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 | Chapter 8: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 1 | Chapter 9: X-Men: First Class Vol 2 Part 2

When X-Men was cancelled with 1970’s #66, the book went on hiatus for several months before being revived as a reprint title that ran through to #93, after which the 1975 relaunch with Giant Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94 reinvented the team and kicked off the era when it was the hottest series on the market. In the intervening five years, the X-Men made a number of guest appearances in other Marvel books, and we’ll get to them soon, but first is X-Men: The Hidden Years, a series that ran from 1999-2001 and sought to answer the question, “What else were the X-Men up to in that five-year publishing gap?” And if you’re thinking, it can’t have been that important, or they’d have mentioned it by then, you’d be right. Still, while Iceman plays a fairly small role in the series, it does on the whole offer some more context to his ongoing struggles with the closet.

 

X-Men #94 – Backup story (December 1999)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

This was a promotional story for the new series that ran in the back of one of the main books.

Continuing straight after X-Men #66, Xavier launches his former students into a surprise training session against mental illusions. Bobby thinks this is another example of Xavier’s cruelty after the whole fake death story and quits. On his way out, he has a minor freak out on Lorna, having still not taken the hint that she’s not interested in playing his beard.

 

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #1 (December 1999)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

Iceman formally quits the group while the remaining X-Men (minus Havok and Lorna) are sent to the Savage Land to confirm that Magneto was killed in X-Men #63. Xavier is being a real jerk here, but in fairness, he’s not wrong about Magneto being alive.

Iceman tries to convince Lorna to quit with him and ends up getting in a fight with Alex where he accidently brains her with an ice cube. Lorna finally tells Bobby she’s not his girlfriend and never was. Humiliated, Bobby storms off. Having a fake girlfriend is a really hard trick to pull off.

 

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #2 (January 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

When Xavier senses the X-Men are in trouble in the Savage Land, he sends Havok and Lorna to rescue them. But the message is also heard by Iceman, who makes his own way to Antarctica out of guilt.

The timing on this story feels both weirdly slow and super compressed. Xavier told Havok, Lorna, and Iceman that the X-Men needed help last issue, so why is Bobby acting like he’s only hearing it now? How quickly did the X-Men get to the Savage Land anyway?

Anyway, after leaving the X-Men, Bobby wandered around Manhattan before showing up at Zelda’s apartment (which is styled like Rachel and Monica’s apartment on Friends) at 2am, and without a word of explanation just crashed on her couch. Ever the eternally patient gay-superhero-girlfriend, Zelda doesn’t question it, but does call him out for ghosting her weeks ago (she hasn’t been seen since X-Men #47/Marvel Holiday Special 1994), and is not at all impressed when he tells her about Lorna. It seems like Bobby really wants to tell Zelda something — like what he was doing wandering around (drunk?) in the Village at last call — but he just can’t find the words.

Right when he’s about to spit it out, he hears Xavier’s message and bolts. Was Xavier monitoring this conversation? Was Xavier trying to keep Bobby in the closet? Anyway, Zelda makes no further appearances anywhere.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #3-5 (February-April 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

The X-Men fight off a race of pterodactyl people in the Savage Land, Angel is rescued by a mute bird-woman named Avia, Magneto turns up alive and once again having psychic powers that he had in the Silver Age, and Havok and Polaris finally arrive in the Savage Land too late to join the story.

How did Magneto survive the end of X-Men #63? The same way that he survived at the end of Avengers #53, basically. He slipped into a convenient underground cave and a river brought him to a secret city in the Savage Land. In the end, a volcano destroys the secret city and the X-Men escape with Avia and Magneto on a gondola carried by radioactive hot air balloons. Magneto is lost in a storm and gets rescued by Amphibious in issue #10. Meanwhile, the Hank, Jean, and Scott are carried all the way to Africa, where they crash right at Storm’s feet.

Iceman doesn’t appear in issue #3 but makes it to Tierra del Fuego in #4. His pilot won’t take him further because of a massive storm across the South Atlantic. (How did he charter a flight to Argentina without Xavier’s help?) So Bobby tries to get the rest of the way to Antarctica on his own power.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #6-7 (May-June 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

Storm nurses Beast back to health and explains that new villain Deluge has usurped a rainstorm she created in an attempt to destroy the world. Cyclops spends this entire story unconscious so that he is still surprised to meet her in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Nevertheless, it’s strange that Storm, Beast and Jean never mention having met before.

Deluge starts with a strong concept – a youth from an uncontacted tribe who discovers the outside world and is outraged at the cruelty of people who left them in squalor – but buries that under a bland “destroy the world” plot and vaguely defined powers. The X-Men defeat Deluge, Storm goes on her way and the X-Men somehow get back to New York.

In the subplots, Iceman has finally reached the Savage Land and is found unconscious on the beach by Karl Lykos, who is still doing his creepy predator thing over him. He does not appear in #7.

And, Angel and Avia are found by fishermen who decide to sell them to a circus next issue.

