User blog:ARTaylor/40 Years of Giant-Size X-Men

This month marks the fortieth anniversary of Giant-Size X-Men, which was released in May of 1975. The landmark issue helped revitalize the then-failing X-Men franchise. In the issue, original X-Men members Marvel Girl, Angel, and Iceman as well as recruits Havok and Polaris had disappeared on the island of Krakoa with only Cyclops escaping. To help save the team, Professor X recruits a new group of X-Men under the leadership of Cyclops. He brought on Sunfire, Banshee, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird. This issue marked the issue that established Wolverine as a mutant, previously simply being a Canadian agent of Department H sent to fight Hulk. It was also the first appearances of Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird.

Storm, better known as Ororo Munroe, has been a mainstay of the X-Men series since her introduction. In her history she has led the X-Men and even married Black Panther to become queen of Wakanda. She first appeared on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends voiced by Kathy Garver. Next she appeared in "Pryde of the X-Men" where Andi Chapman played the character. Her most significant appearance was on X-Men, first voiced by Iona Morris and later replaced by Alison Sealy-Smith. Morris and Sealy-Smith reprised the role for Spider-Man. Storm and the X-Men had a small cameo appearance in Fantastic Four. Kirsten Williamson played her on X-Men: Evolution. She appeared very briefly in Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow as the mother of Azari. Cree Summer played the character in the The Super Hero Squad Show video game. In Wolverine and the X-Men she was played by Susan Dalian. Jill Scott played her on Black Panther. She appeared in Marvel Anime: X-Men voiced by Aya Hisakawa in Japanese and Danielle Nicolet in English. Yayoi Sugaya currently plays her on Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers. Her name briefly appeared in an episode of Ultimate Spider-Man.

Despite his popularity in the comics, Kurt Wagner has not had reached the prominence in animation Storm has. He first appeared in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends voiced by Stanley Jones. Legendary voice actor Frank Welker played him on "Pryde of the X-Men". He was a recurring guest star on X-Men played by Paul Haddad. His most prominent role was on X-Men: Evolution voiced by Brad Swaile, which was the only time he was a main character. Liam O'Brien played him as a more prominent recurring character on Wolverine and the X-Men and again in the The Super Hero Squad Show video game. His last voiced appearance was on Black Panther while he made a cameo appearance on Marvel Anime: X-Men.

Piotr Rasputin is also one of the most popular of this team, having been a steady member of the team and most famously sacrificing himself to stop the Legacy Virus. He was another character that, while also popular in the comics, never had a main role in any ongoing series. The character first appeared in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends played by John Stephenson. His only main role was voiced by Dan Gilvezan in the failed pilot "Pryde of the X-Men". Rick Bennett played the character in his first appearance on X-Men while Robert Cait took over in his second appearance, while he went on to make several more unvoiced appearances. Michael Adamthwaite played him on X-Men: Evolution as a reluctant villain while it was teased he would join the team. Phil Morris played him in his brief appearance on Wolverine and the X-Men. He appeared in The Super Hero Squad Show played by Tom Kenny. He also had a non-speaking cameo on Marvel Anime: X-Men.

John Proudstar sadly died on the team's second mission making his superhero career tragically short. As such, he has not had the popularity of the others. Stephenson first played the character on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends while he made a couple cameo appearances on X-Men.