Giant-Size X-Men #1

A dead title gets a second genesis

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched The X-Men in September 1963 with five teenage mutants: Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel and Iceman. The book never sold well. Roy Thomas and Werner Roth took it over by issue #20, and in 1969 Thomas and artist Neal Adams tried a revival that introduced Havok and Polaris. Sales stayed poor. Marvel stopped producing new X-Men stories with issue #66, cover-dated March 1970, and filled issues #67 through #93 with reprints.

Giant-Size X-Men #1 was the first new X-Men story in five years. It went on sale February 25, 1975, according to the copyright filing, with a May 1975 cover date; at the time a cover date usually ran about three months ahead of the on-sale date. (One biography of the artist gives the cover date as July 1975; the indexed copy and the series history both say May.) It was a 68-page special priced at 50 cents and billed as a quarterly.

The lead story, "Second Genesis," runs 36 pages. Krakoa, the Living Island, captures the original X-Men, and Professor X recruits a new team to rescue them. The issue also carries short features explaining the powers of the original members.

The new team kept only Cyclops from the original lineup. Alongside him came four new characters (Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Thunderbird) and three who already existed elsewhere: Banshee, the Japanese hero Sunfire, and Wolverine, who had made his first full appearance a few months earlier in The Incredible Hulk #181.

Wein, Cockrum and the international idea

Len Wein, born in New York City on June 12, 1948, had already co-created Swamp Thing in 1971 and Wolverine in 1974. He succeeded Roy Thomas as Marvel's editor-in-chief in 1974 and held the job until 1975, which is why he is credited as editor of this issue as well as its writer. He later edited Watchmen. He died in Los Angeles on September 10, 2017. Chris Claremont, who took over the series, said in 2009 that "the history of modern comics would be incredibly different if you took [Wein's] contributions out of the mix."

Dave Cockrum was born November 11, 1943, in Pendleton, Oregon, and served six years in the U.S. Navy. He made his name redesigning the costumes of DC's Legion of Super-Heroes, then left DC in a dispute over the return of original artwork and joined Marvel as a staff artist. Roy Thomas, Wein and Cockrum worked out the revival together.

The international cast was a deliberate choice. Marvel's corporate owner, Cadence Industries, suggested the new team should be international, feeling it needed characters with "foreign appeal." The story's own datelines show the result: it opens in Winzeldorf, Germany, and travels to Kenya, Lake Baikal, Osaka, Quebec, Camp Verde in Arizona and Westchester.

Several of the new heroes were sitting in Cockrum's sketchbooks. He had created Nightcrawler during his Navy years, and both Nightcrawler and Storm were first meant for the Legion. Storm combined two of his designs: the Black Cat, whose costume became hers, and Typhoon, originally a male character that Thomas suggested turning into the woman the team needed. His collaborators worried her white hair would make her look like a grandmother; Cockrum kept it.

Spring 1975

The book reached stands in the last weeks of the Watergate era. On January 1, 1975, John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were convicted in the cover-up, and on February 21, four days before the on-sale date, the same three men were sentenced to between 30 months and 8 years in prison. Daylight saving time started early that February because of the energy crisis.

While the issue was on sale, Bill Gates founded Microsoft in Albuquerque on April 4, and Saigon fell on April 30, ending the Vietnam War. On June 20, Jaws opened nationwide and set the pattern for the summer blockbuster.

Storm's arrival mattered on its own terms. She was Marvel's second Black female superhero, after Misty Knight, who was created two months earlier, and she later became the first Black leader and the first female leader of a Marvel superhero team.

From reprint book to Marvel's best seller

The new team moved straight into the regular title. The X-Men #94 continued the story, with Chris Claremont writing and Cockrum penciling issues #94 to #105 and #107 between 1975 and 1977. Thunderbird did not last: he died in issues #94 and #95, on the team's second mission. Cockrum explained that "we created him as an obnoxious loudmouth, and we already had an obnoxious loudmouth in Wolverine."

John Byrne replaced Cockrum as the main artist with issue #108 in December 1977. By the early 1980s X-Men was Marvel's top-selling title, so dominant that distributors and retailers rated other comics by comparing their orders to that month's X-Men.

