By Marika Robak
Every week we'll pick a handful of awesome comics from the thousands available through Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited. From creator spotlights to editor's picks and more, this'll be your spot to find something new and cool.
What a long, strange trip it's been since 1963! This week, with the landmark UNCANNY X-MEN #500 hitting stand, we take a little roadtrip through time, hitting all the major milestones in the history of Marvel's mighty mutants! So buckle up and get ready for a wild ride, courtesy of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited
UNCANNY X-MEN #1
This is where it all starts, True Believers! Comics legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduce the X-Men, a team of teenage mutants assembled by Professor X with the goal of living in harmony with humanity. When Magneto attacks a missile base, Cape Citadel, the kids—Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Iceman and Marvel Girl—get to strut their stuff as they work together against their powerful new nemesis!
GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1
More than 10 years after their initial incarnation, the X-Men get an update to their roster, courtesy of writer Len Wein and artist David Cockrum. When the original X-Men team gets captured on the mysterious island of Krakoa, Professor X seeks out a new line-up of multicultural mutants from all over the world. Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Thunderbird and Sunfire must overcome their provincial thinking and work together to defeat the most powerful mutant on the planet: Krakoa, the "island that walks like a man!"
X-MEN #1
In 1991, all-stars Chris Claremont and Jim Lee split the X-Men squad into two strike forces: the Blue Team, led by Cyclops, and the Gold Team, led by Storm. In this issue, the Blue Team faces off against Magneto when he comandeers nuclear missiles from a sunken sub to fortify his defenses of Asteroid M, his home among the heavens. Despite their interference, Magneto offers the X-Men, and all mutants worldwide, refuge on his cosmic hideaway, which he declares a sovereign nation to be populated by mutants. Will the X-Men take down their greatest foe once and for all...or join him?
NEW X-MEN v1 #114
A fresh, definitive era in mutant history begins with plenty of changes, from fashion to foes, coming courtesy of creative team Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. The mutants get a makeover, ditching their colorful spandex for more conservative black leather jackets, Beast develops a secondary mutation and the cryptic Cassandra Nova recruits the only descendent of Bolivar Trask to control the Sentinels. But these are only minor modifications to the latest X-Men compared to the major metamorphoses about to rock their world!
ASTONISHING X-MEN #1
With Professor X on sabbatical, Cyclops calls on his fellow former students to preserve Xavier's dream by reuniting the X-Men once more. A new mutant "cure" and a malicious extraterrestrial out for homo superior blood mark only the beginning of the challenges that await Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost at the hands of fan favorite creators Joss Whedon and John Cassaday!
