X-Men - 1963 and all that: Part 2

AS THE FOURTH ISSUE OF THE X-MEN HIT THE NEWSSTANDS, there was quite a shift in Stan and Jack's approach to the way the title would evolve.

Magneto's back ... and he now has friends to help him: Toad, Mastermind, Quicksilver and the Green(-ish) Witch. One of my favourite Marvel covers of the period, despite the colouring glitch.

The X-Men 4 (Mar 1964, on sale 3 Jan 1964) introduced us the The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a kind of reverse version of the X-Men, led by defining arch-nemesis Magneto. This would have been the first - though certainly not the last - "mirror image" team of baddies in Stan and Jack's oeuvre. The Avengers wouldn't meet their evil counterparts for another four months, and the Fantastic Four would have to wait until their March 1965 issue to meet The Frightful Four.

Stan and Jack make a strong point by literally comparing the two groups side-by-side and leaving it to the readers to decide which bunch of people they'd rather hang out with.

The thing I'll take issue with here is Stan calling them the "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants". It was established back in issue 1 that Magneto doesn't consider himself evil ... in his own way he's trying to protect mutantkind from the humans. We might not agree with his methods, but even at this early point, there could be an argument that Magneto is not evil, per se. And to be fair, nowhere does Magneto nor any of his confederates refer to themselves as "evil". Only Prof X uses that word to describe them (and Stan a couple of times in caption boxes). They are kind of unpleasant, though.

Both Mastermind and The Toad are pretty loathsome specimens, governed by their own self interests, tempered with a healthy dose of fear. Quicksilver only seems to be there to protect his sister. We'll find out shortly what keeps the Scarlet Witch with the group.

Stan and Jack give us a bit more info about Magneto's little playgroup before we get to move on to the meat of the story. The fault lines within Magneto's group are swiftly drawn, where we very quickly grasp that loyalty is a rare commodity. Each seems only out for himself, though they follow Magneto's lead reluctantly. Only siblings Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have each other's backs.

I particularly like the colouring choices here. Quicksilver, despite his name, is coloured green for "Go", and Scarlet Witch is coloured red for "Danger", or even "Stop", because her powers do seem to stop stuff happening. And colouring the slightly lacklustre Toad and Mastermind in subdued tones of brown kind of fits with their bland personas.

The cover glitch was explained by Stan on the X-Men 7 letters page by claiming, "sometimes we change a costume's color on the cover to balance the design a bit." Or you could just own up to the error on Stan G's part, Stan.

This is pretty important stuff (though it only gets four panels), as we find out why two relatively decent people have aligned themselves with Magneto's megalomanic plans. And of course it foreshadows the big changes in store for The Avengers a couple of years later.

Once we have the background details of Magneto's group out of the way, we can get on with the masterplan to take control of a small South American nation to use as a base of operations against Home Sapiens.

Between Magneto's armed freighter and Mastermind's illusionary army, the Bad Mutants seize control of the South American republic of Santo Marco, though no convincing reason is given for what they need their own country for. 

Quite why ol' Maggie wants to take over a small country isn't really made clear. "... As a test of our power!" is the only reason on offer, but there's no thought given to what happens next. Do they just hang out on the beach? Build a luxury hotel and casino to attract rich customers and make loads of money? Or perhaps the country occupies a vital strategic location?

With that accomplished, Magneto doesn't seem to have much to do except to wait for The X-Men to show up. Which, of course, they do. But here's where I start to have a problem with the storytelling. At the time I first read this story I was about eleven years old, so I didn't spot the one glaring error with the plotting.

If Kirby was indeed plotting even these early issues of The X-Men, then this was definitely something Lee couldn't have fixed in the dialogue. Individually, their powers are no match of Magneto's ... so why try to tackle him that way?

Over the intervening years, Jack Kirby made much of the claim that he did all the plotting, but if I were Jack, I wouldn't have been in too much of a hurry to claim this one. Because after establishing the idea that The X-Men train hard to blend their individual skills into one unbeatable team, how do they plan to attack Magneto's stronghold? Why, by approaching singly and from different directions.

The opening forays of the final battle inside Magneto's fortress are action-packed, to be sure, but it does all seem a bit random, with too much tactics and not enough strategy.

Needless to say, that poorly thought-out plan doesn't work out so well, with two of the five X-Men unconscious at the hands of the Meany Mutants. Fortunately, they manage to meet up inside the stronghold and come up with a better idea - attack as a team.

Stan's early take on the characters isn't quite defined yet. Here, Prof X "senses" that the wall of flame is an illusion ... but this isn't in keeping with what I imagine telepathic powers to be - the reading of human minds. A better take might have been, "Mastermind's illusions have no effect on my mind."

Once they figure that out, the X-Men manage to get off the back foot and barring one minor glitch where they don't recognise an advancing wall of flame as an illusion cast by, you know, Magneto's illusion-casting henchman, they start to gain the upper hand.

The final twist is that the earlier, minor explosion has apparently robbed Professor Xavier of his mental powers, but I'm not convinced that will be a permanent situation.

The final stages of the battle end with Magneto and his henchpersons fleeing the scene, but not before setting a couple of boobytraps designed to blow Xavier and his X-Men (and presumably the innocent citizens of Santo Marco) from the face of the map. The plan is only thwarted when Quicksilver, unable to stomach the thought of cold-blooded murder, defuses the bomb before himself escaping with Magneto and the others. But they would be back.

