler Larry Stroman. It was cancelled
and rebooted after issue #149.

When the X-Men animated series came out, Marvel, never slow to miss a
potential tie-in, put out the new title X-Men Adventures, which did
adaptations of the cartoon series. Since the cartoon series itself was
adapting three decades of X-stories, long-time X-readers tended to get 
odd feelings of deja vu. It was later joined by the title Adventures of 
the X-Men, which printed original stories based on cartoon continuity. 
Both were later cancelled, as was the cartoon series, and X-Men: The 
Manga" was created, publishing the same stories X-Men Adventures used 
to publish. Plagued by lateness, it too was cancelled.

As part of Marvel's new marketing strategy, the Unlimited series of 
books was brought out. The idea of the Unlimited books was to focus on 
stories that would be more "character-based" than normal Marvel titles, 
whatever that would mean, and would be told in just one oversized issue. 
For a while, the title went to an anthology format, including three 
short stories per issue.

Also around this time, Marvel came out with a group of titles that 
shared a common theme: they were placed about 100 years ahead of 
"normal" Marvel history. Called the 2099 series, they featured a bunch 
of alternative future versions of Marvel standards, including Spider-Man 
2099, Punisher 2099, and X-Men 2099. Aside from reverent mentions of 
some of the older X-Men, however, X-Men 2099 rarely had anything to do 
with the continuity of the "older" titles.  After a few years, it too 
was cancelled.

If nothing else, Marvel has always shown a rather strong interest in 
keeping its old stories available to the public (maybe because it's 
cheaper just reprinting the old stuff). The next X-title to appear was 
in this vein: X-Men: The Early Years, which reprinted the original X-Men 
series, from back in the 60s, while X-Men Classics continued to reprint 
the "new" X-Men stories. It was cancelled after 19 issues. The book was
replaced by Professor Xavier and the X-Men, which retold the early tales
from a more modern viewpoint. It also was cancelled after a few issues.

Eagle-eyed FAQ-readers are no doubt seeing a familiar pattern here.

Various other crossovers and battles took place over the next few years. 
Just after the reshuffling, Bishop appeared from the future, and joined 
the X-Men team. X-Cutioner's Song featured the introduction of Stryfe 
and the Legacy virus, and revealed Cable as Scott and Madelyne's son 
returned from the future and the return of Apocalypse. (It was around 
this time that Scott Summers and Jean Grey finally married.) Fatal 
Attractions featured the death of a de-aged Magik, the return of 
Magneto, and Colossus' choice to defect to Magneto's acolytes. It also 
featured Magneto ripping the adamantium off of Wolverine's bones through 
his skin. Xavier eventually mindwiped Magneto to stop him. It didn't 
stop the Acolytes, though, as yet another crossover (this time between 
Avengers and X-Men) called Blood Ties featured the kidnapping of 
Quicksilver's daughter by Magneto Acolyte and impersonator Fabian 
Cortez. The art was "kewl" and the events were extreme, but something 
was still lacking.

The decision was made to make yet another title to expand on the X-Men 
theme and return to the basic ideas of the old X-Men and the New 
Mutants: teaching young mutants to both fit in the world as well as to 
use their powers. The Phalanx Agenda crossover introduced the new cast 
of young mutants, which eventually became Generation X. Scott Lobdell 
wrote and Chris Bachalo pencilled this new title, which featured Banshee 
and the White Queen (Emma Frost) teaching the younger generation of 
mutants in Frost's Massachussetts Academy, now the "School for Gifted 
Youngsters". Xavier finally changed the original X-mansion school to an 
"Institute for Higher Learning." Generation X featured Jubilee 
(Jubilation Lee), Husk (Paige Guthrie), M (Monet St. Croix), Skin 
(Angelo Espinoza), Synch (Everett Thomas), and Chamber (Jonothon 
Starsmore) as the first students, and they found themselves facing 
Emplate in their first issue. 

In summer 1994, as Generation X was just hitting the stands, the 
greatest crossover of all was planned: the end of the universe!  Age of 
Apocalypse (AOA), and its lead-in, Legion Quest, tied it all together. 
Due to a time-travel glitch, an alternate reality was created. In this 
"World Without Xavier," Apocalypse was in charge, and Magneto led the 
heroic opposition. All of the writers' (and some fans') fantasies came 
true: Cyclops was a villain, Jean Grey and Wolverine were a couple, 
Magneto and Rogue were married with a child, Doug Ramsey wasn't dead, 
and Kitty and Colossus were married, to name a few. All of the comics 
were retitled and renumbered (starting at #1). The casts were scrambled 
as well, with X-Force becoming Gambit and the X-ternals as the most 
extreme example. Through the machinations of all the books, the timeline 
was restored to normal, with four AOA characters remaining in the "real"
timeline: X-Man (Nate Grey), Sugar Man, the AOA version of Beast, and 
Holocaust. Nate Grey got his own title, X-Man, the only AOA title to 
continue past the crossover itself. When AOA ended, numbering of the 
other titles continued where it had left off.

