Uncanny X-Men #1

History

Brian Michael Bendis launched this volume simultaneously with his All-New X-Men series — an unusual arrangement in which one writer held both X-Men flagship titles at once — with the two series designed to intersect and comment on each other from their opening arcs. The series was confirmed publicly when artist Chris Bachalo, who served as the primary cover and interior artist for the series opener, announced his involvement in November 2012, and it launched on-sale in February 2013 with an April 2013 cover date under editor-in-chief Axel Alonso and series editor Nick Lowe. The editorial context was the conclusion of Kieron Gillen's preceding Uncanny run, which had ended with Cyclops imprisoned after the Phoenix event — Bendis picked up that framing device immediately, building his first issue around a structural twist in which Magneto's conspiratorial meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. is the hidden spine underneath the mutant-recruitment action on the surface. The issue shipped with multiple variant covers, including a Skottie Young baby-style variant, a Francesco Francavilla variant, and a high-ratio Gabriele Dell'Otto retailer incentive variant.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Written by Brian Michael Bendis with interior art and cover A by Chris Bachalo; released in February 2013 with an April 2013 cover date, as part of the Marvel NOW! initiative.
• First full appearance of Fabio Medina (later Goldballs, then Egg), a San Diego teenager whose power to generate gold spheres was initially comedic but was later revealed by Jonathan Hickman in House of X to be the biological foundation of the Krakoan mutant resurrection system.
• First appearance of Eva Bell in her Tempus identity — a time-bubble-wielding Australian mutant who joins Cyclops's team and goes on to become one of the Five on Krakoa.
• First appearance of Christopher Muse (Triage), a healing-power mutant who also joins Cyclops's team in this issue.
• The issue's structural hook is a framing device in which Magneto is secretly meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. director Maria Hill to engineer Cyclops's public self-destruction — a betrayal that complicates every character's allegiance throughout the run.
• This is the third distinct volume of Uncanny X-Men; the previous volume (written by Gillen) ended at issue #20 in October 2012 after Cyclops's actions during Avengers vs. X-Men left him a convicted felon.
• The story's title is 'The New Revolution,' and Magneto's debut appearance in this issue features him in a white costume — widely noted across collector databases as the first appearance of that specific costume design.
• The entire Bendis run on this volume ran 35 issues plus a landmark-numbered final issue, Uncanny X-Men #600, which reverted to the series' legacy numbering as a conclusion to both this series and All-New X-Men; the full run was later collected in a 2025 omnibus edition.

Full credits

Key issues in Uncanny X-Men

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#18 1st appearance — Mutina

Variants (8)