Be sure to check out Episode 38 of the podcast for our thoughts on all-time great X stories “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and “Days of Future Past”.

There are oh-SO many X-Men stories, and a lot of them are really good to great, so it’s very difficult to provide a recommended reading list that isn’t very, very long, but we’ve narrowed it down to some favorites. Keep in mind that these don’t include stories only found in books like New Mutants, Wolverine, X-Factor or X-Force, as they honestly deserve their own lists. 

• X-Men Masterworks (Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas & Neal Adams) – 1963
• Giant Size X-Men #1 (Len Wein, Dave Cockrum) -1975
• Proteus Saga (Chris Claremont, John Byrne) – 1979
• *The Dark Phoenix Saga (Claremont, Byrne) – 1980
• *Days of Future Past (Claremont, Byrne) – 1981
• From the Ashes (Claremont, Paul Smith)
• X-Men #1 by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont – 1991
• Mutant Massacre (various titles)
• Fall of the Mutants (various titles)
• Inferno (various titles)
• X-Cutioner’s Song (various titles) – check out our podcast for more!
• Age of Apocalypse (various titles) – check out our podcast for more! 
• New X-Men: E is for Extinction (Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely) – 2001
• New X-Men: Imperial (Morrison, Quitely, Ethan Van Sciver, Igor Kordey)
• Ultimate X-Men: The Tomorrow People / Return to Weapon X (Mark Millar, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert)
• Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon & John Cassaday – 2004

• House of M (Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel) 
• X-Men: Supernovas (Mike Carey, Chris Bachalo)
• Age of X (Mike Carey, Clay Mann, Steve Kurth) – 2011
• Messiah CompleX (various titles)
• Messiah War (a bit of a cheat, as it is told only in CABLE and X-FORCE titles)
• Second Coming (various titles)
• X-Men: Schism (Jason Aaron, Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis and Adam Kubert)
• Uncanny X-Men: Regenisis (Kieron Gillen, Carlos Pacheco)
• Avengers vs X-Men / AvX (Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, John Romita Jr, Olivier Coipel, Adam Kubert) – 2012
• All New X-Men by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen
• House of X (Hickman, Pepe Laraz) – 2019
• Powers of X (Hickman, R B Silva)
• X of Swords (various titles)
• X-Men: Red (Al Ewing, various artists)
• Immortal X-Men (Gillen, various artists)
• Hellfire Gala 2023 one-shot (Gerry Duggan, Hickman, Kubert, Luciano Vecchio, Matteo Lolli, Russell Dauterman, Javier Pinta, Silva, Joshua Cassara, Kris Anka, Larraz, Valerio Schiti)

If you have any to recommend that aren’t listed here be sure to let us know!