Even though The Scarlet Witch is fairly well-established by this time, Sam Goldberg is still colouring her green on the cover of The X-Men 5, which is odd, because wouldn't he also be the one colouring her costume red for the interior art? Note the change of art in the Marvel corner box.

We only had to wait two months for the return of Magneto and his nasty whatchamacallems, in The X-Men 5 (May 1964, on sale 3 Mar). More a continuation of the story from X-Men 4 than a sequel, this time the Evil Ones manage to capture The Angel to force him to reveal the location of their HQ.

The unexpected arrival of Jean Gray's parents at the mansion sparks a frantic cover-up, in which Stan and Jack get to explain the team's powers for the benefit of any late-comers.

Still dealing with the loss of Prof X's mental abilities, the X-Men face a minor emergency when Jean Grey's parents make an unexpected visit to the Academy. Then, Magneto baits a traps by luring the X-Men to a meeting with a newly-discovered athletic mutant. A battle ensues, but Magneto makes off to his orbiting satellite with the captured Angel, leaving the "bait" mutant - in reality, The Toad - in the hands of the X-Men. The dazed Toad is able to summon a magna-ship to return him to Magneto's sky island, and the X-Men hitch a ride, setting the scene for the final battle, high above the Earth.

Some examples of the new-look Hank McCoy from X-Men 5 ... you might be forgiven for wondering who that is breathing down the neck of the mystery mutant. It's The Beast. Jack just drew him wearing gauntlets.

There are some notable evolutionary changes in this issue. First, the transformation of The Beast continues, as he is depicted as even more of a scholar than previously.

"Big Words" from an unknown episode of Simon and Kirby's Newsboy Legion feature, which ran in Star-Spangled Comics 7 (Apr 1942) to 64 (Jan 1947).

It's hard to know who to attribute this change to. Jack (or possibly Stan) added pair of spectacles to Hank McCoy's civilian appearance in X-Men 4, though it was just in a couple of panels, so you may have missed it. There was a character in Simon and Kirby's Newsboy Legion, nick-named "Big Words", because he used - you know - big words. He wore spectacles, too. So it might have been Jack re-using an old idea, as he often would. Or it may have been Stan's continuing efforts to make The X-Men's Beast different from the Fantastic Four's Thing.

I suppose if you're ten years old, then this is a bit of a surprise twist. But reading this decades later, it seems like a bit of an unnecessary and cruel prank to play on a group of youngsters.

The issue closes with the revelation that Prof X never really lost his powers, he just pretended to so he could judge how well the team had absorbed their training to be able to function as an independent unit without his direction. Effectively, the second part of a two issue story.

Though this issue headlines Prince Namor, if you look really closely you can see Magneto and his screaming whatnots lurking in the background. I see the Marvel corner box illustration has gone back to the original version.

X-Men 6 (July 1964, on sale 5 May 1964) took us off in a slightly different direction - though I'd question the rationale behind the story, other than shoehorning a big ticket villain into a fledgling Marvel title.

The first four pages act as a reminder of who the main players in this series are, contrasting Professor X and his group against the far more unpleasant social structure of Magneto's band. While this is unfolding, both Xavier and Magneto are both pondering that The Sub-Mariner may be a mutant and that they should recruit him to their respective causes. What are the odds, eh?

We all know that Professor X has astounding mental powers ... but since when was Magneto able to duplicate Xavier's psychic feats?

Professor X is able to detach his astral self from his physical body and go searching for Namor - but weirdly, Magneto does exactly the same thing. I don't recall later Magneto being able to do this kind of thing, so I'll put this down to (most probably Jack) just adding and subtracting abilities as the plot required.

The Scarlet Witch as property? An unfortunate sign of the times is that Magneto figured he could secure Namor's allegiance by using Wanda in a honey-trap. Over the next couple of years, Marvel would become a little more sensitive to the kind of crap women were putting up with in the real world.

It's not long before Namor, intrigued by the idea he might be a mutant and by Magneto's offer of an alliance, arrives at the obscure island HQ of the evil mutants for what appears to be a job interview. But before we can figure out who's interviewing who, The X-Men show up and it's a three-way free-for-all - with Namor very much on his own side.

Magneto's efforts to defeat The X-Men quickly descend into chaos once again, and the Meanie Mutant is forced to flee the scene, leaving his reluctant allies - Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Namor - behind.

Predictably, The Sub-Mariner decides that all humans are idiots, even mutants, and paddles off back to Atlantis. Magneto and his syncopating sycophants row off into the sunset, leaving Professor X's merry band marooned on Magnetic Island, at least until next issue. We never do find out exactly how they were able to escape the island.

It's an okay-ish issue, bit it still feels a bit directionless. As though Stan still hasn't really got a handle on this and is leaving Jack to deal with the plot details - which I don't think he was doing very successfully. Arbitrarily giving Magneto mental abilities comparable to Professor X just seems like lazy plotting. And this is the third appearance of the Evil Mutants and nothing is moving on in that dynamic. Why are Wanda and Pietro still hanging around with this loser, given how downright rude he is?

On the plus side, the art is quite a bit better. I much prefer Chic Stone's polished finishes over the scratchy style of Paul "Inky" Reinman that we got in the first five issues. Stone would stick around for the next year or so, until he got tired of inking and departed to concentrate more on his pencilling work for ACG.

Well, at least the Scarlet Witch's costume is actually scarlet this time ... and  guess what? The "new" Marvel corner box art is back again ... and it'll stick for the next three years or so.

