Rather than picking one character this time for everyone to work on, our team each picked their favorite long-standing member of the X-Men and gave them a fresh new look. Some of these aren’t even mutants, but characters like Juggernaut, Captain America, Thor and Spider-Man have been members of the X-Men in the past.
We’re giving you a virtual buffet of merry mutant madness this month! Enjoy, and please follow the artists on social media.
Lily Haverly
daisyrose2313 on Twitter and daisyrose1319 on Instagram
While not everyone can rock a primary-colored X-Men uniform, resident fashionista the Wasp really feels in her element here. Although the lovely Janet Van Dyne is most often seen in black and yellow, giving her the classic yellow and blue colors with X-shapes and red accents made her feel like she belonged with the rest of her fellow X-Men. I wanted her to still feel “Janet,” so there are some W motifs and wasp-like stripes in the design as well. I took a lot of inspo from her older looks, the popped collar and funky hair feeling right at home in the new threads, along with my FAVORITE adaptation of hers (the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes cartoon), bringing over the antenna headphones.
Alex Buckland
Blueromanticss on Instagram, Bluesky and Twitter
As the longest-standing member of X-Force, I had to give Black Widow a design with a giant gun and lots of straps and belts!
Isaiah Cox
Isacoart on Instagram and Bluesky
For this round, I was SOOOOOOOOO excited to do one of my all-time FAVORITE X-Men characters of all time, Mockingbird! She’s just been such a mainstay in the franchise and was always up there with the MOTHERS of mutants! When thinking about her design, I thought about my usual philosophy of mixing sleek, stylish fashion elements with classic vibes of superhero costuming. I gave her an “X” across the chest, a la Jean Grey’s later X-Factor costume, with a muted blue-and-silver color scheme rather than the blue-and-yellow training uniform colors to give it a kind of graduation costume feel. My favorite element has to be her extra-long twin sleeves that were inspired by Cruella’s ending outfit because I felt they alluded to bird wings, and it gives a great silhouette with posing! I added some oversized goggles with black-and-white detailing as a nod to her classic masks; tall, heeled combat boots; some chrome gauntlets, and BAM, you have Miss Bobbi Morse, newly fitted and ready to beat down some Orchis creeps!
Joe Pryde Art
JoePrydeCosplay on Twitter, Art of Joe Pryde! on Bluesky, joeprydecosplay on Instagram
Redesigning Firebird was an easy choice because I love an obscure X-character relegated to the background of many panels, but she steals the show every time! Whether it’s aiding X-Factor Investigations on their time-traveling adventures in the 2000s (her convo with Butterfly still gives me chills) or substitute teaching the Academy X kids just before M-Day, she’s a legend and deserves more respect.
Joshua Bruckner
joshington_bear on instagram, joshingtonbear on Bluesky
Long a supporting character for the X-Men, Tony Stark’s recent marriage to Emma Frost after decades of simmering romance has catapulted Iron Man to center stage. I wanted him to be a second-in-command in the field, showing he’s finally ready to stand alongside the likes of Cyclops and Storm instead of just the team’s financier, scout or “monitor room girl.” I based his new look off his classic Iron Man armors, but put it in white to reflect his marriage to Emma. I kept the X-branding he’s had since he joined the field team as a support unit in the ’80s, but made the angles more prominent and added an X-visor to his helmet.
As a nod to his longtime role as the school and team’s financer, the logo for Stark-X Industries is on the suit’s pauldrons. That’s just good branding!
Pastel Rake
Pastelrake on Instagram and Bluesky
I’ve loved Julia Carpenter ever since she joined the Outback team during the Claremont run. While her original Spider-Woman costume is iconic, I wanted her to have something a little more rugged that also made her feel as cohesively ’80s as the individual looks of the rest of the team. So I imagined her revamping her bodysuit and throwing on a biker jacket with some bold makeup to capture the rock-chic aesthetic of the time and her new no-nonsense attitude.
Dia Falconer
@diatoonz on Instagram, @unteletoonz everywhere else
Personally, I would love a Hellcat animated series, so that’s where a lot of the inspiration for this design came from. I also wanted to give her some extra X-motifs, which could also double as H motifs.
Kunal Chopra
Get2DaChopra on Instagram, Bluesky and Twitter
For Jen, I figured it’d be fun to give her two suits, one for teams and another for either solo adventures or post-graduation.
On the left, she’s got her default suit that she got after her mutant gene was activated, giving her the same abilities as the Hulk.
This suit’s overall design and colors are based heavily on the O5 classic suits worn by the likes of Cyclops and Jean Grey. I wanted her suit to have very geometric shapes. In my mind, that represents strength and resiliency. She was the only one to wear a “classic” costume after joining the team in Giant-Size X-Men #1, aside from Cyclops.
Her costume on the right more resembles modern X-suits, and has colors inspired by the Hulk’s iconic (and somehow never tearing) purple shorts, since they have similar power sets. It’s more tactical and modern in terms of colors, similar to what we’ve seen in the Astonishing run. Silver highlights are used to break the darker colors as well. She’d start wearing this as a means of growing into her own.
R.L. White
rlwhitesillustrations on Instagram and Tumblr, RLWhitesArt on Twitter and Bluesky
For this round, I chose my favorite member of the X-Men, Carol Danvers! I went with her time as Binary over Captain Marvel, because Binary is more powerful, and it’s when she finally joined the X-Men after being with the Starjammers during the ’80s.
I wanted my Binary design to be inspired by Russell Dauterman’s version to get that spark for her, play with fire from start to finish. I made four different X-uniform designs that fit the cosmic hero type, and surprisingly everyone loves the last costume more (mainly because of the shoulder pads). This redesign was definitely a challenge, but I had such a fun time experimenting with Binary; I love the way the final take turned out and happily playing with some fire effects!
I also designed a logo for Binary if she had her own solo series.
beefcakeboss
beefcakeboss on Instagram and Bluesky
I picked the X-Men’s most powerful psychic, Moondragon! Since she made telepathic contact with Professor X from across the galaxy to be the new team telepath in the wake of Jean Grey’s death, she’s always been a stylish powerhouse. Green’s always been her color, and I just updated her costume to make it sleek and modern.
Trae Middlebrooks
Trae.Drew.That on Instagram
This month’s prompt was to design a comic cover with two mutants who deserve a bigger push. I immediately thought of these two, who deserve their own title!
“The X-Men’s hottest couple is getting their own brand-new miniseries! Jericho Drumm, aka DOCTOR VOODOO, has been teaching mutant magic over in Excalibur. Monica Rambeau, aka PHOTON, is serving as the head of security at the S.W.O.R.D. station. With little time to enjoy their new relationship, they plan a much-needed romantic getaway to Monica’s hometown of New Orleans. What could go wrong? Except vampires, swamp ghosts, a few Cajun werewolves, and a centuries-old mystery only the two of them can solve. But perhaps the scariest part of this trip … Jericho meeting Monica’s parents for the first time!”
Joshua Bruckner
Joshua Bruckner is a lifelong artist, X-Men fan and scientist, in that order. He lives in Massachusetts and spends his free time reading comics, redesigning X-Men, drawing comics and arguing about X-Men. Follow him at @joshington_bear on most social media.
