Featuring: X-Men Release: June 2, 1966 Cover: August 1966 12 cents Edited in ecstacy by Stan Lee Written in rapture by Roy Thomas Drawn in delight by Werner Roth Delineated in depth by Dick Ayers Lettered in a lawn-chair by Artie Simek 20 pages
It is only in this form, in which I have no solid substance, that I can know anything like the thrill of walking again!
Werner Roth had been referring to himself as “Jay Gavin” these last several issues. But now he’s ready to use his real name in the credits.
We pick up where last issue left off, with the X-Men prisoners of Count Nefaria and the new Maggia, with lieutenants picked from an assortment of titles.
Now Nefaria executes his plan, holding Washington DC hostage, blackmailing America, and framing the X-Men.
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: April 5, 1966 Cover: June 1966 12 cents Exemplary editing by: Stan Lee Extraordinary writing by: Roy Thomas Exceptional art by: Jay Gavin Exhilarating inking by: Dick Ayers Exasperating lettering by: Artie Simek 20 pages
Featuring: X-Men Release: March 3, 1966 Cover: May 1966 12 cents Expertly edited by: Stan Lee Skillfully scripted by: Roy Thomas Perfectly penciled by: Jay Gavin Ideally inked by: Dick Ayers Laxly lettered by: Artie Simek 20 pages
With this issue, Roy Thomas takes over as regular writer on The X-Men, a position he will hold for the next two years. Some sources suggest Stan gave a writing assist on this and the next issue, but Stan is only credited as Editor. (Of course, even as editor, Stan’s credit goes first.)
It begins with fake X-Men, villains seeking to ruin their reputation.
As Mark had previously noted in comments, you can spot the villains by the smoking of cigarettes.
Featuring: X-Men Release: February 3, 1966 Cover: April 1966 12 cents Story: Stan Lee Pencils: Jay Gavin Inking: Dick Ayers Lettering: Artie Simek (All that, and Forbush too!) 20 pages
The danger is clear– the task is yours– the moment is now!
This Irving Forbush fellow was mentioned in the last Daredevil post as well. What’s that about?
X-Men #10-18 took place over a very short span of time, with one adventure right after the other, likely knocking out of alignment with the other titles. There is now a big gap before this adventure, which hopefully brings us closer to alignment. The X-Men are healed from the battle against the Sentinels. Cerebro has been rebuilt.
Bobby and Zelda seem to be going steady now, so Zelda is setting Hank up with her friend Vera so they can have a double date. Prior to the blind date, Hank stops at the library and meets a woman… and they do not get along at all.
Guess who his date turns to be?
The already fraught romantic situation heats up when Calvin Rankin shows up. He’s basically a stalker who has been pressuring Vera to go out with him and refusing to take no for an answer. Well, he’s angry to find her out with another man and conflict ensues.
Featuring: X-Men Release: December 12, 1965 Cover: February 1966 12 cents Story: Stan Lee Layouts: J. Kirby Pencils: Jay Gavin Inks: Dick Ayers Lettering: A. Simek 20 pages
Somehow, when I’m high in the sky this way, I feel there is no danger I cannot face– no problem I cannot solve– no enemy I cannot defeat!! Everything seems clean– and pure– and right! The way it ought to be! The way it must be one day, if man is ever to fulfill his promise– his glorious destiny!
I quite like the red glow of the cover. The cover warns me not to spoil the ending, but, well, I’m gonna do that anyway. Be warned.
Thoughts on the reading order. When books are published is a key factor, as is the order in which characters appear, as are story-arcs. What I’m not considering closely is the calendar date within the stories, as I don’t often know. We paused our X-Men reading because the Sentinels story ended and the next one was about to begin. This gave us a chance to catch up on other titles.
But this story begins the same day as the Sentinels story ended. Similarly, the X-Men had fought the Stranger and Juggernaut on the same day, with a short gap of time while the X-Men were injured between these momentous days.
In particular, it must now be within a couple days of Reed and Sue’s wedding, while most of our stories have jumped forward a bit more from that day.