Funnily enough, the plot of X-Men 7 (Sep 1964, on sale 2 July) is pretty much the same as the previous issue. Magneto scouts around for further recruits to his band, and chances to discover The Blob (remember him from X-Men 3?)

Once more, Stan and Jack reinforce the contrast between the two bands of mutants. On Professor X's watch, all is kindness and mutual respect. Over on Magneto's side, sexual harrassment in the workplace seems like standard operational procedure.

The first seven pages take care of the housekeeping. The X-Men graduate their college, Professor X makes Cyclops the group leader, while elsewhere Mastermind thinks he has a chance at dating the Scarlet Witch. That low-level Lothario aspect to his character would be pivotal during the Chris Claremont run on the X-Men more than a decade later.

Stan and Jack seemed obsessed with carnivals, which turn up in quite a few early Marvel Tales. Note the shout of "Hey Rube!", an old-school carnie battlecry used when local townsfolk would try to drive the carnival off with cudgels ... a signal for roustabouts to drop what they were doing and rally to defend their comrades.

Then we finally get to the meat of it, with Magneto scouting a fairground in search of The Blob. But when The Blob initially rebuffs Magneto's advances, Magneto and his malignant ban are beset by an army of roustabouts and carnie performers. In the ensuing carnage, The Blob is hurled against a carnival wagon by Magneto's magnetic power (despite the fact that people aren't magnetic). The impact jars loose Professor X's mental block, and The Blob remembers that The X-Men are his enemies. Which sets us up for the next battle, this time between Magneto's extended troupe of mutants and our heroes.

Flying torpedoes everywhere. When all else fails, Magneto launches aerial dooblebombs at the X-Men. Fortunately it's the near-indestructible Bob that takes the brunt ... leading the chubby mutant to realise that everyone is just using him for their own ends.

At first, Magneto stands back and uses The Blob as his first line of defence. Even though the combined efforts of Angel, The Beast and Marvel Girl fail to subdue The Blob, Magneto launches a barrage of flying torpedos into the melee (boy, Magneto really loves an explosive, doesn't he?), which the X-Men tackle each in their own unique way. It only takes the fleeting interference of Quicksilver to bring the X-Men together in a battle formation lineup for Magneto to direct his magnetically-controlled torpedoes to bear on the group. Even the fact that The Blob is also in the line of fire doesn't sway Magneto from his strategy ... but when the flying bombs explode, it's The Blob that takes the brunt.

Once again, Magneto has failed and, despite the protests of the Scarlet Witch, he orders his band into a handy Magna-car and the Evil Ones escape, leaving The Blob to take the rap.

I strongly doubt that Mjolnir could be affected by magnetism, not even Magneto's. Why didn't Magneto "test" his power against Iron Man? That would have been far more interesting. The Strange Tales story is more of a sub-plot, focussing on Pietro and Wanda wanting to split with Magneto and seeking help from the FF.

And that's the last we'd see of Magneto for quite a while. I can't say I'm sorry. I always felt that Magneto had a bigger dominance over all around him than his powers warranted. And Jack would often show him doing stuff that was impossible by magnetism alone. And though he wouldn't be back in the X-Men title for another eight months (X-Men 11, May 1965), he would make a couple of appearances in other titles - Journey into Mystery 109 (Oct 1964), where he was seriously outmatched by Thor, and a cameo in Strange Tales 128 (Jan 1965), where The Torch and the Thing battle Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch because of, you guessed it, a misunderstanding.

And that's all I have room for this time. But we'll be back soon with a look at the next few issues of the formative X-Men title, discovering more mutants, an epic battle with The Avengers and the reintroduction of a character from the very dawn of Marvel.

Next: More Mutant Mayhem

X-Men - 1963 and all that: Part 1

BACK IN THE EARLY 1960s there was no "woke" agenda. There wasn't even much call for fairness, equality and general decency. But there was Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Though it didn't overtly start out that way, The X-Men very quickly became a metaphor for the struggle for equal rights that was going on in the United States at the time.

It was 1963, and the fledgling Marvel Comics was enjoying sudden and unexpected success, largely due to the efforts of editor/scripter Stan Lee and legendary - though temporarily down on his luck - artist Jack Kirby.

The ascension of Marvel began when, at a request from owner/publisher Martin Goodman in 1961, Stan was tasked with coming up with a superhero team book. Working with his lead artist Kirby, Lee based the four team members on the classic elements of earth, air, fire and water, putting a revised Human Torch in the fire role, presumably to please Goodman who considered the Torch his "lucky charm". Fantastic Four 1 (Nov 1961, on sale August) was quite quickly followed by The Incredible Hulk 1 (May 1962, on sale March), when Stan realised that the earth character from the FF, The Thing, was the most popular and, indeed, the early Hulk talked a lot like Ben Grimm. Three months later, Lee and Kirby's take on Superman, The Mighty Thor, made his debut in the fantasy anthology title Journey into Mystery 83 (Aug, 1962, on sale June), the same month that The Amazing Spider-man made his debut in the Steve Ditko vehicle Amazing (Adult) Fantasy 15. Two months after that, the FF's Human Torch was awarded his own series in Strange Tales 101 (Oct 1962, on sale July), the same month that Ant-Man made his return in the anthology title Tales to Astonish 35. That's a pretty aggressive expansion for just a single year, but both Goodman and Lee must have been encouraged by the burgeoning sales of Fantastic Four, which went monthly as Strange Tales 101 and Tales to Astonish 35 went on the stands.

