mrs. worthington – Coke & Comics

X-Men #18

If Iceman Should Fail–!

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

Previous	#470	Next
X-Men #17	Reading order	Amazing Spider-Man #35
X-Men #17	X-Men	X-Men #19

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.

Roth had the setup. Magneto had defeated the X-Men and put them unconscious in a balloon headed to space, where they would suffocate and die. Why not just kill them? This inefficient deathtrap is a villain cliché, but not all that common a one in these stories. It was common in the cliffhangers for serial films of the 1940s, including the superhero films. And it will be very common for the cliffhanger endings of a TV series which debuts this month.

X-Men #17

…And None Shall Survive!

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

Previous	#469	Next
Sgt. Fury #27	Reading order	X-Men #18
X-Men #16	X-Men	X-Men #18

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.

X-Men #14

Among Us Stalks.. The Sentinels!

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

Previous	#401	Next
Marvel: Heroes & Legends #1	Postlude
Fantastic Four Annual 3	Reading order	X-Men #15
X-Men #13	X-Men	X-Men #15

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”.