While it’s been more than a year since the Stranger story was published, it’s only been a few weeks for the X-Men.
Featuring: Marvels Release: December 14, 1993 Cover: February 1994 $5.95 Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Alex Ross Letterers: Starkings w/ John Gaushell Editor: Marcus McLaurin Assitant editor: Spencer Lamm Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman Interior design: Comicraft 45 pages
The real story was the people who’d been scared too long. Who’d been wound tight by talk of mutant menaces and hidden conspiracies and shadows under the bed.
I’ve mentioned before I want to frame our reading around the Marvels miniseries from the 1990s. That hasn’t really been obvious yet. We read Marvels #0, which retold a few pages from Marvel Comics #1. And we read Marvels #1, which paralleled 1940s Marvel comics. But our reading is concentrated in the 1960s. Finally, we get to Marvels #2, which parallels the 1960s Marvel stories, ranging from Avengers #6 (May 1964), the 191st entry in our reading, through Tales of Suspense #69 (June 1965), the 404th entry in our reading. Quite the range. We are reading it after completing the Iron Man story from Tales of Suspense #72, because we’d first needed to tie up some continuity ends.
We’ve hinted before at the theme of this comic, and I’d like to just discuss it up front. The two centerpiece stories are the wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual 3, and the attack on the X-Men by the Sentinels in X-Men #14. The writer Kurt Busiek had noted in his own Marvel Universe research what we also found in our reading here, that these events must occur on nearly consecutive days. That’s not obvious from any comic, but does follow from a close reading of the many interconnected comics. And the two stories make for quite the juxtaposition.
The contrast between these two arcs becomes the central tension of this issue. The Fantastic Four wedding is the celebrity event of the century. The press covered it, crowds of fans gathered, famous people like Tony Stark and Millie the Model attended. The Fantastic Four are super-powered heroes and beloved by the public.
The X-Men are also super-powered heroes. But where the Fantastic Four gained their powers from cosmic radiation, the powers of the X-Men are innate, based on an accident of birth, perhaps from radiation their parents had been exposed to. The “Children of the Atom”. And that difference is big enough that the same public who cheered on the wedding of the FF members would listen with interest and nods of approval as Bolivar Trask went on the airwaves to declare mutants a menace and announce he’d created robot-hunting Sentinels to hunt and kill the X-Men.
We read the Heroes & Legends retelling of the wedding, which focused on this very tension in the form of a child, who was a huge fan of the Fantastic Four, but afraid of the X-Men. He learned better by issue’s end.
Here, the arc will play out within Phil Sheldon, the photojournalist who specialises in shots of the people he’s dubbed the Marvels. A person who idolizes heroes like the Fantastic Four and Avengers, but fears mutants like the X-Men.
It’s entirely irrational, just like all forms of bigotry.
That’s enough belaboring of themes. Let’s dive into the story. As we do, we’ll try to draw the parallels between what’s happening on the page and our reading.
I’ll note that the title is called “Monsters”, which brings to my mind Thing and Hulk. The latter doesn’t appear, and the former is a minor player at best.
It’s 20 years after the events of Marvels #1. Phil Sheldon is now an established freelance photojournalist happily married with two kids. We see hm doing freelance work for Barney Bushkin at the Daily Globe. The shadows on the page somewhat obscure Phil’s eyepatch, a lifelong injury sustained last issue by getting too close to a superhero battle.
We remember meeting Barney in Amazing Spider-Man #27. He’s nicer than Jonah, but asked too many questions for Peter’s tastes.
Featuring: X-Men Release: November 4, 1965 Cover: January 1966 12 cents Story: Stan Lee Layouts: Jack Kirby Pencilling: Jay Gavin Delineation: Dick Ayers Lettering: Art Simek 20 pages
In my ignorance, my fear, I created an evil far greater than the menace it was built to destroy!
They are still tweaking the tagline. “The most mysterious fighting team of all time!” Usually, they are “unusual” instead of “mysterious”.
This issue is about the redemption of Bolivar Trask. But we see in the pull quote above, that he still doesn’t quite get it. He figures out that the Sentinels are worse than mutants, but the lesson should be that he was wrong to hate and fear all mutants.