Marvel unleashed a flurry of superhero books, starting at the tail end of 1961 and continuing through the whole of 1962.

The following year continued the trend of Marvel's incursion into the superhero field, though only at a slightly slower pace. Spider-Man was awarded his own title after Goodman got past his notion that the public didn't like spiders, debuting with issue 1 (Mar 1963, on sale December 1962). That same month saw the first appearance of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense 39. We'd then have to wait until the late summer of 1963, when Stan dropped on us, in quick succession: The Strange Tales Annual 2 (Sep 1963, on sale June), featuring the first Human Torch / Spider-Man teamup; the Fantastic Four Annual 1 (Sep 1963, on sale July); then two more team books - The Avengers 1 (on sale July), matching The Hulk (whose book had recently been cancelled), Thor, Ant-Man and the Wasp and the newly-hatched Iron Man - and The X-Men 1 (on sale June) which featured an entirely new group of heroes, termed "mutants". (Daredevil 1 was also supposed to be part of that Sept 1963 drop, but Bill Everett's inability to deliver the artwork pushed the publication date back to April 1964, on sale February.)

The cascade of super-characters continued into 1963, with Stan adding Iron Man, teaming up his anthology book heroes in The Avengers and unleashing a different kind of hero book, The X-Men. (Lurking in there somewhere is Doctor Strange's first appearance in Strange Tales 110 (Jul 1963, on sale April).

Stan has told the story many times and in many slightly different versions how The X-Men came to be created. In his biography Excelsior, Stan mused, "Why couldn't I create a group of teenagers who had simply mutated and therefore gained some varied and extraordinary powers? No further explanation was needed and I could introduce as many as I wanted because Nature never set a limit on such things. The title would be simplicity itself. I'd call our new group, The Mutants. Martin liked the concept but hated the title. He said our readers wouldn't know what a mutant was. I wasn't prepared to hassle with him over a title selection, so I tried to dream up another name. And then it hit me. They were heroes with extra powers. I had even named their adult mentor Professor Xavier. So why not call them The X-Men? This time Martin okayed the title although I never understood his logic. If our readers wouldn't know what a mutant was how would they know what an X-Man was?"

In the notorious Comic Journal 134 interview in 1990, Jack disputed that Stan created anything and made a curious claim. "Stan didn’t know what a mutation was. I was studying that kind of stuff all the time. I would spot it in the newspapers and science magazines."

I'm going to call Jack out there, because in a recent entry in this blog, where I was looking at alleged "prototypes" for later Silver Age Marvel characters in the pre-hero Marvel books, I covered a couple of examples of super-human mutants in old Lee-scripted fantasy tales.

I won't rehash that in detail here, but you can go back and take a look at the entry for Amazing Adult Fantasy 14 (Jul 1962), where Lee and Ditko serve up a story in which a young lad discovers he's a mutant and is forced into hiding because of other humans' instant and irrational hatred of his mutant nature.

And there's the Carl Wessler/Jack Kirby story in Strange Tales 69 (June 1959), where a bald, wheelchair-bound man, Vermeer, insists on chartering a ship to explore a certain part of the ocean. The story is credited by some as a prototype for Professor X, but I don't think Lee or Kirby took anything other than Vermeer's superficial appearance for the X-Men character.

Then there's a Lee-plotted, Larry Leiber-scripted story, drawn by Joe Sinnott, in Tales of Suspense 6 (Nov 1959), "The Mutants and Me", in which a sceptical man scoffs at the idea of superhuman mutants until he discovers he himself is one.

So, no, Jack. I think Stan knew full well what a mutant is.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

Though The X-Men didn't start off as a metaphor for the racial intolerance that persisted in some parts of the United States during the opening years of the 1960s, the seeds for that were in-built from issue one.

I've seen other sources claiming that the idea of human prejudice against mutants didn't show up in the comic until issue 8, but as you can see ... not true.

After Professor X has introduced all the team members to each other (and to us) he gives a little information about his own background. We're told that the professor had experienced the distrust of humans earlier in his life, and for that reason he believes that keeping mutants' existence a secret is the safest way to go, at least for the moment. So human prejudice is mentioned right there in the first issue, even though we haven't seen it happen yet. That would change.

Great idea, Magneto ... you should definitely set yourself up as the leader of a master race that will overwhelm and rule over all other races on Earth. That's bound to end well.

So that's the good mutants. But of course ... there has to be bad mutants, doesn't there? And here comes one now, the shape of Magneto, a character driven by his resentment of the enmity he and his fellow "Homo Superior" experienced from regular humans, "Homo Sapiens". And again, that concept of "them and us" is right there in the first issue of X-Men.

There has been speculation from various quarters that Charles Xavier was inspired by Israel's first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, while Magneto's darker approach to the issues facing mutants was more in line with Menachem Begin. Later in the 1960s, others compared Xavier to Martin Luther King and Magneto to Malcolm X. But neither of these theories particularly convinces me.

Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt avoided being pictured in a wheelchair, and the media of the period were happy to go along with that.

My theory is that Xavier was more likely inspired by Franklin Roosevelt, who served an unprecedented four terms as President of the United States from 1932 to 1945 ... from a wheelchair. Roosevelt was president when both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby served in the US Army during the Second World War and so, in their minds, would have been the principal opposer of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Magneto's helmet wasn't originally conceived as protection against mental attacks, and you can see here that it didn't shield him terribly well against Xavier's psychic onslaught in X-Men 1.

