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Though he never drew consecutive issues of UXM, artist Rick Leonardi made an indelible impression on X-Men with issues of the “Mutant Massacre,” “The Genosha Saga,” and the Outback era, in addition to issue #201, in which Storm battles Cyclops for leadership of the team #xmen 1/4
Leonardi’s exaggeratedly cartoonish style (featuring emphatic postures and abstractions) was ahead of its time and would not be fully embraced by X-Men readers until the arrival of Joe Madureira who popularized a similar style in the mid 1990s. 2/4
Problematically, Leonardi’s style created a jarring contrast with the gritty realism of regular pencilers like John Romita Jr and Marc Silvestri, thus making it harder for audiences to embrace and accept Leonardi’s skillful work. 3/4
Leonardi would later make his mark in the industry, co-creating Spider-Man 2099 (famous for his end-credits appearance in the recent “Into the Spider-Verse” film) with Peter David and completing extensive and definitive runs on that series. 4/4
