Industry legend Chris Claremont is best known for his epic sixteen-year run on Uncanny X-Men. Claremont's focus on the themes of prejudice and tolerance struck at the hearts of comics fans, and he built an unparalleled following during the next three decades. Under his pen, the X-Men franchise spawned a vast array of spin-offs, many of them written by Claremont himself. His other credits include Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Power Man and Spider-Woman. Claremont has returned to the X-Men universe in New Exiles, GeNext, X-Men Forever, Chaos War: X-Men and Nightcrawler. Jim Lee is perhaps today's hottest comic-book artist. Since the late '80s, his work for Marvel, DC and Image -- the company he helped found -- has set trends that survive to this day.

After honing his skills with memorable runs on Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, Lee rose to prominence on Uncanny X-Men. Lee then revamped the mutant team's look and helped launch the second X-Men series, whose first issue remains one of the best-selling comic books of all time. In 1992, he and other artists formed Image Comics. Lee's group of titles, published under the Wildstorm Productions imprint, included the mega-popular WildC.A.T.s, Stormwatch and Gen13. Under Wildstorm's sub-imprint Homage Comics, he published Kurt Busiek's Astro City and Strangers in Paradise, both of which became major fan favorites.

Lee returned to Marvel in 1996, relaunching Fantastic Four as part of the "Heroes Reborn" event. Subsequently selling Wildstorm to DC Comics, Lee went on to pencil Batman, Superman and WildC.A.T.s. Later, as DC Comics' co-publisher, he helped revamp and reconceptualize the company's entire lineup.