Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968)

When we left off last week, new writer Gary Friedrich had just taken over X-Men and was finishing off the big X-Men/Avengers crossover that Roy Thomas started. Friedrich only writes three issues and some backup stories before he leaves, but he does give us Iceman’s origin story. He’s replaced by Arnold Drake, whose short run introduces a new love interest for Bobby. Finally Roy Thomas comes back and scripts the fondly remembered run drawn by Neal Adams before the series is sent to oblivion.

 

X-Men #44-46 – backup stories (May-July 1968)
Writer: Gary Friedrich
Penciler: George Tuska

The “Origins of the X-Men” backups get to Iceman.

Teenage Bobby is on a date with a girl named Judy when he’s attacked by a group of guys who – a Code-approved book can’t say this in the 1960s, but the implication is very clear – want to rape Judy. Bobby stops the attackers with his ice powers, which he and his parents are already aware of. Naturally, Judy is terrified of Bobby and after word spreads a mob shows up and drags Bobby to jail. In part two, Cyclops attempts to break Bobby out of jail, but he’s not interested in leaving. Cyclops won’t take no for an answer so they fight until the lynch mob catches up with them. It’s the first time Bobby covers himself in his frosty/snowy form. Finally, in part three, the lynch mob literally sets up nooses and drags off the sheriff when he attempts to stop them. They eventually escape and Xavier wipes the whole town’s memories of Bobby being a mutant, including his parents. Iceman takes Xavier’s offer to go away to his school, and can you blame him for leaping at the first chance to get away from this town?

A few interesting points in this story. First, Bobby is already dating a girl, which puts the lie to assertion that Bobby’s disinterest in girls in X-Men #1 is due to his being too young. Second, we haven’t yet settled on the characterization of Iceman’s father as a bigot. His parents certainly would prefer that people not know about his powers for his own safety, but William Drake also stands up to the mob that comes to attack his son. It’s a reading of their relationship that’s closer in line with Mr. Drake’s portrayal in the landmark Uncanny X-Men #340.

While this story is fairly straightforward and simple for Bobby, later retellings and flashbacks will go deeper into his how this story affects him, including his conflicted feelings toward his parents, Judy, and Xavier and Cyclops. We’ll cover them next week.

The X-Men Epic Collection Vol 2 stops at X-Men #45, part 2/3 of this story. SMH.

 

X-Men #46 – main story (July 1968)
Writer: Gary Friedrich
Penciler: Don Heck and Werner Roth

The X-Men fight Juggernaut and disband on orders of the FBI.

Foggy Nelson shows up to read Xavier’s will – he’s left his fortune to the X-Men with Scott as trustee. I guess he didn’t consider bringing Moira in at this stage? Meanwhile FBI Agent Fred Duncan orders the X-Men to disband and spread across the country. This story doesn’t really go anywhere.

Meanwhile, the Juggernaut suddenly returns from his cosmic exile and wants revenge on his step-brother but doesn’t know what to do when he finds out he’s dead. The battle stops when Juggernaut disappears back into his exile.

 

X-Men #47 (August 1968)
Writer: Gary Friedrich and Arnold Drake
Penciler: Don Heck, George Tuska, Werner Roth

Beast and Iceman go on a date with Zelda and Vera and fight the Warlock.

There can’t really have been demand to see more of the Warlock, could there?

In the opening splash, Hank laments the barrier that’s come between him and Bobby since the X-Men split up. It’s not clear where they’re living right now since they left the mansion last issue, and when we next see them they’re living in San Francisco.

This is their last double date with Zelda and Vera, who are starting to get downright suspicious of all the times Bobby and Hank sneak off together. They’re not even bothering to come up with excuses anymore! We never actually see a breakup with Zelda or Vera. ­X-Men: The Hidden Years #2 eventually confirms that Bobby just ghosted Zelda, while Vera went on to date Mimic, as revealed in Incredible Hulk #161.

The backup strip is an explanation of how Iceman’s powers work.

 

X-Men #48 (September 1968)
Writer: Arnold Drake
Penciler: Don Heck, George Tuska, Werner Roth

Cyclops and Marvel girl fight Computo and Fantastic Four villain Quasimodo. Iceman doesn’t appear in the issue.

Scott and Jean are acting like a couple for the first time. Jean’s now working as a model and Scott is a radio new reporter. Of minor interest, Computo warns that Jean has “infinite mental powers” – I believe this is the first hint that Jean actually possesses significant power on her own.

The most important part of this issue for our purposes is the backup strip, an explanation of Beast’s powers and personality. We are pointedly shown that among Beast’s favorite books is a volume of Proust.

