Featuring: X-Men Release: May 3, 1966 Cover: July 1966 12 cents Editor emeritus: Stan Lee Script by: Roy Thomas Art by: Jay Gavin Inking by: Dick Ayers Lettering by: Artie Simek Colosso by: Irving Forbush Robotics, Inc. 20 pages
And, we did it as a team! No one of us could have done it alone!
The cover shows quite the assemblage of super-villains, with the X-Men reduced to floating heads.
As noted before (such as in the last X-Men arc), I find it interesting when super-villains treated as major threats upon their debut get relegated to henchman status. This starts to get them categorized as miscellaneous villains, but at least keeps them from being forgotten.
The story begins in the Danger Room, the most common place for an X-Men story to begin, then as now. Professor X has created a robot named Colosso for the X-Men to fight. And the robot was created to teach a very particular lesson. He can counter all the powers of the individual X-Men, but they can beat him as a team.
Featuring: X-Men Release: March 3, 1964 Cover: May 1964 12 cents Spell-binding story by: Stan Lee Dazzling drawing by: Jack Kirby Inking: Paul Reinman Lettering: S. Rosen 24 pages
They’ve redesigned the cover box to make room for Beast.
The story begins right where the last issue left off, but then has a bit of time jump mid-story. It opens with a strange piece of narration. The narrator tells us Professor X “seemed” to lose his powers. Interesting phrasing. Why not just say Professor X lost his powers? Unless you know something about this issue’s twist ending I don’t.
I would warn you that spoilers follow, but I would argue the opening page narration has already spoiled the whole story.
Featuring: X-Men Release: January 3, 1964 Cover: March 1964 12 cents Sensational script by: Stan Lee Dynamic drawings by: Jack Kirby Imaginative inking by: Paul Reinman Legible lettering by: Art Simek 23 pages
The Scarlet Witch seems to be wearing green on the cover.
Pedantic notice. The title of this comic is “The X-Men”. After 3 issues, I decided I was tired of typing that. It’s easier to just call it “X-Men”. I will be doing that from now on. Same for “The Avengers”. I’d already been doing that for “The Amazing Spider-Man” without really thinking it through.
I should be paying more attention to the taglines. They are dubbed “X-Men: The most unusual teen-agers of all time!” Last issue had the same subheading. In #2, it was “the strangest super-heroes of all time. The covers of the first two issues dubbed them the “strangest super-heroes of all”.
I feel it should be pointed out that we’ve already met some pretty darn unusual teenagers, notably Human Torch and Spider-Man. So the tagline may be somewhat hyperbolic.
This issue introduces the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Not what I would name my group of mutants. And it’s not clear who, if anybody, named them that. The cover of the comic and the title of the comic call the group that, but the group is not named within the story.
Professor X calls them “evil mutants”, but he has often referred to “evil mutants”. I could never tell if he was speaking generically, or specifically referring to Magneto’s group. I still can’t.
Designation issues aside, introducing a team of villains to battle the X-Men is a good idea, since they themselves are a team. It’s hard to show a team always fighting against a single individual, even though that’s mostly what the Fantastic Four have done. It’s a bit surprising they are yet to come up with a team of villains for them. They’ve come close. Red Ghost had his Super Apes, and that was now four, er, members who could each match one member of the FF. But I have trouble counting that as a team since they are apes. Dr. Doom recruited the Terrible Trio, so again we had 4 people, each meant to face off with one FF member; but that was not so much a team of super-villains as it was Doom and three henchmen.
Featuring: X-Men Release: September 3, 1963 Cover: November 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: Paul Reinman 22 pages
For the second issue in a row, the cover reads, “In the sensational Fantastic Four style”. They are really trying to hype the tenuous similarity to Fantastic Four. The cover box also matches the previous issue, so it seems like the standard one. Odd that they chose an image which only highlights 3 of the X-Men. At least they don’t fit in everybody but the one woman, like the Avengers cover box.
Professor X has warned the X-Men that people will distrust them. But when I look at the last couple issues, evidence of that is lacking. The military seemed very grateful to the X-Men last issue. This issue, a gaggle of girls want to kiss Angel; Jean needs to shove them away. The construction workers seem grateful to Cyclops and Iceman for saving them. Xavier has contacts at the FBI, who are willing to lend him a special jet and seemingly clear the White House lawn to allow the X-Men to tackle this new threat their way. It’s weird.
What is a mutant? There are lots of super-powered beings running around now. I’ve already lost count. Very few have been described as mutants. Just Tad, Merlin, Namor, the X-Men, and Magneto. Xavier suspects the Vanisher is a mutant, but is not sure. It’s obvious that the Vanisher has “X-tra” powers. Professor X adds a bit of clarity to the question. He suggests that mutants are people born with their extra powers. So people who gain their powers from cosmic rays, gamma bombs, or radioactive spider bites would not be mutants.
