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Pg: 37; Dave Cockrum pencils, Joe Rubinstein inks and signed; 11" x 17"

By the late Silver Age, the X-Men was the title that nobody wanted, a low-selling book that was written and drawn mostly in a rush by artists who'd rather be working on other projects. With the exception of a brief Neal Adams run in the early 1970s, and a few issues thrown out as a bone to a young and hungry Barry Smith, it was an afterthought. By the late 1970s, however, it was the biggest, most-acclaimed mainstream hero comic on the market, thanks to the talents of Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, who transformed the book from an occasionally clumsy metaphor for outcasts and misfits in to a powerhouse of characterization, dense plotting, and soap-opera-level long-form storytelling. This is a fine example of the kind of explosive, energetic work that attracted readers to the suddenly top-tier title. This page, especially, appeals to the X-Men collector, as many of the major characters are pictured in killer action poses, including Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops, all drawn expertly by Cockrum, the artist who nearly single-handedly created the look of Bronze Age team books with this influential run. Here we have nearly everything a comic art collector would want -- a legendary artist, top-tier characters, plenty of action, from one of the most-beloved runs in comics.

Artists Information

David Emmett Cockrum was an American comics artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus as well as the antiheroine Black Cat. Cockrum was a prolific and inventive costume designer who updated the uniforms of the Legion of Super-Heroes. He did the same for the new X-Men and many of their antagonists in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Josef "Joe" Rubinstein is a comic book artist and inker, most associated with inking Marvel Comics' The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and the 1982 four-issue Wolverine miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. He is also known to be the one to have given artist Art Adams his first professional work.