There must have been some editorial chaos on the title at this point. Last issue promised Angel’s origin story, but that actually gets bumped by several months, even though it’s chronologically next. And this issue says the next issue will feature Beast and Iceman vs “Metoxo the Lava Man” – a story that never saw print but was eventually alluded to in Marvel Holiday Special 1994 (I’ll cover that eventually). Another Angel solo story from the aborted “team split-up” era also eventually ran as a back-up feature in Ka-Zar #2-3 and Marvel Tales #30 (the first two parts are on Marvel Unlimited, but the final part is not). None of the other X-Men appear in that story, where Angel fights his uncle, a villain called the Dazzler, who wears a lovely studded pink and orange getup.

 

 

 

X-Men #49-52 (October 1968-January 1969)
Writer: Arnold Drake
Penciler: Don Heck, Jim Steranko, Werner Roth

The X-Men reform to fight Mesmero, who is using his hypnotic powers to draw latent mutants to San Francisco to build an army for Magneto. And Polaris debuts.

A lot to unpack in this story. Suddenly Bobby and Hank are living together in San Francisco, where they’re working as… parachute testers? It’s not clear why they’re jumping out of a plane, but Hank says it’s their new cover job. There’s got to be a reason the boys chose to move together to the gay capital of America.

Bobby comes across Lorna Dane wandering San Francisco in a daze and stops her from walking into traffic. He acts very smitten and protective of her throughout the story, which seems to make Hank irritable and jealous throughout. Halfway through, the X-Men think Bobby’s lost his objectivity because he’s too in love with Lorna, and I can only imagine Jean is quietly smirking to herself throughout this scene.

Hank and Bobby seem to make up toward the end. He literally gushes about having a “gay gavotte” (dance) with him once the adventure is over. While it looks like Lorna is being set up as his new love interest, she doesn’t appear again for months after this story.

Lorna’s green hair and Mesmero’s green skin make them the first mutants who don’t “pass” as humans to appear in the book (Beast, Angel and Toad are all borderline on this regard).

The villains try to get Lorna on their side by telling her she’s Magneto’s daughter, an assertion she accepts at face despite the fact that she didn’t even know she was adopted at this point in her history. Iceman eventually finds documentation that establishes this is false and the “real” story of who her parents are. This remains the line for decades, until a Chuck Austen story has her perform a DNA test and discover she’s actually Magneto’s daughter. A later Peter David story in X-Factor Vol 3 attempts to patch this all over, but it’s best just kind of hand-waved.

The Magneto in this story is actually a robot, and credit to Paul O’Brien for pulling out the explanation for a dangling plot thread: “Eventually, in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #7, the whole thing was written off as a scheme of Starr Saxon, the Machinesmith – a villain who hadn’t even been created at this point and who has nothing whatsoever to do with the X-Men.  He seems to have been selected for no reason other than the fact that he was a robot-themed villain.”

Meanwhile, in the backup strips, we get the origin of Beast. Iceman, Cyclops and Angel all  try to recruit him, but they don’t really do anything important.

 

Avengers #60 (January 1969)
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciler: John Buscema

The X-Men appear in the background of Yellowjacket and Wasp’s wedding. This story is retold in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes 2 #6-7 (Joe Casey/William Rosado), and not much is added, although Iceman and Human Torch say something about how they feel strange standing next to each other, and Hank says it has something to do with their body chemistries. Why would Beast be making up reasons to keep Bobby away from the Torch? This has never come up before or since.

 

 

 

X-Men #53 (February 1969)
Writer: Arnold Drake
Penciler: Barry Windsor Smith and Werner Roth

The X-Men fight another Fantastic Four villain, Blastaar.

In the backup strip, Beast’s origin concludes when the X-Men rescue him from the Conquistador and Xavier wipes the entire town’s memories of him having powers. The whole story is reprinted with a couple extra pages added as a framing sequence in Amazing Adventures #17. Lightly updated and expanded versions of the story are retold in Uncanny Origins #6 and X-Men Origins: Beast, but neither adds anything important. Flashbacks to this story appear in X-Men: Legacy #216 and the Beast story in Marvel Comics Presents #85 – I don’t have the latter on hand and it’s not in Marvel Unlimited, but I don’t remember anything relevant to this blog in it.

 

Sub-Mariner #14 (June 1969)
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Mary Severin

The X-Men cameo reacting to the ransom demands of Mad Thinker and Egghead.

 

 

 

 

 

X-Men #54-56 (March-May 1969)
Writer: Arnold Drake and Roy Thomas
Penciler: Don Heck, Werner Roth and Neal Adams

Havok debuts, and the X-Men fight the Living Pharaoh.

