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: January 4, 1966 Cover: March 1966 12 cents A fair story by: Stan Lee Adequate art by: Jay Gavin Tolerable inking by: Dick Ayers The world’s greatest lettering by: Artie Simek (Marvel’s birthday boy of the month) 20 pages
The final X-Man– the youngest– and weakest of them all! He dares to challenge me!!!
The joke in the credits is a reversal. Usually, Artie is the punchline. Here, everyone else is.
Art Simek was born January 1916. He turned 50 the month this comic was released. He would unfortunately pass away too young at age 59.
The birthday note gives us a bit of insight into production. Stan knew when this comic would be released to give the birthday wish. The comic is cover-dated March 1966, and was likely prepared a few months prior to January 1966, but Stan knew it would go on sale in January.
As Lee brings in more and more new (to Marvel not the industry) artists, we see a similar pattern. At first he doesn’t trust their storytelling abilities, though he trusts their draftsmanship. So Kirby does layouts for the comic, and the artist fills in the art. That has happened with Werner Roth for the last several issues. Kirby laid out the story. Roth filled in the art. Now Stan is ready to give Roth a proper go, laying out the story himself. Stan is still the credited writer, so it’s at least plausible he’s giving Roth guidance on what the story is about.
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: 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”.
Featuring: X-Men Release: July 1, 1965 Cover: September 1965 12 cents Story by smilin’ Stan Lee Layouts by jolly Jack Kirby Penciling by Jay Gavin Inking by Joe Sinnott Lettering by Swingin’ Sam Rosen 20 pages
We are jumping a bit ahead with X-Men, as issues 11-13 all take place the same day, but the comic is bi-monthly. In general, we are still in March 1965, which is when X-Men #11 was released.
Last issue sort of introduced the Juggernaut. We mostly saw him in shadow and marveled at how easily he broke through the X-Men’s defenses. He was revealed in the last panel. Most of the issue had been about Xavier’s youth. Now, we meet Juggernaut properly.
We also had the legendary Alex Toth on art, as Kirby is moving off X-Men. Kirby has often been the go-to guy for getting series started, but then usually soon handed off the reins. Fantastic Four is the only series he’s really stuck with so far. Though he’ll do a decent stretch on Captain America, and his recent return to Thor is for the long haul.
Let’s look at the credits. Jay Gavin is a new name, and not even a real one. Jay and Gavin are the names of the sons of Werner Roth, our new artist. Werner Roth is not quite the legend that Alex Toth is. He is probably most notable for this stint on X-Men, where he is unfortunately stuck being “the guy that followed Kirby”. He got started in comics later than many peers, already 30 or so before working regularly. He’s already 44 at this point as he takes the reins on X-Men. He died tragically young at the age of 52, never quite having set the world of comics on fire.
