7 Underrated 1980s X-Men Comics You Must Read

Hands down, one of Claremont's best villainous creations was The Brood. The Brood’s debut and original conflict with the X-Men remains in high-regard as a dramatic and intense arc that heavily evoked the sort of cosmic horror that popular film franchises like Alien popularized.

While that original story remains an exceptional read to this day, it's nearly surpassed in quality by Claremont's second run with The Brood starting in August of 1988.

This time, The Brood somehow came across even more cruel and sinister as a host of tragic innocents fall before the focus shifted to an imperilled religious service that the X-Men must desperately rush to save. The resulting nerve-wracking battle was well-staged and even packed a little emotional kick as Claremont decided to put some crucial twists on an all too familiar set-up that immediately evoked his classic graphic novel, X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills.

In the end then, this arc wound up being a showcase of Claremont’s signature work. Every character in the story, no matter how inconsequential in the grand scheme of the comics they were in, seemed to breathe with life. The Brood, meanwhile, began to be cemented as one of the X-Men's most formidable foes as the short arc ended on a foreboding cliffhanger that hinted at further danger to come.