This would naturally cast Magneto in the Hitler role - not too much of stretch when you consider all his talk of Homo Superior (mutants) being destined to dominate Homo Sapiens.

But it wasn't just some sort of political nostalgia that underpinned the fundamental premise of Stan and Jack's new X-Men comic.

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING

Given the era in which Stan Lee was co-creating and scripting the first wave of Marvel superheroes since the 1940s, it was inevitable that the liberal-leaning Lee would incorporate the injustices of the real world into the comic book characters he presided over during those formative year of the early 1960s.

Right: Rosa Parks, circa 1955. Centre: The Greensboro Four at that same Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, Feb 1960. Right: Martin Luther King gives his historic "I have a dream" speech at the nation's capital in 1963.

Lee couldn't have failed to notice the growing civil rights movement that had begun in the mid-1950s with Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of the bus with the other black folks - which resulted in a boycott that left the Montgomery, Alabama transit system crippled - to the extra-ordinary bravery of the four black college students who sat at a segregated lunch counter in a Woolworth store, and the march on Washington in August 1963, culminating in Martin Luther King's historic and moving speech, delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

It's also important to note that both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby came from jewish backgrounds and while Stan never publicly mentioned his jewish heritage nor experiencing any prejudice in his life, Jack Kirby did say of his youth in his Comics Journal interview (134, Feb 1990), there was "a lot of [anti-Semitism]. They were confrontational days when people of different backgrounds had to live together. And it hasn’t changed. There’s anti-Semitism today."

AAANND ... BACK TO THE PLOT

The X-Men 1 suffers the same flaws that many first issues do. The creative team have to establish the main characters and the world they inhabit first ... and that invariably gets in the way of the action. Pretty much the first half of the book is taken up with introductions and scene-setting. It's not until page 12 that the story gets under way with villain Magneto (it really is Mag-neet-oh, not Mag-nett-oh), trying to take over a US Army missile base, quite topical for a story published just a few months after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

All things considered, the structure of the plot does mean that we get 11 pages of non-stop action in the back half of the book, without the good guys (or the bad guy) pausing every other panel to explain what they're doing and how their powers work.

With the Army helpless before Magneto's extraordinary magnetic powers, The X-Men show up and take on the terrorist/aggressor, using their unique abilities and teamwork to drive him off ... at least for the present.

It's not often that a first issue establishes the hero's / heroes' principle nemesis. I'm hard-pressed to think of another Marvel Silver Age debut where the antagonist was every bit as defining at the protagonist. Magneto would go on to be almost as important as Professor Xavier in X-Men canon and, post-SilverAge, even be retro-conned as a more noble, if morally ambiguous, figure.

Yes, he's an alien not a mutant, but The Metal Master makes for a more convincing prototype for Magneto than anything else in Marvel Comics around the same time period.

Another thing I remembered as I'm typing these words. There had been another metal-manipulating super-villain just months before X-Men 1 in another Marvel Comic. In his final, non-Kirby, issue The Incredible Hulk had battled an alien menace who could manipulate the molecules of any metal object. In his page-long explanation of his power, the Metal Master very clearly says that he can control the molecules of metals so that they change shape at his command. Which he does ... a bit. But being able to control the molecules doesn't explain how he can levitate and fling lumps of metal at The Hulk.

... and here's Magneto actually hurling lumps of metal at the X-Men. He doesn't do it much in this first appearance, but he does do it.

That ability is much more like Magneto's powers ... just a case, I think, of Stan re-using an idea from six months earlier under the pressure of impending deadlines.

The first eight issues of The X-Men would ring-fence the stories in a hidden mutant world where all their battles would be against other mutants, meaning it would be over a year before the team branched out and began to tackle non-mutant menaces. And the main characters would evolve quite a bit over those few issues.

The villain in X-Men 2 was another mutant. The Vanisher didn't seem quite as terrifying as Magneto, as his power was more defensive than aggressive and so was, in the end, a bit forgettable.

The second issue (Nov 1963) went on sale on 3 September, exactly two calendar months after X-Men 1. I'm really not sure what Stan and Jack's intention was with The Vanisher's costume. It looks decidedly reptilian, with a collar that looks like it was inspired by a frilled lizard and a scaley pattern on the fabric. The back of the collar has a diamond motif, like a diamondback snake, and then there's the squiggly snake motif running from the neckline to the waistline. But I don't understand what the reptile motif has to do with vanishing.

Does anybody want to offer a theory as to why The Vanisher's costume looks like a cross between a snake and a lizard? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

It seems pointless to speculate, except to note that the Thor villain The Human Cobra debuted the same month in Journey into Mystery 98, so maybe Stan thought two reptile villains in the same month was one too many and changed the intention in the scripting.

I think the would-be henchmen haven't thought this through, properly. The Vanisher can save himself from capture by, well, vanishing. But how do they expect he's going to save them? Don't they just get left behind to face the music?

Another thing that doesn't make a great deal of sense about The Vanisher ... after his exploits are reported in the newspapers, the scum of the underworld flock to join him as his henchmen. No mention is made of how the criminals find The Vanisher's lair ... unless the newspapers reported the location of that, too.

Wuxtree, wutree ... read all about it. Super-secret X-Men defeated by Vanisher. Star Bulletin reveals location of secret lair.

