Our next foray into Marvel comic origin issues is the X-Men, appearing here in their first ten issues. It’s funny given how big they became but the X-Men weren’t actually super popular in these early issues, it wasn’t really until the reboot in the mid-70s that it started picking up steam (stay tuned for that one later!) and then skyrocketed in the 80s. So is there any point to revisiting the less popular years? Let’s find out!
Issue one starts off with Professor X having his team run through some exercises (in other words introducing the reader to each team member’s powers…) with the first appearances of Cyclops (laser eyes), Beast (… beastly body/strength), Angel (wings) and Iceman (funnily enough: ice powers), then they’re introduced to their new team member: Marvel Girl (otherwise known as Jean Grey, who at this point just has telekinesis, but boy will that ever get expanded on in the future!) We also get the Prof. reiterating their goal of using their Mutant powers to protect humans and mutants alike from the threats of villains, including other mutants who have “gone bad”. Fittingly this leads to a news bulletin of Magneto appearing at rocket base and causing havoc with his magnetic powers in the name of “homo superior”. The X-Men are sent to deal with him and do, with Iceman getting annoyed at being treated like a kid (he is the youngest member of the team) but they soon work together and win. As it tends to be with these origins Issue 2 is a bit of a non-event as the X-Men deal with that classic villain “The Vanisher”, who can teleport. Prof X actually helps out in his capture, which is something, I guess…
Aww, they’re all so happy… and dressed so poorly. Never liked the original X-Men outfits!
Issue 3 has Professor Xavier discover the Blob in a carnival freakshow and has the X-Men bring him in to have him join the team, but he refuses. Prof. X realises he knows their identities and the real reason behind his “school for the gifted” so goes to erase his memory but this freaks the Blob out and he escapes, only to return with a bunch of other carnival freaks for a team-on-team showdown. It ends when Xavier uses some amplifying tech to erase Blob and all the other freaks’ memories. Issue 4 introduces the “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” (honesty in advertising, I guess!) which is led by Magneto and features the debuting Scarlet Witch (generic magic blasts only at this point) and Quicksilver (super speed), who only help out because Magneto saved Witch from a mob in their home village and they owe him a debt, them being his children was yet to be revealed (well, yet to be thought up, let’s face it) The other members were future Hellfire Club member Mastermind (can create illusions) and Toad (… toad), and they attack the island of Santo Marco to take it over and make it their new base, but they’re stopped by the arriving X-Men. Professor X gets hurt in the process though and apparently loses his powers. It was great fun seeing Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver debut, especially as their personalities were surprisingly intact.
Magneto makes his debut! Funny how his basic design never changed, just his cheesy villain dialogue was replaced with Nazi survivor’s guilt… Hooray? (Well, yeah, it does make him a far more interesting character later on! … Did I just talk to myself via brackets? Oh well…)
Issue 5 has Magneto and his Brotherhood hatch a plan to find out where the X-Men’s hideout is from their space base on Asteroid M (that appeared quickly!) and they manage to kidnap Angel, but lose Toad in the process so the still Prof. X-less X-Men follow Toad to Asteroid M and manage to defeat the Brotherhood with the help of Scarlet Witch, who stops Magneto from killing them (as it was “going too far”) and by the end of the mission the whole asteroid breaks apart and falls to Earth (oh well, fun while it lasted…) Back at home Professor X reveals he had been faking it and now the X-Men have dealt with a threat on their own they now officially graduate (bloody risky plan there Mr. X!) The next story oddly features Namor as both the X-Men and the Brotherhood wonder if he is a Mutant and if he is wish to recruit him. Magneto gets there first and shows the Sub-Mariner around his new island base until the X-Men arrive and attack. After a big fight that includes the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver once again realising how bad a person their leader is, Magneto, Mastermind and Toad flee when Namor destroys Magneto’s comically large magnet he has in the middle of the island. Then issue 7 has the Blob get recruited by Magneto when he returns his memories of the X-Men to him but the two of them and the reunited Brotherhood (including Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver again!) fail when the X-men’s new leader Cyclops leads his team to victory. Professor X had left Cyclops in charge (with the debuting Cerebro to help him track mutants mentally) while he takes care of “other business”.
You have to wonder how much villainy you have to perform before you’re square with someone who saved your life…
Issue 8 is an odd one but has Beast and Iceman (who now looks more like his transparent self rather than someone made of snow) help save a child only to get swamped by a mob angry that Mutants were among them (the first real straight up allusion to race wars at the time) and this leads to Beast leaving the X-Men. He becomes a pro wrestler and meets another Mutant called “Unus the Untouchable”, who literally has a barrier that means he can’t be touched and is in the process of being recruited by the Brotherhood. Beast heads back to his lab and makes a machine that means Unus literally can’t touch anything to the point of not being able to eat and then forces him to agree not to join the brotherhood in exchange for getting the ability to eat and drink again (dang…) Unsurpisingly it works, and the experience leads to Beast rejoining the X-Men. Issue 9 sees both the X-Men and the Avengers head to a villain called Lucifer, who Professor X had been tracking this whole time. X tells his team that Lucifer has a bomb attached to his heart that with explode with catastrophic damage should he be killed so the X-Men end up fighting the Avengers to stop them from attacking Lucifer (the idea of telling them the truth never coming up…) Eventually X knocks Lucifer unconscious and guides Cyclops’ beam to safely destroy only the bomb, leaving both hero teams happy. This was clearly an attempt to up the sales of the X-Men comics, but it was fun regardless.
Finally Issue 10 has the X-Men investigate a missing team in the Antarctic that leads to the debut of the Savage Land, a prehistoric jungle hidden in the icy wastes. They team up with jungle man Ka-Zar and his sabretooth tiger Zabu to defeat the “Swamp Men”. It’s not much of a read but I’ve always liked the Savage Land right back to the X-Men cartoon, so it was fun seeing its debut…
Overall Thoughts:
A sneak preview of the next Marvel character to get his Origin spotlight on this blog! Plus Beast appearing in this picture means I got all of the original line up in the four pictures! Hooray!
The X-Men’s first ten issues have some fun highlights, especially the several issue run of them fighting the Brotherhood, but it has to be said that most of the team are severely lacking in the personality department, so it’s not a shocker they failed to connect with audiences until more varied and boisterous members were added to the team. Overall, it was fine, but I certainly don’t feel like tracking the rest of the original run X-Men comics down any time soon…
Hogan Reviews 