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As far as the X-Men go, I would have included the team starting from Uncanny #202 up to just before the move to Australia. Professor Xavier left Earth (and Magneto joined the team) in #200, and Cyclops quit in #201, so the team from that issue meets your criteria. It was a terrific era that included the Mutant Massacre, some good Rachel Summers stories, the team relocating to San Francisco (yes, the current book is not the first time this happened) and the strange experience of Magneto being a team member.

I do like the Australian Outback version of the team, but it was an interesting experiment that I think didn't last long enough (and I can't say that of many X-Men stories).

Cool list
After seeing the Masters of Evil listed, I was braced just in case Mystique's Brotherhood made it too.]
I was pretty sure X-Men and Avengers would be there though

Yup!

I was just going to point that out! For example when it got to "Inferno!" Cyclops was in X-Factor, and Prof.X was nowhere to be seen... I really liked that era.. thought the Reavers were cool too... And we met Gateway (Bishop's grandfather)...

Does the Wolverine-Spidey-Ghost Rider-Whathisface Fantastic Four count?

Or Doom Patrol? vol 3? Cliff wasn't actually Cliff, although he did start the team, then vanish, then come back, sort of... there was a period when the team had none of the originals...

"Cap’s Kooky Quartet?" And they would be? A little help?

No love for Steven Seagle´s Alpha Flight?

“Cap’s Kooky Quartet?” And they would be? A little help?

Cap, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. I personally liked how low-powered the team was while still taking on the sort of threats that would keep Thor & Iron Man busy.

Was the Melter the Master of Evil that lasted all the way to just before Under Seige? Scourge was going around killing the "lame" villains like the Melter by then, wasn't he?

Would the Master of Evil in question be Radioactive Man?

I looked at the Defenders, trying to get them on my list in the boards, but I wasn't sure if Doc Strange ever really left.

I also can't help but notice that DC teams tend to keep their legacy members around more. It was hard to find a DC team to put on the list.

GOT IT!!!

THE GIFFEN/DE MATTEIS JUSTICE LEAGUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blackjak, Batman was there ("One punch!"), and so was Martian Manhunter.

But Martian Manhunter wasn't in the original team line-up was he? Or have I forgotten... (In which case sorry J'onn!)

And Batman left shortly after (though said he would keep an eye on them from time to time...)...

Yeah, he was there right from the start.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Brave_bold_28.jpg

Bugger... Of course he was...

Sorry J'onn...

I used to love that Starro cover, how did I forget??

Wonder if that's going to be the No. 28 in Brian's list?

Black Knight + Sersi + Crystal + Vision + Hercules

how is that not an absurdly ballsy line up for the Avengers?

On that Uncanny X-Men cover, is Wolverine... flying?

Ah, the Outback team. Always my favorite incarnation of the X-Men. It's really a pity how relatively short lived that line-up was.

Actually Storm is using her power over lightning, and to a lesser extent static electricity, to create positive and negative charges on herself and the non-flyers...so with a positive charge on herself and a negative field created around the ones like Colossus and Wolverine, they're just being attracted and pulled along behind her....it was up to them to strike a cool pose so as to not look lame...

you know how it is...someone would have snapped an ambarassing picture of Wolverine as he's being whisked through the air and then it'd have been all over youtube and the internet and he'd have lost some serious street cred...then it would have all been downhill for him from there...he'd have ended up in Wolfpack or some other 3rd rate group...

At the time I really appreciated the "out" that the Outback era gave me as a reader. I had been getting really, really tired of Claremont spinning his wheels at that point, and then suddenly they're dead? In Australia? With some magic aboriginal guy? It made it easy for me to say, "Let's just go with 'dead,'" and drop the series after a few more issues.

Surely there are plenty of periods during which the Legion was absent all three founders worth mentioning...

Hm. Does Amanda Waller count as a 'member'? If not, the Suicide Squad probably has a couple of candidates, too.

I was so sure Melter was the Master of Evil in question until someone suggested Radioactive Man and now I'm all out of sorts.

