In 1991, the X-Men franchise had reached a popularity level unheard of at the time, with the release of the high selling "X-Men" (vol. 2) #1 and "X-Force" #1, as well as the contributions of popular artists Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and Whilce Portacio to the main X-Men books. But by 1992, Portacio, Lee and Liefeld left Marvel Comics to form their own comic company Image Comics, alongside several other high profile Marvel artists. New writers and artists were quickly drafted to replace the departing fan favorite artists, most notably writers Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza and artist Greg Capullo.