And my final gripe about the storytelling here is that I'm pretty sure Professor X made a big thing about keeping the existence of the X-Men a secret in the previous issue. Yet by issue 2, their exploits are being reported in the papers and the general public are bemoaning the fact that even the X-Men can't save them from The Vanisher.

Of course, it was early days for the title, and it's plain that Stan and Jack were winging it, and trying to nail down the concept as they went along, so it's inevitable that some contradictions would creep in.

In the end, it's Professor X who defeats The Vanisher by telepathically wiping his memory so he has no idea of who he is or how to teleport away to safety, leaving the X-Men to mop up the mob of wannabe henchmen.

That's right, Hank. How could anyone ever figure out that Charles Xavier is the leader of the X-Men?

And, with menace of the Vanisher squared away, it just remains for the X-Men and their leader to return to their Westchester home to await the next mutant menace to threaten the world.

Reprints are generally less highly-prized than the originals, but Fantastic was an essential purchase for me, as the original Marvel Comics were very hard to come by in the area of London where I was brought up.

Though I think this is the weakest of the first few issues of The X-Men, for some reason it stuck with me over the years. And though I'd bought the British reprint comic Fantastic from the first issue, it is issue 3, with its reprint of the Vanisher story, that seems the most familiar to me.

Fred Dukes is what used to be referred to as a "circus freak" ... an unusual human who earned a living being gawped at by the "rubes". Think Elephant Man (1980). But Dukes is no ordinary carnival performer. He's a mutant ... and a fairly unpleasant one at that.

The X-Men 3 (Jan 1964) was on sale for 5 November 1963, and featured another mutant foe, but this one was not the typical costumed baddie.

Danny Fingeroth, author of Stan Lee: A Marvellous Life, mentions a news item from the letters page of Fantastic Four 23 (Feb 1964) - this was before there were Bullpen Bulletins - "We needed a name for the villain in X-Men 3 and Stan and Jack were kicking a few around when a boy delivering sandwiches walked in and jokingly said, 'He looks like a big blob. Call him The Blob' ... Stan and Jack looked at each other sand said, 'Why not?'"

Whether it's true or not (unlikely that Stan and Jack were in the office at the same time, or that a delivery boy would be able to walk into Stan's office and overhear the conversation - wouldn't Flo Steinberg have taken any sandwiches in to Stan and Jack?), it's a better story than the the more likely explanation that Stan just lifted the name from the sci-fiction movie of the same name. Stan's cover line even quotes the theme song of The Blob (1958), for goodness sake.

The theme song from the 1958 science fiction monster movie was a minor hit in the singles charts that same year. And a catchy little ditty it is, too.

Fred Dukes, a sideshow performer known as "The Blob", is detected by Professor Xavier's psychic abilities and the X-Men are despatched to find him and bring him to the Westchester mansion, where he'll be invited to join the team. But things don't go to plan as Dukes' boorish behaviour ruffles the feathers of Prof X's students and the meeting deteriorates into a brawl, ending with The Blob escaping into the sewage tunnels.

Ten pages of Kirby action has the X-Men struggle to hold their own against The Blob and his circus henchmen, eventually turning the tables by following Professor X's tactical advice.

With Dukes on his way back to the carnival, the Professor has to find a way to bring him physically close enough that his memory can be wiped. To further complicate matters, Dukes is sure to tell his fellow performers about the X-Men's headquarters, and the Professor cannot allow that. So while The X-Men keep Dukes and his carnival gang busy in an epic ten-page battle, Xavier rushes to finish a device that will enable him to wipe not just Dukes' memory but all the carny folk's, as well.

When we first meet Hank McCoy, he seems to be just another variation on the early Hulk/Thing prototype, with the tone of voice of a truck driver.

As might be expected, there are some changes in tone in The X-Men 3, when compared to the preceding issues. The first is there's a noticeable transformation in Henry McCoy's personality. In the first issue, he's a bit of a bruiser, fitting his assigned code-name, The Beast.

Just two issues later, Hank's starting to sound like the scientist character he would eventually morph into, as Stan began to find a characterisation for him.

But by issue 3, he's starting to talk a bit like William "Johnny" Littlejohn, from the Doc Savage pulps, using more sophisticated phrasing, like the educated man that he is.

In issue 1 of The X-Men, it was the heroes who behaved like insensitive clods. Just four months later, that sort of thing was left to the bad guys.

And in issue 1, while it was Hank behaving like an self-unaware oaf towards Jean Grey, in X-Men 3 it was the villain behaving in that manner. So, my guess is that Stan wanted to move Hank away from being just another Ben (The Thing) Grimm type and contrast his personality with the "Beast" label.

I had always presumed Xavier was supposed to be about 40. Jean Grey is 17 or 18, here? But despite the age difference, he's her teacher. Even as a kid, I thought that was a bit off.

Another noticeable development in X-Men 3 was the start of Charles Xavier's slightly creepy infatuation with Jean Grey. It was there, hanging around in the background for a little while, but then Stan - quite rightly - later abandons the idea. Maybe it was just a sign of the times, but it doesn't play very well today. Fortunately, Xavier's attraction to Jean wasn't mentioned again directly and by X-Men 11, Stan had shifted the focus to Scott's unrequited romantic feelings for Jean.

The next issue would see the return of an old enemy (not that there's many to choose from at this stage), and the introduction of some new characters who would become key to Marvel Comics canon. But that can wait till next time, as I feel I may have already outstayed my welcome for this particular edition.

