Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Part 2 | Chapter 3: The Roy Thomas Era (1966-1968) | Chapter 4: The End of the Silver Age (1968-1970) | Chapter 5: Origins and Flashbacks Part 1 | Chapter 6: Silver Age Flashbacks Part 2 | Chapter 7: X-Men: First Class Vol 1

The 2006-2007 X-Men: First Class miniseries proved to be such a surprise hit, that it immediately spawned an ongoing sequel (not to mention three other spinoff series), which we’ll cover the first half of this week. The rebooted series is a bit more linear in order, as we’ll see. The first eight issues slot neatly between X-Men #18-19.

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #1 (June 2007)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Roger Cruz

Xavier enlists Invisible Girl to be a mentor for Jean Grey.

The Fit: The X-Men have already met the Fantastic Four, and the Fantastic Four already know their identities, meaning it must take place after the wedding in Fantastic Four Annual #3, which takes place during the Sentinels story, so let’s place it in the gap between X-Men #18-19.

 

 

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #2-3 (July-August 2007)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Roger Cruz

The X-Men go to Monster Island at Professor X’s request, only to find out that they were tricked by Mastermind.

Another cute story which pays off a favorite running joke where the petrified Mastermind is being used as a hat rack in the mansion. It also gives a slight explanation for why Mastermind went from a petty illusionist in the Brotherhood to being able to control Phoenix in the Hellfire Club.

The Fit: The gap between #18-19, after X-Men: First Class Vol 1 #3.

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #4 (September 2007)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Julia Bax

The X-Men have a two-week vacation, which Bobby and Hank use to go on a road trip where they bond over both feeling like outsiders in the X-Men.

This entire issue feels like a very coded story about a gay relationship.

Bobby’s original plan was to stick around the school. He doesn’t want to go back to his hometown where “rednecks hate anyone different.” He says if Professor X and Cyclops hadn’t gotten him out of that place, “I didn’t think I would have lived to see college.” This somewhat ambiguous line gets picked up on by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa in X-Men Origins: Iceman, where Bobby soliloquizes about young mutants who kill themselves out of fear in an obvious and tragic parallel to queer kids in the real world.

Prof X nudges Hank to spend the vacation with Bobby, in a kind of parallel with his earlier maneuvers to set up Scott and Jean in this series in particular.

So then Hank and Bobby steal Warren’s incredibly dick-shaped car for their road trip. And if you think I’m reading too much into the shape of this car, wait until they run out of gas and Hank has to get behind Bobby and push it. 

This isn’t a particularly plot-heavy issue, but every anecdote on the road trip seems to be coded. The first stop is a roadside attraction called The Devil’s Vortex, one of those houses full of optical illusions that make it seem like gravity is going wonky. So you know, everything is bent or queer. 

Their next stop is a casino in Atlantic City, which greets us with a sign boasting AC’s former tourism slogan, “Always turned on.” Hmmmm. We have to just hand-wave the fact that Bobby and Hank get into the casino and are allowed to play even though they’re below the legal gambling age of 21. Hank does at least look a little older usually.

Next, the boys eschew a hotel and pitch a tent on a camp ground.  The next day they stop in Appalachia to swallow some salty nuts.

After Bobby teaches Hank how to drive, they spend a page travelling down the I-95,  gossiping about Warren, and bitching about Scott and Xavier’s fashion senses.

Finally, they end up in Key West, Florida. It seems like Jeff Parker just read an interesting factoid about the cats at Ernest Hemingway’s house on the island, but Key West also happens to be significant gay tourist destination. Adding this all up, it really seems to lend credence to the theory that silver age Bobby and Hank were a couple.

The Fit: This is an awkward but not impossible issue to fit in. It references the preceding Monster Island story, so it has to follow. That puts it in the last available window before Roy Thomas had Hank and Bobby as a regular duo.

The biggest problem with the issue is that Alex Summers shows up in the opening sequence, picking up Scott for a road trip. But when he debuted in X-Men #54, all the other X-Men reacted as if this was the first time they were hearing Scott had a brother. Still, that was just stupid handwave-y dialogue to rationalize why we’d never heard of him before. But in fact, X-Men: The Hidden Years #1 (1999) had already said that Alex was “a secret Xavier has allowed [Scott] to keep.” But if why would Scott want to keep it a secret? Well, X-Men: Deadly Genesis #4 says that Xavier brought Scott and Alex to Muir-McTaggart in New York shortly after Alex was found, which is where Scott found out he was a mutant (though knowledge of both the facility and Moira is wiped from both of their minds). Perhaps this is where that event goes, with all the other X-Men helpfully on vacation. Maybe upon learning that Alex is a mutant, Scott and/or Alex asks Xavier to make the other X-Men forget about him, which explains why they’re so surprised to see him and why Scott already knows Alex is a mutant in #54. That fits with Alex’s character, as he was generally averse to mutant life in his appearances through the 1990s.