The next mega-crossover was Onslaught.  In that crossover, a psychic 
construction with all of the worst parts of Xavier and Magneto decided 
to try taking over the world.  This crossover was different in that in 
had a greater impact on the rest of the Marvel Universe than it did on 
the X-Men themselves. Onslaught set up the reboots of Iron Man, the 
Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Captain America, and caused the 
characters' (temporary) removal from the Marvel Universe. Rob Liefeld 
had once again been courted to raise sales on those four titles, even 
though Mark Waid's previous six months of work on Captain America had 
turned the title into a solid seller. After Liefeld, Jim Lee, and others 
finished their runs on the titles (Liefeld's being shorter than the 
planned 12-issue run), the books were restarted with number 1 issues. 
Meanwhile, Waid wrote some issues of the X-Men, adding Cannonball to the 
team, but left soon after. A Magneto stand-in, Joseph, was briefly a 
member, as was Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff, Magneto's son).

Following Onslaught, the X-Men were on their own during the Operation: 
Zero Tolerance crossover. As "Operation: Zero Tolerance" continued, Bob 
Harras realized that things were not going well in the X-titles. On the 
main front, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men writer Scott Lobdell was trying to 
tank the story because he wanted the X-Men to lose and editor Mark 
Powers refused to let them. At the same time, X-Factor was becoming a 
mess of new characters, and Excalibur was going through writer cramps as 
Warren Ellis left the book. So Harras acted to change things.

The first books to get the big treatment were the X-Men and Uncanny. 
They were given to Joe Kelly and Steven T. Seagle, respectively, who 
shook things up by adding three characters: Marrow (a terrorist), 
Maggott (a South African), and Cecelia Reyes (a doctor). The book went 
in some interesting directions, but their tenure lasted only eight months
since management decided that a new, different direction was in order. 
Listening to complaints about the size of the X-Men team, a decree was 
made that the book should have a team of 7 or 8: Wolverine, Storm, Marrow 
and Rogue would stay on; Excalibur, which was rapidly losing sales, would 
be closed down, and its main three characters--Shadowcat, Nightcrawler 
and Colossus--would return. And then there was Gambit.

After decent sales on Gambit's mini series and letters asking for his 
return after being unceremoniously dumped in the snow in Uncanny X-Men 
#350 (after revealing his part in the Mutant Massacre), a solo book was 
set to spring out of events in one of the down-time issues. Fabian Nicieza 
returned from his editorial stint at Acclaim Comics to begin the writing 
job on the title. (It was eventually cancelled with #26.)

With such upheaval--dissolution of a team book, retrenching on the two 
core titles, Larry Hama leaving Generation X after dismal reception and 
new writer Jay Faerber coming in with new ideas, and John Francis Moore 
setting up X-Force in a new way--Harras turned to the remaining book: 
X-Factor. Writer Howard Mackie and editor Frank Pittarese were asked to 
come up with something radical. The result? X-Factor would halted at 
#149 (after constantly promising a big payoff in issue #150) and Havok 
would go to another universe where the rules were changed. This would 
last for a year, and then Havok would return to take the team in a 
different direction. Harras was ecstatic and he okayed the move. X-
Factor became Mutant X, a twelve issue maxi-series that was received so 
positively, the book was continued. (Unfortunately, the positive start
soon turned negative, and the book was cancelled with #32.)

Back to the core titles. The drastic reduction of the X-Men's numbers, 
combined with the addition of Marrow and the members from the defunct 
Excalibur team, left everyone in a bit of a muddle. The Psi-War soon 
stripped Jean Grey, Psylocke, and Cable of their telepathic powers. (Of 
course, in typical Marvel fashion, the power losses lasted for only a 
short time.) Seagle and Kelly came up with some very interesting plots, 
but the two authors were soon replaced by Alan Davis, who was supposed 
to come on for six issues only but stayed until a "full-time 
replacement" could be found.

Davis was forced to do the "Rage Against the Machine" event immediately 
after his second story arc. The story, leading to the annuals, launched 
the M-Tech line: Warlock, Deathlok and X-51: Machine Man. Sales on the 
three books were dismal. (Although Warlock was the most X-related, and 
the best-written, Marvel held the cancellation on X-51 another month 
thinking it possible to remarket that title as an X-book. Didn't work.)

Xavier was missing around this time, and the X-men went on a search for 
him. Cerebro, who had been taken by Bastion earlier, was rampaging and 
Xavier was hiding from the machine, not able to contact the X-Men. 
During the "Search for Xavier," they found him. Joseph turned out to be 
a copy of Magneto. After the battle with Magneto, Joseph died and Magneto 
was given Genosha by the UN. Then came "The Shattering." Xavier felt 
something was wrong, and dissolved the team. During "The Shattering," the 
members of the teams went off on their own, to recover from the events of 
O:ZT and the like. 

It was during this ebb that Bishop returned home to the mansion and chose 
to go his own separate way as well. Bishop: The Last X-Man #1 began in 
"The Shattering," when he and Storm were alone in the mansion. Before he 
could change his mind, he was whisked away. Bishop:TLXM chronicled the 
tale of Bishop versus the Chronomancer (aka Fitzroy) in an alternate 
future. While Bishop was somehow sucked back into continuity during the 
Twelve storyline, he was whisked back to his own title soon afterward. 
(Bishop returned home again in his title's final issue, #16.)


------------------------------
Subject: 2000 and beyond

Information on "The Twelve" had been around for eons. An entire question 
in this FAQ centered around who the possible candidates were, based upon 
a handful of Master Mold appearances. The only thing certain was that it 
had to do with a future conflict with Apocolypse.  People weren't even

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