Originally Posted By: the G-man
Byrne once remarked in an interview that Marvel always seemed to treat him like Cockrum’s “fill in” artist


I actually remember that. He said that during most of his 35-issue run, Marvel ran the little
Cockrum heads in the upper left of the X-MEN covers. And when he was finally able to replace
them with Byrne heads, he felt he'd finally fully claimed the book.

He also expressed annoyance at how Marvel after Byrne's run ended, promoted Cockrum coming back
(issues 145-164) as if Cockrum was the real and definitive artist of the series, and as if (like you
said) Byrne was just a fill-in artist for 4 years, instead of the artist who first raised X-MEN
to Marvel's (and the industry's) best-selling title.