Bishop's Crossing, Volume 20 (X-Men Epic Collection)

Jim Lee is perhaps today’s hottest comic-book artist. Since the late ’80s, his work for Marvel, DC and Image — the company he helped found — has set trends that survive to this day. After honing his skills with memorable runs on Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, Lee rose to prominence on Uncanny X-Men. Lee then revamped the mutant team’s look and helped launch the second X-Men series, whose first issue remains one of the best-selling comic books of all time. In 1992, he and other artists formed Image Comics. Lee’s group of titles, published under the Wildstorm Productions imprint, included the mega-popular WildC.A.T.s, Stormwatch and Gen13. Under Wildstorm’s sub-imprint Homage Comics, he published Kurt Busiek’s Astro City and Strangers in Paradise, both of which became major fan favorites. Lee returned to Marvel in 1996, relaunching Fantastic Four as part of the “Heroes Reborn” event. Subsequently selling Wildstorm to DC Comics, Lee went on to pencil Batman, Superman and WildC.A.T.s. Later, as DC Comics’ co-publisher, he helped revamp and reconceptualize the company’s entire lineup.

Scott Lobdell wrote both Uncanny X-Men and X-Men during the 1990s. He also launched Generation X and Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, and penned Alpha Flight and Fantastic Four. Elsewhere, he wrote Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Fabian Nicieza, Wildstorm’s Gen13, Top Cow’s Darkness, and IDW’s Ghostbusters: Displaced Aggression and Galaxy Quest. Lobdell scripted Stan Lee’s animated film Mosaic and has performed as a stand-up comedian.

Since his start on the New Universe’s Psi-Force and backup stories in Classic X-Men, Fabian Nicieza has written most of Marvel’s major super-teams — including Alpha Flight, the Avengers, the New Warriors, the Thunderbolts and the X-Men. Together with artist Rob Liefeld, Nicieza transformed New Mutants into the blockbuster X-Force. The writer also tackled solo heroes ranging from Cable and Deadpool (later combined in Cable & Deadpool) to Gambit and Nomad. He edited Marvel’s Star imprint, contributed to multititle X-events like “X-Cutioner’s Song” and “Phalanx Covenant,” and wrote various “pre-modern” limited series such as Adventures of Captain America and Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Elsewhere, he has written both JLA and Justice League Adventures, The 99, Turok, X-Files, and others.

A founding member of the star-studded Image team, Whilce Portacio became a star thanks to his work on late-’80s Marvel titles like Punisher, Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor. After time at Image during the early ’90s, he returned to Marvel with writer Jeph Loeb on Iron Man. A long illness kept him from the drawing boards until his return on Wildstorm’s Wetworks. His subsequent credits include Batman Confidential, and his first Marvel work in nearly a decade on Uncanny X-Men and Loeb’s Hulk.

John Romita Jr. is a modern-day comic-art master, following in his legendary father’s footsteps. Timeless runs on Iron Man, Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil established him as his own man artistically, and his work on Wolverine and World War Hulk is among the most explosive comic art of the 21st century. In addition to Eternals with writer Neil Gaiman, JRJR teamed with Mark Millar on the creator-owned Kick-Ass, later developed into a blockbuster feature film starring Nicolas Cage. Spidey fans rejoiced at the artist’s return to Amazing Spider-Man with the “Brand New Day” storylines “New Ways To Die” and “Character Assassination.” He later helped relaunch Avengers with writer Brian Michael Bendis and Captain America with Rick Remender, and contributed to the blockbuster crossover Avengers vs. X-Men. For DC Comics, he drew big-name characters such as Superman, Batman and the Suicide Squad before making a welcome return home to Marvel and Amazing Spider-Man.

After an artistic apprenticeship under famed father Joe Kubert, Andy Kubert got his start on DC’s space-opera variations Adam Strange and Warlord, as well as the best-selling crossover Batman vs. Predator in collaboration with brother Adam. Kubert’s Marvel career began with a six-year stint on X-Men — continuing into Thor, Ka-Zar, Ghost Rider and others. He collaborated with Orson Scott Card on Ultimate Iron Man, Neil Gaiman on Marvel 1602 and Paul Jenkins on Wolverine: Origin.