Next: Mutants ... hordes of them

Marvel Comics Cover Gallery - 1959

AS 1959 HOVE INTO VIEW, we would see fewer covers by Joe Maneely, as the last of his work filtered through the system, and more by Jack Kirby, as he bedded in as Stan Lee's go-to artist.

Publisher Martin Goodman continued to fiddle with the line-up, cancelling romance and kiddie titles to make way for science fiction and fantasy books that he thought would sell better.

JANUARY 1959

Marvel's eight titles cover-dated for the first month of 1959 were on sale between 2 Sept and 2 Oct 1958.

Fans of Homer the Happy Ghost and of Patsy Walker Miss America were due to be disappointed by the lineup. Both of those titles were deep-sixed to make space for two new fantasy books - Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish - forging a new look for the company's output that would shape it for the next eight or nine years.

Unusually, the cover art for Suspense was by Don Heck, who drew few covers during this era. The cover for Astonish was by the Kirby/Rule team.

Click the image to enlarge.

These two new books would last a hundred issues before Marvel next big transformation in 1968. The rest of the month's titles were stalwart sellers and would, for the most part, survive Goodman's incessant tinkering.

Interestingly, the newer additions to the line didn't sport the vestigial Atlas corner-flash on their covers, an anachronism that would cling on to the older titles until well into 1960.

FEBRUARY 1959

The lineup for the second month of 1959, on sale between 2 Oct and 4 Nov 1958, looked exactly like the Dec 1958 roster. Not a single change, which seems odd given the non-stop tinkering that Goodman was inflicting on the lineup during this unstable time for his company.

Click the image to enlarge.

Once again, the western covers were by EC stalwart Jack Davis, who also drew all three stories in Two-Gun Kid 46, but no interior art for Wyatt Earp 21. Davis had started drawing for Martin Goodman's company after the failure of Harvey Kurtzman's Humbug magazine, in which several of the former EC artists were also part-owners. Davis wasn't an investor but did hold the post of Assistant Editor. The sudden loss of income meant that Davis had to find work wherever he could and even Goodman's miserly rates were better than no money at all.

Joe Sinnott drew the covers for Battle and Strange Tales. Steve Ditko supplied art for the Strange Worlds cover and Carl Burgos contributed the cover art for World of Fantasy. As usual, Al Hartley was in charge of art chores on the two Patsy books.

MARCH 1959

The first March cover-dated comics on sale from Goodman's Magazine Management, on 4th November, were Kid Colt Outlaw, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. The last one was Journey into Mystery which was available on 2nd December. The remainder would have been released between those two dates, though I've not been able to find reliable data on those.

Click the image to enlarge.

Jack Kirby and Christopher Rule supplied art for both the Gunsmoke Western cover and the Kid Colt Outlaw one. It was a bumper month for Steve Ditko as he supplied covers for another pair of second issues, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. Dan de Carlo did the Millie the Model cover and Vince Colletta (studio?) provided the cover for My Own Romance. The remaining two covers - Journey into Mystery and Love Romances - were drawn by Russ Heath, making a rare return to Stan Lee's bullpen. 

Heath had been a fixture at the company from 1948 till about 1955, when he added DC Comics as a client and also provided to odd job to EC's fledgling Mad magazine. During 1957, his output for Stan Lee dwindled and by the end of that year he was working almost exclusively for DC. Those two covers, plus a four pager for Love Romances and another for Tales of Suspense, were Heath's sole output for Stan in 1958 ... after that Heath was pretty much exclusively a DC artist until, in the early 1960s, he began to acquire other clients, like Harvey and Dell. And let's not forget his unforgettable "204 Revolutionary War Soldiers" ad artwork ...

Who didn't want to have a 204-piece Revolutionary War set?

APRIL 1959

Strange Tales 68 was one of the first April cover-dated Magazine Management comic books on sale, hitting the stands on 2nd December 1958. The last would have been Patsy Walker, on sale 2nd January 1959. The others would have been scattered between these two days, but the only other confirmed on sale I could find was for Patsy and Hedy on 29 December.

Click the image to enlarge.

As Jack Kirby's assignments began to ramp up, he had four cover assignments for April - Strange Tales, Strange Worlds 2, World of Fantasy 17 and Wyatt Earp 22 - all inked by Christopher Rule. 

Al Hartley drew covers for the two Patsy books and the Battle cover was credited to Carl Burgos, though you could be forgiven for thinking it looks like a Russ Heath DC cover. Jack Davis did the cover for Two-Gun Kid, though the interior stories were all drawn by legendary "good-girl" artist Matt Baker.

MAY 1959

The first May cover-dated comics on sale from Goodman's company - Kid Colt Outlaw, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish - were on the stands on 2nd January 1959. A month later, the May Journey into Mystery went on sale. The remaining titles were, presumably, on sale between those two dates. I'm not sure what the logic was here. I could understand if the titles were on sale a week or two apart, but a full month does seem excessive.

Click the image to enlarge.

Jack Kirby drew three covers for this month - Gunsmoke Western, Journey into Mystery and Tales to Astonish - all inked by Christopher Rule. The Kid Colt cover was by John Severin, and the Tales of Suspense art was by John Buscema, making a rare early appearance at the fledgling Marvel. The Millie cover was by Dan De Carlo, the Love Romances was drawn by Jay Scott Pike and the cover for My Own Romance was by the Vince Colletta studio, with possible pencils by Dick Giordano.

