With everything that has happened in the past five or seven years, I couldn't tell you when the X-Men had a set squadron.  Sure, there's your breakdowns before the issues.  Y'know, showing you the players, and for short periods of time a regular team is established.  But the last time that I can recall an actual team, I would say it was the Storm led the team consisting of Wolvie, X-23, Psylocke, Bishop, Rachel Summers and Nightcrawler.  That was right before "The Rise and Fall of The Shi'ar Empire" -- Claremont's last run on Uncanny.  It didn't really do anything but bring Psylocke back again around the time of "House of M" and axe the Grey family(Ray's Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents). 

Since then, you tell me.  I was thinking around issue 500 that there would be a set squad established.  But I can't really say Fraction has made a solid team due to all of the remaining M-Day fallout bulls#!t.  New/old teammates show back up(i.e. Dazzler and Northstar) but they're staying put as a race more or less.  You got all these fools in San Fran trying to still figure everything out between homo-sapien and homo-superior with the whole "Utopia" storyline on the horizon.  So, hold your breath.  Could Cyke put together a set team of X-Men - the "A" squad?  I hope so.  Look at it this way, there's a set group in X-FACTOR, and X-FORCE.  But there's not a set team of X-MEN.  It doesn't make sense.

But let's get the question at hand: WHAT IS [MY] FAVORITE X-MEN TEAM AND WHY?

I wish there could be a random 12 of us that could just sit and rap about this for an hour.  It's a great question.  I pretty sure that your old-school X-heads would no doubt say that the best team ever was -- either/or -- the first team(Cyke, Beast, Angel, Iceman, and Marvel Girl) or the "Giant-Size #1" crew(Cyke, Storm, Banshee, Colossus, Wolverine, Sunfire, T-Bird and Nightcrawler[KItty too]).  Then when you get to fans my age and you simply as, "Gold Team?  Or Blue Team?"

With me, it's tough, I can't say just one.

TEAM LEADER: Storm/Wolverine
Rogue
Colossus
Dazzler
Psylocke
Longshot
Havok

I love "Fall of the Mutants".  Its awesome.  And so is the team that defended Dallas, Texas...and "died".  Okay, so they didn't actually bite it, but because of Roma, on Earth -- to their friends and families -- they were dead(crazy, right?).  Colossus couldn't revert back to his human form, and got stronger because of it.  Longshot was never bummed out, even when he had to get caught up in a magical hurricane while carrying the team(using a rope that streched miles long btw) up Eagle Plaza to take on The Adversary.  Storm was in another reality of Earth with Forge, both whom were trying to figure if they wanted to just say, "screw 'em we're in love" or "let's go back and fight for our planet and people".  Dazzler had Destiny's mask put on her face with a magical knife that "tacked" or stabbed it in place via Spiral.  And while Storm has briefly left the reality, Wolverine was basically cornered into leading the team, with Rogue being his right hand wo-man.  Psylocke was fresh and was the X-Men's resident telepath at the time(Xavier was presumed dead or close -- but was really in Shi'ar space).  And Havok was there because Polaris had been turned into a Marauder by Malice.  As he stay with the team he also was there to to ruffle Wolverine's feathers mainly, a Summers boy.  Wolvie and Summers don't mix.  So this is my favorite combonation.  Plus, with X-Factor being the original X-Men at the time, I think a lot of new readers came aboard, but a lot of old readers didn't like the new characters.  I love it.  Love the early 200s of Uncanny X-Men.


TEAM LEADER: Cyclops
Beast
Wolverine
Rogue
Gambit
Psylocke
Jubilee

But yeah, if I'm asked, "Gold or Blue?"  It's Blue Team, dun, all the way.  I still think they should've just left Psylocke on the team and not replaced her with Jeanie for the 90s cartoon series.  Still, when they split the X-Men into two teams, the originals had come back.  They split them up as well.  They split Jean and Scott team-wise in the books.  It was awesome.  Gambit and Rogue, Wolvie and his new "Kitty", Jubilee, and of course the weirdness between Psylocke and Cyclops(that went nowhere).  Anyway, had Claremont stayed on, it may have gotten ever better and better.  Unfortunately, I think any X-Men storylines since then(other than "AoA") can be considered "classics".  Which is why this team is so dear to me.

The X-Men rock.  Pick up the "Essential" volumes.  Black and white knowledge, straight up.