Featuring: X-Men Release: October 5, 1965 Cover: December 1965 12 cents Writer: Smilin’ Stan Lee Designer: Jolly Jack Kirby Penciller: Jovial Jay Gavin Inker: Darlin’ Dick Ayers Letterer: Adorable Artie Simek 20 pages
We can only guard the human race by becoming its master! Humans are too weak, too foolish to govern themselves! Henceforth, we shall rule!!
We pick up with Trask a prisoner of the Sentinels he created to hunt mutants, with the X-Men laying futile siege to the Sentinels’ underground layer.
For a long while, the tagline had been “The most unusual teen-agers of all time!”. They’ve changed it, deemphasizing the youthful nature of the team, now referring to them as “the most unusual fighting team of all time!” This recalls the original tagline, “the strangest super-heroes of all time!” The regular tagline about teen-agers first appeared in issue 3.
The Beast is confused about Xavier’s capabilities, unsure where his confidence comes from.
Featuring: X-Men Release: September 2, 1965 Cover: November 1965 12 cents Stan Lee, D.S. (Doctor of Story) Jack Kirby, D.L. (Dean of Layout) Jay Gavin, M.A. (Master of Art) V. Colletta, B.I. (Bachelor of Inking) Artie Simek, T.O.L. (Tired of Lettering) 20 pages
The world must be shocked! The danger was never greater! We’ve been so busy worrying about cold wars, hot wars, atom bombs and the like, that we’ve overlooked the greatest menace of all! Mutants walk among us! Hidden! Unknown! Waiting–! –Waiting for their moment to strike! They are mankind’s most deadly enemy! For only they have the actual power to conquer the human race! Even as we speak, they are out there– scheming, plotting, planning– thinking we don’t suspect! But– there is still time to smash them! If we strike now!
We just read the wedding of Reed and Sue, followed by a retelling of the story form 1996. The retelling focused on a child named Mark caught up in the chaos. A child wearing a Fantastic Four t-shirt who idolized the superheroes, but was afraid of the X-Men, because they were mutants.
We’ll soon read Marvels #2, which will focus on this central dichotomy. The inspiration for Marvels #2 came from Kurt Busiek looking at the same continuity we are now. The X-Men attended a wedding, all seeming in good shape. But we know that the X-Men battled the Stranger and Juggernaut in a single day, and then were badly injured for a period of time. We further know, because Human Torch helped the X-Men battle Juggernaut, that the wedding had not yet occurred. As we read the coming issues, we will see the X-Men’s adventures leave them little space for a wedding after this issue.
The X-Men must attend the wedding within the pages of this issue. This issue affords them only a space of a couple days between getting their bandages removed and getting captured by the Sentinels. Thus we know very tightly when the wedding occurred.
The wedding was a big media circus. Celebrities like Tony Stark and Millie the Model were in attendance. The Fantastic Four fan club was outside cheering. It was front page news.
The Fantastic Four are celebrities and people love them.
On the days surrounding the wedding, Trask would go on the radio to talk about the mutant menace. And the public listened and took him seriously, and was sympathetic with his plan to create mutant-hunting robots to destroy the mutant scourge.
It’s a very strange dichotomy. The Fantastic Four gained their powers through cosmic accident. The X-Men were born with theirs, perhaps because their parents had been exposed to nuclear radiation. The “Children of the Atom”. That difference seems so insignificant, and yet, this is exactly how bigotry works.
We’ll explore this dichotomy further when we get to Marvels #2.
These continuity considerations and thematic contrast are why we’re reading this X-Men arc now, two months early. The FF wedding issue was released the same day as X-Men #13, which noted the wedding was “soon”. X-Men has been published bi-monthly, which doesn’t help. But we see on the cover that X-Men is now monthly, so we’ll have less alignment trouble in the future.
The issue opens with the X-Men recovering from the injuries left by the Juggernaut.
We see Professor X remind Beast not to think of “normal” humans as inferior. Probably they should find better language than to refer to one group of people as “normal”.