JUNE 1959

The June issues of the Magazine Management comics line hit the stands between 3rd February and 3rd March 1959. There was no change in the lineup from the February and April issues, so Marty must have been happy with the spread of genres, at least in these even-month titles.

Click the image to enlarge.

Month by month, Jack Kirby's share of the cover chores was increasing. This month, he drew five of the eight covers published - Battle (his first on that title), Strange Tales, Strange Worlds, Two-Gun Kid and World of Fantasy. Only the two Patsy covers (by Al Hartley) and the Wyatt Earp cover (by John Severin) were assigned to different artists.

JULY 1959

Most of the July dated issues were on the news-stands on 3rd March. For whatever reason, Journey into Mystery went on sale pretty much a whole month later.

Click the image to enlarge.

It was another bumper month for Jack Kirby. All but three of this month's covers were by Jack (with his inker de jour Christopher Rule). Millie the Model was a cover-to-cover Dan de Carlo fest, while the two romance books had cover art from the Vince Colletta studio.

AUGUST 1959

The earliest title on sale for this month was the Strange Tales, hitting gthe stands on 3rd April. The latest was the August cover-dated issue of Patsy Walker, going on sale on 5th May. The others would have scattered between those two dates, but I wasn't able to confirm any of the other release dates.

Click the image to enlarge.

Jack Kirby seemed to settling in as Stan's go-to cover artist, contributing, once again, five of the eight covers for this month. The Patsy titles sported covers by regular artist Al Hartley, and the Two-Gun Kid cover appears to be a re-purposed Joe Maneely inventory cover, originally drawn for Kid Colt - Outlaw, and likely fished out of a drawer and redrawn by production man Sol Brodsky.

Kirby's Strange Tales cover is probably the first to qualify as a Giant-Monster cover. There had been other Kirby-drawn monsters on previous anthology covers, but these were distinctly science fiction aliens. Here, we see the accent on the main fantasy titles moving away from sf towards a more Kaiju-style take on the genre.

SEPTEMBER 1959

The still-not-Marvel comics cover-dated September started going on sale on 5th May. Confirmed books on the stands on that day were Gunsmoke Western, Millie the Model, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. I can't vouch for any of the others, though I can tell you that Journey into Mystery arrived, stylishly late as usual, on 5 June.

Click the image to enlarge.

Jack Kirby was still knocking out covers at a rate of knots, pencilling Journey into Mystery, Love Romances, My Own Romance, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. The two western comic covers were by a pair of EC alumni - Jack Davis and John Severin. Can you tell which is which? And Dan De Carlo was still making Millie look like an Archie book.

OCTOBER 1959

Finally, as the end of the 1950s peeped above the horizon, Magazine Management publisher Martin Goodman decided to shake things up a bit. Strange Worlds and World of Fantasy were both dropped. An odd move, because the new fantasy titles, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish by all accounts were doing quite well. In their place were an all-new teenage character book, Kathy (the Teenage Tornado) and, in another odd decision by Goodman, a new Millie title, A Date with Millie, making Millie effectively a monthly. So why not just make Millie a monthly title and save himself the cost of revving up a new title?

Click the image to enlarge.

For anyone keeping score the line was now: five teen titles, four westerns, four fantasy/monster books, two romance comics and a war book.

Kirby's cover output took a bit of a hit as a result. Down from his usual five covers, Jack only contributed two for the October issues - Battle and Wyatt Earp. The remaining 75% of the cover art was supplied by Al Hartley (Patsy Walker and Patsy and Hedy), Jack Davis (Strange Tales), John Severin (Two-Gun Kid), Dan De Carlo (A Date With Millie) and Stan Goldberg (Kathy).

NOVEMBER 1959

The comics for the penultimate month of 1959 maintained the status quo. No more dispatching and hatching - at least for the time being. The earliest on sale date for this batch was 1st July (Kid Colt Outlaw, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish). Journey into Mystery followed a full month later on 31st July.

Click the image to enlarge.

The Gunsmoke Western cover was patched together from two old Joe Maneely covers (Wyatt Earp 18, Aug 1958 and Kid Colt 75, Nov 1957). Jack Kirby pencilled Journey into Mystery, Kid Colt, Love Romances, My Own Romance, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish. Stan Goldberg was left with the Millie cover, as Dan De Carlo was pretty much exclusive with Archie Comics from the November cover dates onwards.

DECEMBER 1959

The last Magazine Management comics cover dated for 1959 were on sale during September of that year. Except for Strange Tales which was on the stands for the end of July. Go figure. The even months were now down to just one fantasy book, and overloaded with teen titles, but I guess Marty must've known what he was doing.

Click the image to enlarge.

Kirby contributed pencil art for the Battle, Strange Tales and Wyatt Earp covers. Stan Goldberg stepped into Dan De Carlo's shoes for the Date with Millie and Kathy titles and Al Hartley continued to soldier on with the Patsy titles. That left John Severin to pick up the art chores on the Two-Gun Kid cover.

Here's a bit of wild speculation. What if Martin Goodman launched A Date with Millie and Kathy, thinking that Stan Lee would get De Carlo to draw them. Of course, that would have meant De Carlo giving up his Archie work, as he wouldn't have time to do it all. If I'm right, then the plan backfired mightily when Dan packed up his pencils and moved over to Riverdale, leaving Goodman without his star teen-book cartoonist.

Next: Teenage Mutant Marvel All-Stars