Featuring: X-Men
Release: March 3, 1964
Cover: May 1964
12 cents
Spell-binding story by: Stan Lee
Dazzling drawing by: Jack Kirby
Inking: Paul Reinman
Lettering: S. Rosen
24 pages
They’ve redesigned the cover box to make room for Beast.
The story begins right where the last issue left off, but then has a bit of time jump mid-story. It opens with a strange piece of narration. The narrator tells us Professor X “seemed” to lose his powers. Interesting phrasing. Why not just say Professor X lost his powers? Unless you know something about this issue’s twist ending I don’t.
I would warn you that spoilers follow, but I would argue the opening page narration has already spoiled the whole story.
Jack Kirby makes everything so dramatic, even opening a door. Cyclops uses his power beam to open the door. Not to blast the door open, mind you. He blasts his power beam into the keyhole in order to unlock the door.
I would like to talk about the X-Men’s attitude toward homo sapiens. Professor X has “seemingly” lost his powers. Jean talks about how they’re alone now with nobody to lead them. You’re not alone, Jean. He’s right there. He’s not dead. He just lost his powers. Iceman says he looks just like a homo sapien. I feel like I should maybe be insulted by his tone. Jean then talks about how her parents can’t understand them, “being normal homo sapiens”. I feel like they are all looking down on us judgingly. Just like Magneto.
We learn that the US government recommended this school to the Greys and that the X-Men have access to Top Secret information. Really goes against the narrative that mutants are somehow feared and hated.
Anyways, they shut the Danger Room door, which apparently just sets it off. You would think there’s a failsafe mechanism. But no, Cyclops must fend off Beast’s obstacles alone. The room seems, well, dangerous. I hope it never develops a mind of its own.
The big goal of Magneto is to discover the X-Men’s secret headquarters. Well, let’s talk about how good a secret it is. The cover for their base of operations is that it is a school run by Charles Xavier. Xavier sometimes joins the X-Men on missions without any mask. So you just have to identify him, and then their base is his house. Also, as we have seen, they sometimes invite random mutants over to join their team. Magneto has seen Xavier’s face. They’ve even had telepathic exchanges. But apparently he doesn’t know Xavier’s name yet. Otherwise the rest would be easy.
I like Mastermind’s video-phone wrist watch. A step above Dick Tracy’s watch. Pretty cool tech for 1964 or so.
The most significant thing introduced in this issue is Asteroid M. Magneto’s base of operations built into an asteroid in low Earth orbit. That’s really cool. The base is destroyed at the end of the comic, but I suspect he’ll eventually build another one.
Both Professor X and Magneto have said that humans will fear and distrust mutants, but most evidence has contradicted that. We get now only our second point of evidence of their assertions. The first was that Scarlet Witch was attacked by villagers and accused of being a witch. Now we see that after Toad wins a track meet too easily, the crowd calls him a fraud and seems ready to attack him like a mob.
Other superheroes are definitely treated like celebrities, and the X-Men mostly seem to be, but I think the writers are starting to try to distinguish between mutants born with their powers and those who gained their powers through normal means like radiation.
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver seem not entirely onboard with Magneto’s agenda. She stays to repay a debt and he stays to protect his sister. However, both seem convinced that humans cannot be trusted and will try to destroy them. Last issue, when Magneto tried to set off a nuclear bomb that would wipe out an entire nation, Quicksilver stopped it. Now, Scarlet Witch is shocked that Magneto would consider murdering the X-Men. Why she is so surprised after his attempted genocide is a mystery to me. But she acts to save the X-Men from Magneto.
Her power is still not precisely clear; it’s referred to as her “hex”. She points at something and disaster happens. In this case, she points at a control panel and it short-circuits.
Beast describes a glass window as unbreakable and then says he thinks he can break it. Jean proceeds to break it.
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
So anyways, spoiler… Professor X didn’t really lose his powers. He only “seemed” to. Why? This was the X-Men’s final exam, to battle Magneto and his evil mutants without help. They passed their test.
Note this isn’t like a midterm or semester break. This was the actual final exam of the weird boarding school they go to. They’ll have a graduation ceremony soon. It’s a little odd, as it seemed like a key part of the high concept of X-Men that these were actually students and Professor X was actually their professor. But now that era is done. And it will be a very long time before Professor X gets any new students for his freaky school.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 51/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men vol. 1. You can also find it in X-Men Epic Collection vol. 1: Children of the Atom. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Iceman/Bobby Drake
- Angel/Warren Worthington the Third
- Beast/Hank McCoy
- Professor X/Professor Xavier
- Marvel Girl/Jean Grey
- Cyclops/Scott Summers
- Mr. Grey
- Mrs. Grey
- Mastermind
- Quicksilver
- Toad
- Magneto
- Scarlet Witch
Story notes:
- Cyclops’ power beam grows weaker the more he uses it.
- Danger Room is sound-proof.
- Magneto and team have spent weeks searching for X-Men; Mastermind is right in front of the mansion but still can’t find the X-Men.
- Magneto’s planes operate on magnetic energy.
- Magneto’s base on Asteroid M; destroyed at end of issue.
- The X-Men have sworn to protect the human race and so stand in the way of Magneto’s conquest. Magneto reminds Quicksilver the humans would destroy you if they could.
- I think by “evil mutants”, Cyclops specifically means Magneto’s team. Perhaps I should capitalize that phrase: Evil Mutants. Unclear.
- Toad wins track meet, angering crowd.
- Cyclops able to fire power beam even with arms bound.
- Angel captured in subway battle.
- Scarlet Witch “put a hex” on Magneto’s control panel and short-circuited it.
#188 story in reading order
Next: Strange Tales #120
Previous: Daredevil #1
