wow, that's a long time to stick with a title/franchise not enjoying the writing.

I read X-men way after JB, Cockrum, and Paul Smith.  And I really think Claremont deserves a lot of credit.

The X-men were so weird and different, and Wolverine so damn cool, and the X-men so complex, they really were something.

Eventually complex turned to unnecessarily complicated and brand dilution occurred. But for a long long time they were cool and there wasn't much like them

Of course, reading Classic X-men/Marvel Masterworks, the CC/JB issues were truly special.

Funny, I liked Smith less than Cockrum because Cockrum was the first X artist I knew, circa 1981.  I think Kitty's Fairy Tale was the first X-Men I ever read - quite a bizarre intro, huh?   As time went by, I discovered Byrne and was mesmerized.  Now, I find each brought their own charm to the book (Byrne being my favorite) and love what the 4 artists I remember best (Byrne, Cockrum, Smith and JRJR) brought to the book.  It's also fun going back now and seeing costumes and hairstyles each artist depicted that are so of an era (gheri curls, disco outfits, feathered hair ...).

Jason...the Brood is Dave Cockrum's idea. Smith only picked up on the Brood afterward, if I have my memories correct. I actually disliked Paul Smith's artwork!

I started collecting the X-Men during Dave's second run, and spent my bucks buying the first issues of the X-Men, and JB's stuff. As a Nightcrawler fan, I always appreciated the detailing JB added to Kurt that emphasized his uniqueness as a character, but I never really brought X-Men as a title until I read Amazing Spiderman 161 and discovered Nightcrawler! That got me into the X-Men because of the character's uniqueness.

Cockrum gets my vote in that as Nightcrawler's creator, he was the one reason why I read the book! No other! Just one fuzzy elf, and the way in which he related to the world that disliked him.

At the time (1979/80), I paid no attention to artists and had no favorites.  However I really liked the "house style" and found it especially consistent in three of my four favorite titles, Avengers, X-Men, and Fantastic Four.  Each of the books looked like each other* and Keith Pollard's Amazing Spider-Man looked enough like Romita Sr (although I didn't know who either of them were at the time) for me to accept it as "correct".

I dropped X-Men after Cyclops left (specifically, 145 was my last issue) because he was my favorite one in the book but it was the art that really had me make the change.  I didn't notice the change to Brent Anderson's art but everyone looked so "wrong" (I know, I know...) in the following issue.  When I saw the same "style" (I still didn;t know the style was being done by a different artist than I was used to) on the issue after that, I didn't even buy it to find out how the story ended.  ...Not even the return of Icemen (another of the original X-Men I'd read about in Sons Of Origins and Marvel's Greatest Battles) was enough to win me over.

Only years later, just as I started at my first comic store, did a friend enlighten me on the men behind the scenes.  Prior to that I'd listed John Buscema as my favorite artist because by that time I realized he drew more Avengers than anyone else and (seemingly just as important) he did the best job of drawing with his eyes closed in the old Marvel Fun Books.

* The widely different inkers made the books look just different enough for me to think it a house style rather than one same artist.  (I can't believe how little attention I paid to the credits box!) 

Mary's correct, the hand-off to Smith happened right in the middle of that (seemingly) endless Brood story. Hey, I was 10.  Smith's style seemed very spare to me at the time, but now looks beautiful compared what would be considered good art the following decade.