John Byrne. His art is realistic but still very much the Marvel way.

I know Jim Lee pretty much created that style of art, but I think his work has dated much more than Byrne's.

This is a little difficult. John Byrne is clearly who Jim Lee wanted to be when he grew up (seriously, look at some of Lee's Alpha Flight work), but he did even better and went and branched it into his own style...which is some pretty impressive stuff.

However, I just simply like Byrne's work more, especially his dynamic movement work, and especially his expressions.

I don't know, maybe I'm a purist. I'm a big fan of Raphael, but there will only ever be one Michelangelo

Hmm...I think while they are both great artist, Byrne stomps as a series artist. For as great as Jim Lee is, his awkward (read as dramatic) poses and muscular frames....they feel out of place in the diverse scenes that a book can have. It's like you see Cyclops drinking Coffee...and the tone is "CYCLOPS DRINKING COFFEE" where as Byrne has great visuals that don't dramatically overtake the writing.

I still think that Jim Lee is one of the greatest Cover/Poster Artist ever....but I feel his style definitely suits DC more, where a character doing something mundane like standing on a building ledge benefits enormously from being over drawn because that character on the ledge....he's Superman.

Hate to say it, but he said it better.

John Byrne

These are the two most famous X-Men artists. Which one do you think was better?

Pretty sad, huh?? I don't mean John Byrne, his run with Claremont is where most of the legendary stories come out of and he co created a lot of famous characters like Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde......I mean it's sad that Jim lee is held in that regard with the X-Men. Credit where credit is due....yeah, he drew X-Men 1, which is the highest selling comic of all time, though there is variables conducive to that time that helped that book achieve that.....it wasn't just Lee's art, and of course, the 90s cartoon was based off his designs. Other than that though, Jim Lee only drew approximately 16 issues of X-Men in his career and most of those stories were heavily action driven without the emotional impact of something like the Proteus arc.

Dave Cockrum, who flat out created Storm, Nightcralwer and Colossus, Jack Kirby, John Romita Jr, Dan Green, Marc Sillvestri, Chris Bachalo, Adam Kubert were all more important to keeping the X-Men afloat and deserve more credit than Lee.

Oh yeah, I actually like Jim Lee somewhat better than John Byrne. I always just thinks its funny that Lee's name is still synonymous with the X-Men after all these years.

What is it with people named Lee getting more credit than they deserve at Marve!?? :D

I don't like Lee's art.

Arguably Jim Lee draws prettier pictures, but John Byrne definitively draws better comic books. Byrne is much better when it comes facial expressions and movements.

Jim Lee started in 1989 and drew 21 issues of Uncanny X-Men and and 11 issues of X-Men vol 2. That puts him at 32 issues. He was on the book for four years, sixteen sounded a little low.

I don't think it's that many, he had an 11 issue run on X-Men vol. 1 and I am not sure how long his run was on Uncanny but it couldn't have been any longer than 9 issues. It still doesn't delegitimize what I said. It's minimal compared to people like Silvestri or JRJR.

No, Lee had 32. You can see it here. You can see exactly what issues he was credited for by clicking "-- appearances". You have to minus the last four issues from his Uncanny run because he would only get credited for plot while Byrne was writing.

In comparison Marc Silvestri did 34 and John Romita Jr did 43. JRJR actually has the most artist credits on Uncanny X-Men vol 1. To be fair, though, he had two runs. One from '83 to '86 and another from '93 to '94. It's not really a huge difference unless you count the work that Silvestri and JRJR did on Wolverine as well.

Jim Lee.

The drawings by Byrne in the OP look very good though. Maybe if he his art was from the modern era where it was printed on better paper that wouldn't hide the details i would like him more.

Jim Lee. Marc Silvestri is my favorite X-Men artist though.

I agree with this.

Nah, I doubt it. He was probably just copying Byrne's style in Alpha Flight.

Fun story. Byrne was writing X-Men when Jim Lee decided to throw out Wolverine's brown and tan costume in exchange for the blue and gold. Lee told Byrne that he just gave Wolverine his real costume back. Then they had a awkward moment when Byrne told Lee that he designed the brown and tan costume.

On a unrelated story, JRJR should come back to Marvel. His Superman looks like shit.

What? I thought you said it looked like Fruity Pebble vomit?

Yeah, it was hard to find X-Men art from Byrne that wasn't printed on the newspaper paper of the 80s. Unfortunately I couldn't find a good team drawings, so I went with Wolverine.

@invain: I'll say this...he's had a few good covers and promos that made me pick up his Superman....but honestly his square head and square nose Superman is part of the reason I think it was so dam hard to like New 52 Supes

I'm glad to see John Byrne is winning! I love his art! It's timeless.

Covers are included on that list. I am talking about whole issues.

Okay, he did three covers, which puts him at a total of 29.

Both artists are very talented but I prefer Byrne.

Nah, New 52 Supes was hard to like before JRJr got to him. The whole book was disappointing in my opinion.

Nah man...Ulysses arc would've been cool if any other artist had drawn it. I mean don't get me wrong idk if that entire 52 issue span had one arc that I 100% enjoyed on a story level. But that arc had potential and the big square noses sucked it away. His art style just didn't make me want to read about Superman even if the story was great. Sometimes I just have bland nightmares about how uninspired his Superman looked.

@koays: What I meant was the whole volume was bad. We had Pèrez and Lobdell giving us some of the most boring stories in the first half of the series and John Romita Jr's "Punisher in a cape" design on Superman ruining the second half.

@invain: Well it's Lobdell...he is a cancer at DC. (Except with Red Hood who he seems to have increased the cult following for...though I can't admit it for reasons) but yeah your right New 52 Superman was damned from top to bottom...but I honestly can't help but feel that as the writing improved Romita's art was there to remind us we weren't allowed to like that book.

@invain: lol I didn't know that story about the brown and tan costume. I've always preferred it to the yellow and blue.

@immolation: @cattlebattle:

I'm pretty sure that Jim Lee drew 25 issues of X-men during his run.

He drew Uncanny X-Men #248, #256-258, #267-277

and he drew X-Men Vol 2 from #1 up to #11

not super long, but a respectable tenure. and he made an impact in the time he was on the books, basically designed the most famous looks for several characters.

LOL

John Byrne. He is able to tell a more complete story with his art.

Byrne

Byrne