I can't recall which of the two was part of Crimson Cowl/Ultron's Masters. I'm pretty sure Radioactive Man was on Egghead's team, but was Melter there? I don't think so, so it's probably Radioactive Man.

I suppose I could look it up, but that'd be cheating...

I just love the look of terror on Wolverine's face in that picture.

Hmm. There has to be an era other than Extreme Justice when there was a Justice League team with no founders, doesn't there?

Obviously not before the Detroit era, and then the Detroit era always had at least one of Aquaman, J'onn, or Batman on board. The non-Europe Giffen team always had J'onn on it, IIRC.

But JLE started only with Wonder Woman (a founder in the relevant sense, though not then in continuity)-- and she left after just one mission. Thereafter and until Breakdowns, Flash was a member, but he was non-founder Wally, and non-founder Elongated Man was the representative of the old guard.

Then, starting with Breakdowns, I think Aquaman, Hal Jordan, and Batman all rotated in and out as members,

I think that JLE (though not Extreme Justice) counts as an official branch of the Justice League, and moreover it was often a very good team and a very good book, so it gets my vote!

"Astonishingly, it took until the Under Siege storyline for a Masters of Evil team to show up without an original member.

Guess which member was consistent for each incarnation of the team UNTIL Under Siege!"

My guess the Radioactive Man.

"This was a weird time for the Defenders."

It's even weirder when we look at the faces featured at the cover's upper-left-side box. Oops!

"The prototypical “brand new team” team.

The book that, if done today, would have people writing stuff like “This isn’t the Avengers I know!”

Thankfully, the Internet didn't exist back then.

Man, I loved that Defenders era - scratch it, I loved any Defenders era, but that one in particular just seemed so odd, and fresh.

"The book that, if done today, would have people writing stuff like “This isn’t the Avengers I know!” Thankfully, the Internet didn’t exist back then."

You mean, like, "Spider-man and Luke Cage on the Avengers???? Why did you kill Hawkeye!?!"

Much as I love JLE, it doesn't count. It was a whole new team, like Titans West or the West Coast Avengers -- or for that matter, like Justice League Antarctica or the Great Lakes avengers.

The mind boggles to think that there might never have been a JLA era without at least one founding member, but I can't think of one.

@buttler:

I think the thing is that for the longest time, Martian Manhunter was on every incarnation of the JLA. (Even though he was posing as Bloodwynd for a while.) He even hung around with the Detroit League for a bit.

Well, not quite. J'onn skipped the Satellite era entirely. He quite in JLA #71 (1969) and didn't come back until JLA #228 (1984) aside from a couple guest shots. In fact, JLA#200 opened with a dramatic confrontation between J'onn and Firestorm, who had no idea who the heck each other were. Detroit was the first time he'd been involved since wayyyy back before Black Canary joined, not to mention Elongated Man, Reddy, Hawkgirl and Zatanna.

Incidentally, that means J'onn was also absent for my entire comic-reading childhood in the '70s and early '80s. I feel so abandoned.

quit, I mean. Not "quite."

If JLE doesn't count, then Extreme Justice certainly doesn't, and neither does the one-shot joke JLA in 52, and there's never been a Justice League without a founder (with founders defined as the original 7, regardless of retcons).

But I still say JLE was governed by the same structure and charter, and was *meant* to be continuous with the other JL title. JL expanded its roster in JLI, and then split into two sub-groups to be more international-- JLE wasn't created from scratch from the ground up the way the Titans West were.

The funny thing is that if you put Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman, Elongated Man, Zatanna, and Black Canary into a panel, everyone things "Justice League." If you put Batman and Superman together, that's a lot less likely. The second wave of JLA members were members for a looong time, including the whole Bronze Age in most cases. As with Cap and the Avengers, many of these folks became strongly associated with the team.

IIRC, the Avengers charter was amended at one point to redefine Cap as a founder and Hulk not. Being a founder was associated with some special privilege (maybe dissolving the team or maybe creating a new one, but maybe there was a rule that one founder was supposed to be on the team at all times-- I don't remember).

