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: 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: 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 2, 1964 Cover: September 1964 12 cents Written with all the spell-binding skill of: Stan Lee Drawn with all the titanic talent of: Jack Kirby Inked with all the vibrant verve of: Chic Stone Lettered with all the words spelled right by: Art Simek 22 pages
The time has come for the next chapter in the history of the X-Men. The series began with the premise that the X-Men were students of an unusual school. We saw two issues back that they passed their final exam. Now, it’s graduation day.
We just saw Johnny celebrate his spring break. And we are almost a year (in publication time) away from Peter’s graduation. It’s possible the publication dates poorly reflect when this story is set within the Marvel Universe, but it’s also possible this unique private school does things its own way, and has a much earlier graduation date than the regular schools attended by Peter Parker and Johnny Storm.
It’s odd that Iceman is graduating with the rest given that he’s a couple years younger than them. Maybe he’s gifted. Or maybe it’s just a really weird school.
