In the late 1970s and early 1980s, writer Chris Claremont teamed up with artist John Byrne on the Uncanny X-Men, between issues 108 and 142. The duo went on to create some of the most iconic X-Men stories of all time, including Proteus, Days of Future Past, and the inimitable Dark Phoenix Saga, and introducing characters such as Kitty Pryde, Dazzler, Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club, and Canadian Super-Team Alpha Flight. However, the two creators had different visions for where the X-Men’s stories should go, what parts of the stories should be focused on, and how to deal with editorial changes. This led to John Byrne’s departure from the book.
In 2019, Byrne started writing and pencilling what was, in essence, X-Men fan fiction, picking up where he had left the series, ignoring the official canon, and doing his own thing. Every issue was posted on his message board, and eventually all collected here: https://byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58810&PN=1&totPosts=155.
Now, these issues have been inked, colored, collected, and are about to be released with Marvel’s permission as X-Men: Elsewhen. The 32 issues will be collected in three hardcovers released by Abrams books starting in June. The first volume is up for preorder on various comic retailer sites. But because they’re the biggest retailer in the world, here’s the Amazon link. Don’t want to order on Amazon? No argument from me, I just want to make sure you know what you’re looking for: https://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Elsewhen-Graphic-Novel-Marvel/dp/1419787284
This is an unprecedented release in comics, where a creator went and made a thing without permission just for fun, and then it gets an official release. To have it be one of the people who actually worked on the original, official stories gives it an air of authenticity that it otherwise wouldn’t have gotten.
Anyways, I’m super excited about this. I’ve known about it since 2019 and kept meaning to go back and read those pencilled pages and just never got around to it. But for this? I already have my preorder in.
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X-Men and all related characters are the property of Marvel Comics, a subsidiary of Disney.
