X-Men

John Byrne joins Claremont on art and together they create some of the most important stories ever written at Marvel: Days of Future Past and the Dark Phoenix Saga. Jean Grey, possessed by the cosmic entity Phoenix, becomes the greatest threat in the universe and sacrifices her life to save the X-Men. Absolute must-read.

X-Men: The Hidden Years Omnibus returns to the gap between classic X-Men eras, with Roy Thomas and John Byrne giving the original team new adventures that feel deliberately close to the Silver Age mood. The pleasure is continuity repair with affection: familiar voices, old-school danger and a missing chapter filled in with care. The book is deliberately old-school, and that is its charm. Byrne and Thomas use the missing-years premise to add movement without trying to make the original team something it never was.