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #5 (October 2007)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Roger Cruz

The X-Men fight the Hulk at the request of the US Military.

Nothing of particular importance.

The Fit: Again, it sounds like it belongs fairly early in the series, so let’s just place it immediately after the preceding issue.

 

 

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #6-7 (November-December 2007)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Roger Cruz

An extraterrestrial lifeform or computer briefly takes away the X-Men’s powers right before the Sentinels attack. The Sentinels decide not to bother since they’re no longer mutants. Then their powers are rebooted but stronger, just in time to save Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

Kind of a strange two-parter, but the gimmick is fun. Oddly, the X-Men recognize that a Sentinel attack shouldn’t happen since they destroyed the Mastermold in X-Men #16, but then when they learn that Mastermold had a backup production line, they don’t do anything in the story to shut it down. Perhaps they found it between issues? Or, they never found it and this is the backup in Australia seen in Avengers #102-104.

Beast is at this point comfortable enough to walk into Bobby’s bedroom in his underwear.

Continuity note: When the X-Men’s powers are boosted, Angel has healing powers, a reference to his “healing blood” powers from the then-recent Chuck Austen run (which haven’t really been referenced since).

The Fit: This has to follow the Sentinel story and the fight with Magneto that immediately follows it, but also before Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch join the Avengers, so immediately following the previous issue between X-Men #18-19 is the most likely fit, and probably before X-Men: First Class Vol 1 #3. It’s not a perfect fit, because the Sentinel story is contemporaneous with the Fantastic Four wedding, in which Wanda and Pietro are guests, but if you squint everything can still fit. Maybe they haven’t officially joined yet? Maybe they have and Wanda and Pietro simply haven’t fully moved to New York when this story picks up? Maybe they’re just on a break?

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #8 (January 2008)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Roger Cruz

The X-Men team-up with the Man-Thing when they realize that the extraterrestrial from the previous issue had an effect on the Nexus of All Realities when they sent it back to space. (Also guest starring Lizard).

Very little Bobby here. In the alternate reality he gets taken to, he becomes the Ice Giant and fights Thor on behalf of the Frost Giants, whom humans have banished from the planet. It’s interesting to see Bobby’s persecution complex play out like this, as he chooses yet another persecuted identity beyond “mutant.”

Continuity Notes: The X-Men are pulled into various alternate realities, including one where Jean has become Dark Phoenix and killed all the mutants in the “Mutant Wars.” You’d think everyone here would have remembered this when the Phoenix actually showed up, but maybe their memories of these alternate worlds faded quickly, like dreams.

The Fit: Immediately after the preceding issue.

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #9 (February 2009)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Julia Bax and Colleen Coover

Marvel Girl and Black Widow team-up with Black Widow to stop Hydra.

Iceman doesn’t appear in this issue.

The Fit: Has to come early in the series, before Wanda joins the Avengers, and it appears also to be before X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #6-7, when she and Pietro have moved “to the coast.” Let’s place it between X-Men #11-12, after X-Men: First Class Vol 1 #8.

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #10 (March 2008)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Roger Cruz

When the other X-Men are sick, Cyclops goes on a solo mission against a psychopathic mutant and kills him.

Iceman is barely in this issue, and nothing remarkable happens to him. But having Cyclops’ first intentional kill happen in this series is a hell of a thing. (Cyclops had previously killed Jack O’Diamonds in his origin story, but that was arguably not his fault).

The Fit: There’s no specific place this needs to go, so we may as well place it immediately after the preceding issue, between X-Men #11-12.

 

X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #11 (April 2008)
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Nick Dragotta

Iceman, Marvel Girl, and Beast team-up with the Continui-teens when Mysterio gets reality warping powers from swamp water at the Nexus of All Realities.

Nothing really of note for Bobby, but there’s some interest in the fact that one of the Continui-teens either is gay or believes his friend is.

The Fit: This is a self-cancelling story that’s more of a joke about the idea of trying to reconcile this series with the 60s continuity, but if it goes anywhere, it goes after X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #8, between X-Men #18-19.

Where to find these stories: They’re all on Marvel Unlimited, and they were all collected in long out-of-print TPBs: X-Men: First Class – Mutant Mayhem collects issues #1-5, plus the X-Men First Class Special; X-Men: First Class – Band of Brothers collects issues #6-10; and issue #11 is found in X-Men: First Class – The Wonder Years.

Next Week: We wrap up our look back at Bobby’s school era with the final chunk of X-Men: First Class, including a look at Bobby’s rocky relationship with his first crush, Angel.