Well, with a lot of those second-wave members, I think the less they had going on outside of the League, the more League-identified they were. It's the same with the Avengers. Both companies took advantage of those teams to highlight characters who didn't have their own series and really give them a chance to shine in the team book.

There are some Legion of Super-Heroes fans that would say there haven't been any original members since 1994.

Cool list. I would've definitely had Pete David's "All New All Different" X-Factor, circa #71 as number one.

What? No mention of any X-Factor incarnations since 1991? Especially the current version, which is the best the book has ever been?

Have a soft spot for the Outback X-Men myself, as that was when I discovered the book, specifically with Uncanny #236, the one with the cover of Wolverine and Rogue hanging upside down.

And I'm surprised to see any mention made of New Titans past issue #100. When Grummett left the book, it nosedived and was never the same quality again as it was from 1980 to circa 1992...

"No love for Steven Seagle´s Alpha Flight?"

Nope. That's why it got canceled.

"Nope. That’s why it got canceled."

Shame, it was a good series.

Nah, it wasn't. The art was horrendous and the characters were all one-dimensional and cliched.

*IF* you go with the explanation that the Big Three weren't original JLA members, I think the post-Obsidian Age JLA is as close as you can get. Jon instead of Hal, Wally instead of Barry, Faith, Manitou Raven, Major Disaster, and the Big Three.

But, again, that only works if the team from JLA Year One was really the original team.

Where's the Fantastic Four of Wolverine, Hulk, Spider-Man, and Ghost Rider?

@ Andrew Collins
"Have a soft spot for the Outback X-Men myself, as that was when I discovered the book, specifically with Uncanny #236, the one with the cover of Wolverine and Rogue hanging upside down."

Heh, I got the TPB for Dark Phoenix just as that issue hit the stands. I went to the corner store and bought that very issue. I too am sentimental for the Outback team.

How about Peter Milligan's X-Force after he culled his original line-up in his first issue?

Ah, The Outback X-Men. As a long-time X-Fan, those were my favorites. Longshot, Dazzler, Betsy before they ruined her with that Lady Mandarin/Kwannon garbage. Those were the good old days...

Loved that wacky Defenders line-up also, especially with Manslaughter as a member, that was quite an odd turn...

Gotta say thoug, I did love the Forge led X-Factor though...

The original Defenders (Hulk, Namor, Strange; also Silver Surfer but he was not in the group from day 1) left the non-team in #125, thus the first issue with none of the originals was 126.

From the initial post:

(I’m not counting instances where the name of the team was just used by a totally separate group - I mean a group where the team stayed the same but just slowly changed membership until no original members were left)

This would rule out PAD'S X-Factor as well as Milligan's X-Force.

Steven Seagle's Alpha Flight was fun cheap bin fodder. At least that is where I got my copies of it. And the fact it got canceled doesn't really play into whether it was good or not. Chase anyone?

How about the Jurgens justice league america around the time of the death of superman? I don't think superman was an official member at the time and martian manhunter was running around as bloodwynd, but they didnt know that.

In the last few Kelly/Seagle & early Alan Davis-plotted (kinda) X-Men issues, the team consisted of Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Marrow, & Gambit. Not the best period for the title, but not the worst.

Technically, Cyclops, Angel, and Prof-X left long before the Outback era started...were you referring to the team from the JRjr era, Brian? i loved that era...Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Colossuss, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Rachel, and Prof-X...with Cyclops appearing every once in a while. This was also when I felt the Professor was actually a field member of the team. Now that he could walk, he could actually go with them on missions, as opposed to being confined in a wheel chair a few blocks away and helping them out telepathically (tho he did have that horrible yellow uniform )

Too bad PAD's X-factor doesn't count. But that version of the Masters of Evil kicked ass.

No, Superman was a member of the Jurgens League. He had joined the Justice League for what was (according to that era's continuity" the first time in the post-Breakdowns Justice League Spectacular.