Pharaoh is the sort of silver age villain who gets all his henchmen to dress up like ancient Egyptians and hide in sarcophagi until he gives orders. He’s also the sort of villain who kidnaps Cyclops’ younger brother Alex, knocks him unconscious, undresses him, and straps him half-naked to a table.

Pharaoh believes that all the ancient pharaohs were mutants and thus as a mutant he is a pharaoh. He believes killing Alex will increase his power, because Alex draws his power from the same source. This is eventually explained in the “Twelve” story: Mr. Sinister spliced Alex’s DNA into the Living Pharaoh, at the direction of Apocalypse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, in the back up strips, we get the goofy origin of Angel, in which he fights Cyclops and Iceman when they try to recruit him, but nothing of much importance happens. But can we talk about what’s going on with Angel’s bulge in the above shot? Iceman is thrilled to have a Angel join the team — remember, Warren was his original crush — and caps off this story with his sassy little arms akimbo pose. This origin story is retold in Uncanny Origins #3, and a flashback to this story appears in X-Men: Legacy #216.

 

X-Men #57-59 (June-August 1969)
Writer: Roy Thomas and Linda Fite
Penciler: Neal Adams and Werner Roth

The X-Men fight the new Mark II Sentinels, who’ve captured basically every mutant on earth. Havok gets his costume and codename.

I feel like it’s clear silver age Bobby and Hank were a gay couple by this point. They go to kill time in Scott’s Manhattan apartment and instantly Bobby’s just chilling in his undies with Hank. Then the Sentinels attack.

The X-Men all treat Lorna as Bobby’s girlfriend, and Bobby seems genuinely upset when she’s in danger. Iceman is also still being a bit over-the-top about pretending to be into the Scarlet Witch.

This is altogether one of the best stories of the Silver Age, with good soapy team dynamics and a compelling threat that actually deals with the themes of bigotry that are supposed to be at the heart of the series. Plus, Neal Adams’ art is fantastic.

Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad next appear in Avengers #76, where they are captured by Akron, the former two rejoin the cast, and Toad remains on Akron’s world.

The Sentinel story actually got a couple of follow ups. First, Roy Thomas’ Avengers #102-104 (Aug-Oct 1972) follows up on it directly. We see Judge Chalmers decide to release the super-villains and Mastermind, Blob, and Unus decide to reform the Brotherhood, which will go on to appear in a few stories. It’s also established that Larry Trask becomes Chalmers’, uh, “permanent house guest” from here on. What we end up seeing of this is just Larry hanging around Chalmers’ pool and being shirtless. One of the Sentinels that goes to attack the sun returns to Earth with a plan to wipe out all life and start again by selectively breeding human clones to eliminate mutants. It’s also revealed that Bolivar Trask had set up a second Sentinel plant in the Australian Outback. The Sentinel’s plan falls apart when Trask realizes that the Sentinel actually became a mutant from the solar radiation and gets the other Sentinels to turn on him (needless to say, this is a stretch of even Marvel’s definition of mutants). Larry completes his Trask cycle when the defeated Sentinel collapses onto him, crushing him to death. And Quicksilver disappears during the battle – it turns out he was injured and found by Crystal, who took him to Attilan to recover, where they fell in love. The get married in Fantastic Four #150 (September 1974), bolting him onto the Inhumans, which remains their status quo through several infidelities, team affiliation changes, evil periods, and deaths until 2007’s Silent War miniseries.

Next, X-Men: The Hidden Years #8 has several of the damaged Sentinels from issue #59 assemble into a new unit that tracks a new mutant to Beast’s hometown.

There’s also a backup feature of Marvel Girl demonstrating her powers, which is fine, but I’m glad to be done with the backups.

 

X-Men #60-61 (September-October 1969)
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciler: Neal Adams

The X-Men fight Sauron, who appears to commit suicide.

The X-Men take the injured Havok to Dr. Lykos, even though he is absolutely the creepiest doctor ever, because he was an associate of Prof. X. We learn that Lykos is something of an energy vampire, which somehow makes his patients feel better, but when he siphons the energy of mutants, he turns into Sauron.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lykos is the second villain in six months that strips Alex naked and straps him unconscious to a table.

In a rare bit of self-determination for a Silver Age female character, Lorna tells Jean that “Bobby’s fun….but I’m nobody’s ‘girl’!” When Bobby starts acting jealous of her and Alex’s obvious interest in each other, she basically says that to his face. Looks like no one was interested in this relationship, but the love triangle subplot will limp on until the title is cancelled and into the continuity filler series and hiatus era.

A flashback to this story appears in X-Men #115.

