IGN's best X-Men lineups....

I actually wouldn't have put the blue/gold team on there, but would have replaced it with New Mutants. To fans of the comics, it's much more of an iconic team, IMHO.

I wouldn't put the New Mutants in there at all. I've never felt for that roster at all, and was a massive backwards step reuniting them, and while individual characters have been interesting outside of the book (Sam in particular), I have much more feeling for the X-Force squad, despite the now common hatred of Liefeld.

Also, don't get the depth of feeling for Magneto's squad. Again, like the individual members, not a fan of the collective.

Originally posted by Blackcyclops You really think so?

Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have said it :P.

See, I disagree with the gold/blue split being such a big deal. Most of the time it just ended up being whoemever would be most useful on a mission going along. I genuinely don''t believe that there really was a big important roster split.

The initial line-ups were this:
BLUE: Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Psylocke, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee.
GOLD: Storm, Jean, Archangel, Banshee, Forge, Colossus, Iceman, Bishop.

Take into account the big storylines that occurred during that period-- (Banshee leaves pretty much straight after going to Avalon with the X-Men and turns up every now and again), Executioner's song (free-for-all, Colossus leaves once his sister is killed, Forge leaves after believing Storm wouldn't marry him), Fatal Attractions (Wolverine loses his adamantium, strike team consists of a combination of Blue and Gold team members), Phalanx Covenant (Jubilee and Banshee leave to join Gen-X, during the event Wolverine, Cable, Jean and Scott working together, X-Factor, X-Force and Excalibur mash-ups), Legion Quest (Jean, Psylocke, Storm, Iceman, Bishop), AOA and the aftermath (Gambit in a coma, Rogue and Bobby on the road, Cannonball joining the X-Men but never assigned to either the Blue or Gold team, O5 taking on Sabretooth, Psylocke gutted and Wolverine and Archangel working to save her and almost immediately afterwards, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Callisto fight Gene Nation in the sewers, Wolverine, Beast, Archangel, Storm and Cannonball fight Gene Nation, Psylocke and Archangel leave, Beast working more fervently on the Legacy Virus to be replaced by Dark Beast and no one even noticed)-- So, in the lead-up to Onslaught, the Blue and Gold rosters looked like this:

BLUE: Cyclops, Wolverine, Dark Beast, Psylocke, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee.
GOLD: Storm, Jean, Archangel, Banshee, Forge, Colossus, Iceman, Bishop.
UNASSIGNED: Cannonball.

At this point, I think it's fairly safe to say that neither strike-force was particularly well-manned, or at least not to the point of the original premise where two strike teams were needed. If anything, I think these were better examples of rotating casts than Fraction ever managed on his run on UXM.

The line up BETWEEN the two teams is fairly iconic, however, the argument that there was a regimented blue/gold split and that the twain seldom if ever met is massively flawed.





Edited by das_boot - 07-Mar-2012 at 10:50am

Well I think the B/G Era is significant because of its impact. It literally marked a paradigm shift in the X-books and was apart of a new era of comics in general. I mean I just can't see how its not iconic.


And I'd say that the Blue/Gold era of team roster ended at Legion Quest, which saw reshuffling of the deck. At that point you got people changing the books they were in and characters adding to the X-Men. So that's from X-Men #1 until #40. I'd say they were perfectly distinct but you did have more characters appearing in one book than another. Plus the books were in crossover mode so there was definite bleed through quite a bit for those.

And of course it was a more successful rotating cast they had two whole books to do it with LOL


Edited by Blackcyclops - 07-Mar-2012 at 3:03pm

It was also portrayed  simultaneously on the X-Men cartoon.