X-Men #22

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

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Sgt. Fury #31	Reading order	X-Men #23
X-Men #21	X-Men	X-Men #23

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.

Their training session successful, the X-Men are granted two weeks of holiday leave.

Warren is off to see his parents and Jean her sister. Warren invites Jean out to dinner in Manhattan. She invites Scott along. This was not what Warren had in mind.

We met Jean’s parents back in X-Men #5. This is the first time we learn she has a sister.

Hank and Bobby have a double date with Vera and Zelda. They decide to go to the cinema and are torn between Goldfinger and Thunderball. Interesting that the cinema has two 007 movies at once. They were released in 1964 and 1965 respectively and are another example of minor points in the script seeming to make the years pass too fast compared to the larger story.

Warren hopes Jean is finally giving in to his charms, but her thoughts are only for her love of Scott. But of course Scott can’t be with her because of his dangerous mutant powers.

One by one, the lives of the X-Men are interrupted when the villains attack, luring them with illusory versions of the X-Men. Remember the Danger Room lesson? And the issue’s title? Divided, they fall.

Marvel Girl vs. Plantman.

Angel vs. Scarecrow.

Beast vs. Porcupine.

Iceman vs. Eel.

Cyclops vs. Unicorn.

We do see that each of these “lieutenants” thinks they should be the leader. Not quite ready to accept their “second tier” “henchman” status.

Note that all of these villains are borrowed, even the main villain Count Nefaria, who is an Avengers villain. Editors’ notes reminded us where we’d last seen each villain. Lee is the editor, but this type of attention to detail is more Thomas’ trademark.

Despite that, he is incorrect about the last appearance of these villains, forgetting that many villains showed up in Fantastic Four Annual 3, manipulated by Dr. Doom into disrupting the wedding. That was the last time we saw all these villains except for Count Nefaria, who missed the wedding. I guess he wasn’t invited. But then, neither were the rest of these doofuses.

Count Nefaria was introduced in Avengers #13 as a member of the international crime organization called the Maggia. He tried to defeat the Avengers for some reason, and unsurprisingly failed. The next time we saw him, he had a whole new name, shtick, and power set, calling himself assorted names along the lines of the Master of Dreams (Tales of Suspense #67), and trying to kill Iron Man, figuring maybe he can take the Avengers singly. By the following issue, he’s abandoned all that. He’s back to being Count Nefaria and Tony’s cousin Morgan owed him some debts. Count Nefaria talks about he’s tried for years to destroy Tony Stark.

The Porcupine is the trickiest one as he should be dead. We met him as a foe of Ant-Man and the Wasp in Tales to Astonish #48, and then he shrunk to nothingness in issue 53. Now shrinking to nothingness isn’t necessarily a death sentence. It happened to Dr. Doom once, and he just found himself in a microscopic kingdom, and then made his way back to our macroverse. But Porcupine is no Dr. Doom. Either way, we saw him at the wedding and he’s here again. Nobody bothers to explain how he returned from shrinking to nothingness. Did he have an exciting Microverse adventure of his own? Or is this perhaps not Alex Gentry, but someone else in the suit? We just don’t know.

Plantman was a foe of Human Torch, originally the gardner of the Human Torch’s girlfriend. They fought in Strange Tales #113 and #121.

Eel is another Human Torch foe. They fought in Strange Tales #112 and #117. Then we saw Eel already reduced to henchman status serving Mr. Fear in Daredevil #6. There’s no going back to being a “big bad” for him.

Then we get two foes who fought Iron Man once before disrupting the wedding. The Scarecrow from Tales of Suspense #51 and the Unicorn from #56.

It’s somewhat interesting that these villains who “belonged” to a diverse set of heroes are now also X-Men villains.

In the last arc, Thomas united Lucifer, Unus, and Blob. So this is a similar shtick, except last time he’d used only old X-Men villains. Now he grabbed villains from all over the Marvel Universe to use for this arc. Mining Marvel history will become a trademark of his. And to this day he seems to retain an encyclopedic knowledge of the history.

We’ve reached May 1966. Let’s take a peek at what’s on sale from the other publishers with the help of Mike’s Amazing World and the Grand Comics Database.

• Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #127, Archie
• Super Heroes Versus Super Villains #1, Archie
• Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #1, Archie
• Captain Atom #81, Charlton
• Go-Go #2, Charlton
• Aquaman #28, DC
• Secret Hearts #113, DC
• Teen Titans #4, DC
• Lobo #2, Dell
• Dennis the Menace #85, Fawcett
• I Spy #1, Gold Key
• Huey, Dewey and Louie Junior Woodchucks #1, Gold Key
• Playful Little Audrey #65, Harvey
• Wendy, the Good Little Witch #37, Harvey
• Tippy Teen #6, Tower
• Creepy #10, Warren

Rating: ★★★☆☆, 51/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: X-Men vol. 3.

Characters:

• Marvel Girl
• Angel
• Professor X
• Iceman/Bobby Blake
• Cyclops
• Beast
• Colosso
• Count Nefaria
• Zelda
• Vera
• Plantman
• Scarecrow
• Porcupine
• Eel
• Unicorn

Minor characters:

• Waldo (rock n’ roll singer)

Story notes:

• X-Men given 5 minutes to defeat Colosso in Danger Room.
• Colosso’s blast ray fells Angel; Marvel Girl telekinetically rescues him.
• Marvel Girl doesn’t have enough mental energy to push over Colosso.
• Heat jets from Colosso’s legs and head melt Iceman’s ice.
• Colosso made of material that repels Cyclops’ “power beam”.
• Cyclops deduces Colosso can see with flashing lights, so covers them with a blanket.
• Professor X will improve Colosso before they face him again.
• X-Men given holiday for 2 weeks.
• Warren will visit parents; Jean will visit her sister in Albany.
• Iceman and Beast head for Greenwich Village and their girlfriends.
• Professor X laments his wheelchair.
• Count Nefaria has gathered remnants of the Maggia and 5 super-villains to be his lieutenants.
• Newspaper Editorial on X-Men: “Heroes or villains?? Who… what are they?”
• Count Nefaria thinks the X-Men as outcasts can become his allies.
• Bobby notes Zelda is on time for a change.
• Zelda comments on Iceman’s cheapness, that either she pays or they go “dutch treat”.
• Beast mistakes Waldo for Vera.
• Warren treats Scott and Jean to dinner; she had the filet mignon.
• After leaving Jean, Scott somehow sees her in costume in the park.
• Baseball game on. Mets only five runs behind. Later: Mets only six runs behind!
• Cab driver concerned the X-Men being around makes the area unsafe.
• After the movie double date, Zelda suggests a snack.
• Beast ditches Vera when he hears news about the X-Men, citing nerves.
• No note when Porcupine was last seen.
• Iceman referred to as Bobby Blake. His name is Bobby Drake.
• The X-Men reject Nefaria’s offer for membership.
• Nefaria plans to take DC hostage.
• To be continued.

Previous	#528	Next
Sgt. Fury #31	Reading order	X-Men #23
X-Men #21	X-Men	X-Men #23