 

 

X-Men #62-63 (November-December 1969)
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciler: Neal Adams

The X-Men search for Sauron’s body in the Savage Land and end up stumbling into Magneto’s plan to turn the Savage Land’s people into a mutant army. Magneto apparently dies again, and the X-Men take it at face value even though they’ve seen him die before (he’ll next pop up in X-Men: The Hidden Years). Magneto also gives Angel a new costume, which he’ll learn in Avengers #110 was actually booby trapped.

This is a pretty fun story, even though the soapy elements are put on the backburner with Alex and Lorna stuck back at the Mansion and not appearing.

One point in this story that impacts Bobby: the mutate Lorelei has the power to entrance men and it’s heavily implied that this is based on sexual attraction. Bobby is ensorcelled by her along with the other male X-Men. Of course, it could just be that her power affects men regardless of orientation.

 

X-Men #64 (January 1970)
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciler: Don Heck

The X-Men stop Sunfire from blowing up the US Capitol and he learns a lesson about vengeance and bigotry.

It’s a fine story, though nothing of much concern happens for our purposes. Sunfire goes on to basically redo this exact story but on a South Pacific island in Sub-Mariner #52-54, but his “I’m angry about WWII” schtick gets a little more mileage fighting a guy who literally fought for the Allies. He then makes a brief appearance in the “Avengers/Defenders  War” story in Avengers #117 and Defenders #10, fights the Mandarin in Iron Man #68-70, meets Banshee in a short in Giant-Size X-Men #4 and joins the team briefly in Giant-Size X-Men #1.

 

 

X-Men #65 (February 1970)
Writer: Dennis O’Neill
Penciler: Neal Adams

It turns out Prof X is alive and preparing to fighting the invading Z’Nox aliens.

Well, it wouldn’t be the Silver Age X-Men if it didn’t end on dredging up old continuity and fighting unrelated villains. Still, Adams manages to sell the “Care Bears” ending with the way he dramatizes Xavier recruiting the compassion of the human race to fight the invaders – and if you squint, it just kind of resonates the themes of the series. This would have been a much stronger final issue than the one that ended up running after it.

Incidentally, the “love beam” is the first example of mutants using their powers together to achieve a unique effect, a theme that is cropping up a lot in the Hickman run. We later learn that the love beam is also what attracts Lilandra to Xavier when the series reboots in a few years.

The Bobby-Lorna-Alex subplot ticks over as well, with Bobby continuing to act like a jealous jerk and Lorna showing no interest in him. At least he seems to recognize it.

Unfortunately, Jean has a thought bubble where she worries that “Iceman’s got it bad for” Lorna. So maybe Jean doesn’t yet know that Bobby’s gay (the strength of her telepathic powers was really uneven in the Silver Age). Or maybe she’s making a private joke to herself.

The X-Men have got a point to be cranky when Alex chastises them for not arriving back at the X-Mansion earlier. The story has been continuous since Alex’s college graduation in #54. No wonder they’re exhausted. Though you’d think they could have called at some point! No wonder Lorna lost interest!

There’s a flashback to this story in X-Men: Legacy #213.

 

X-Men #66 (March 1970)
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciler: Sal Buscema

The X-Men fight the Hulk in Las Vegas in hopes that Bruce Banner can cure Xavier’s telepathic exhaustion, and the series comes to an end, for now.

Except that Iceman doesn’t go because he’s such a jealous jerk he thinks he has to stay behind to keep Alex and Lorna separated. Seriously, Bobby, she’s just not that into you. This subplot doesn’t even get tied up as the book is cancelled, so it meanders through The Hidden Years and hiatus appearances until Alex and Lorna are confirmed together in X-Men #97 after Iceman leaves the team. Still, Iceman’s apparent obsession with a woman who isn’t interested or available can also be read as a convenient cover: as long as everyone can see he’s hung up on Lorna, there are no questions why he’s not dating women. As we’ll see, this becomes a recurring character trope for Iceman for much of his published history.

Some stories in the hiatus era say that the destruction of the Vegas strip in this issue’s fight gets blamed on the X-Men, which ramps up anti-mutant hysteria and causes the X-Men to adopt a lower profile for the next few years.

And that’s the end of the original run of X-Men! But we’re not out of this era yet. In our next instalment, we’ll take a look at Bobby’s appearances in flashbacks and continuity plug-ins to this era.

Where to find these issues: Unless otherwise noted, they’re all on Marvel Unlimited. X-Men #44-45 are in X-Men Epic Collection Vol 2: Lonely are the Hunted, and X-Men #46-66 are in X-Men Epic Collection Vol 3: The Sentinels Live.