On the collector market, a CGC 9.8 copy sold at auction on June 19, 2021, for $72,000. For years no copy graded higher. The first CGC 9.9 surfaced in 2024, was offered at auction in New York in June with bidding closing June 24-28, and sold on June 28, 2024, for $170,000 after 31 bids. The seller described it as the only copy to reach 9.9 in CGC's nearly 25-year history.

The market for 9.8 copies has since cooled. A CGC 9.8 brought $22,860 at auction on September 9, 2025, against a presale estimate of $20,000 to $30,000.

What to look for

The cover is by Gil Kane, who signed it 'GK,' with Dave Cockrum drawing the figures of the original X-Men and inking (signed 'DEC'). Gaspar Saladino lettered the cover. Inside, "Second Genesis" credits Wein for plot and script, Cockrum for pencils and inks, Glynis Wein for colors and John Costanza for letters. The first line of text reads "Winzeldorf, Germany: Nestled deep in the Bavarian..."

This entry is the single CGC 9.9 copy, with white pages. Its seller pointed to a square-bound spine and cover edges with no visible flaws.

Census counts differ a little by source and date. One June 2025 report gave 14,457 graded with 275 at 9.8. A sale listing the same month gave 260 at 9.8 with one higher, and a September 2025 listing gave 267 at 9.8 with one higher. The sources do not explain the difference.

The numbers

Cover price

50 cents

Pages

68; the lead story runs 36

Frequency

Quarterly (per the indicia); the series ran two issues

Print run

No verified figure found

Census, May 2024

More than 13,000 graded; one at CGC 9.9

Census, June 2025

14,457 graded; 275 at CGC 9.8 (one report). A sale listing that month gave 260 at 9.8, one higher

Census, September 2025

267 at CGC 9.8, one higher (per a sale listing)

Timeline

1. Sep 1963

   The X-Men #1 introduces Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's original team.

2. Mar 1970

   Issue #66 is the last new X-Men story; issues #67-93 reprint older material.

3. 1974

   Len Wein succeeds Roy Thomas as Marvel's editor-in-chief.

4. Feb 25, 1975

   Giant-Size X-Men #1 goes on sale, cover-dated May 1975, at 50 cents.

5. 1975

   The X-Men #94 continues the story, with Chris Claremont writing; Thunderbird dies in issues #94-95.

6. Dec 1977

   John Byrne replaces Dave Cockrum as the regular artist with issue #108.

7. Nov 26, 2006

   Dave Cockrum dies in Belton, South Carolina, at 63.

8. Sep 10, 2017

   Len Wein dies in Los Angeles.

9. Jun 19, 2021

   A CGC 9.8 copy sells at auction for $72,000.

10. May 2024

    More than 13,000 copies are on the CGC census, with a single 9.9.

11. Jun 28, 2024

    The only CGC 9.9 sells at auction in New York for $170,000.

12. Jun 2025

    A census report counts 14,457 graded copies and 275 at 9.8.

13. Sep 9, 2025

    A CGC 9.8 copy sells at auction for $22,860.

The world in 1975

• Jan 1, 1975

  Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman are convicted in the Watergate cover-up.

• Jan 12, 1975

  The Pittsburgh Steelers win Super Bowl IX.

• Feb 23, 1975

  Daylight saving time begins early because of the energy crisis.

• Apr 4, 1975

  Bill Gates founds Microsoft in Albuquerque.

• Apr 30, 1975

  Saigon falls and the Vietnam War ends.

• May 30, 1975

  Distance runner Steve Prefontaine dies in a car accident.

• Jun 20, 1975

  Jaws opens nationwide.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Giant-Size X-Men #1 is number 28 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (18 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Marvel published no new X-Men stories from 1970 to 1975; issues #67 through #93 were reprints.
• Nightcrawler was created by Dave Cockrum while he was in the Navy, and he first meant both Nightcrawler and Storm for a different publisher's team.
• Cockrum's collaborators worried Storm's white hair would make her look like a grandmother. He kept it.
• Thunderbird was first meant to wash out of the team after one issue; he was killed off on the team's second mission instead.
• Len Wein both wrote and edited the issue, because he was Marvel's editor-in-chief at the time.
• By the early 1980s, retailers measured other comics against what they called the 'X-Men index': orders compared with that month's X-Men.