Continuity note: When Hank suggests telling Xavier about Storm, Jean responds “He already knows about her, Hank… He knows about a lot of mutants he hasn’t told us about…” It’s not news that Xavier already knew Storm (they met when she was a child and Xavier confirmed he considered recruiting her for the original team in Uncanny X-Men #300), but it is news that Jean knows. But who else does Jean know about? Does she know about the team from Deadly Genesis? Does she know that Vulcan is Scott and Alex’s brother? Presumably she doesn’t know about Tessa, since if she did, the Hellfire Club would’ve found out she was a spy during the “Dark Phoenix Saga.”

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #8-9 (July-August 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

The X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four to go finally stop the Z’Noxx aliens that the X-Men turned away from invading earth in X-Men #66. They trap the Z’Noxx planet in the distortion zone. While they’re in space, Jean has a hallucination where she turns into Phoenix and murders the heroes.

Meanwhile, Havok and Polaris notice Iceman on their portable Cerebro and decide to go find him, and the conveniently amnesiac Iceman doesn’t recognize his rescuer, Karl Lykos (Sauron).

And, a Sentinel arrives at the home of 10-year-old Ashley Martin, who will go on to become a go-nowhere subplot. This is later revealed to be a stray Sentinel that has built itself from the scraps of five destroyed sentinels from the story that ran in X-Men #57-59.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #10-11 (September-October 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

Xavier takes Jean to Muir Island, where Moira can’t find any trace of whatever possessed Jean in space. Still, Moira takes Jean aside to press her privately on the details to see if she can remember anything. This fits nicely with the Hickman retcon, because presumably Moira knows about the Phoenix already and is trying to confirm her suspicions. The retcon also serves this scene well in that Jean is trying to confide in Moira about her worries about all the secrets Xavier is keeping from the team (including Muir Island), while Moira lies to Jean’s face about not being a mutant.

Xavier and Beast go meet Ashley Martin and are promptly attacked by the Sentinel. Ashley turns out to have vaguely defined “psychokinetic bonding” powers that give her control over the Sentinel. When the Sentinel’s core programming takes over and attacks her, she makes it destroy itself.

The remaining X-Men go with Candy Southern to rescue Angel. They find a boat full of self-proclaimed Freaks who are all low-level mutants keeping them prisoner. The X-Men are thwarted by the Freaks’ leader Kreuger. He wants to sell them to the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants, which at this point is just Blob, Unus, and Mastermind, like he did with Angel.

Havok and Polaris still haven’t found Iceman, who’s still being taken care of by Lykos. Lykos is trying to use technology left behind by a German geothermal energy expedition to satisfy his own hunger for energy.

Issue #11 has a weird time jump, presenting a scene from the middle of next issue where Bobby and Lykos are under attack from someone, and when Bobby goes to help him, Lykos drains him and becomes Sauron. Meanwhile, the draining scene sure looks sexual, with Bobby brought to his knees in front of Lykos.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #12 (September 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

We finally see that it was Magneto attacking Bobby and Lykos last issue, in a confusingly presented flashback (it literally takes 20 pages to get to where we left off last issue!). He wants the geothermal energy machines for himself.

Havok and Polaris finally reach Bobby four issues after finding him, but Magneto beats them there. Iceman recovers his memory now that it’s no longer inconvenient to the plot. Sauron wipes all their memories at the end of the story so they don’t spoil his eventual return in the Claremont run.

Namor rescues Magneto from the beach in a scene repeated from Fantastic Four #102.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #13 (October 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

Blob tries to rape Marvel Girl under Mastermind’s illusions, but Marvel Girl sees through it. Mind control villains raping female protagonists is an unfortunate trope of the Marvel Universe, but Jean has generally avoided it (she/Phoenix also rejected Mesmero’s attempted rape in Classic X-Men #17). Mastermind’s failure to control Jean gives him the idea to use a longer-term strategy to control her (retroshadowing his role in the “Dark Phoenix Saga.” I also like to think this story prompts Mastermind not to try to rape her in the lead up to Dark Phoenix Saga, contrary to the implications of that story).

The Brotherhood makes the Cyclops, Angel, and Candy fight Mastermind’s illusions in a circus. Krueger returns, belatedly having realized that he was only paid with illusory money.

Bobby says the Savage Land natives said the X-Men left “more than a day ago”… That was issue #5. The timeline in this book is seriously wonky. It’s both incredibly slow to progress but seems like way too much happens in way too little time.

Meanwhile, Xavier shuts down Ashley’s powers using his mind and wipes her memory of the whole story. Nevertheless, he’ll end up moving in with the Martins for the rest of the series in a subplot that goes absolutely nowhere.

And in a subplot page, Angel’s uncle is about to marry his mother. Apparently this is happening right away and she hasn’t been able to reach Warren.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #14-15 (November-December 2000)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

The X-Men defeat the Brotherhood and convince the freaks to turn on Kreuger. Well, Jean may have telepathically influenced them to do that. But she also just tells the freaks to go get lives, which is maybe not the most helpful thing she could have suggested to a group of destitute mutants.

The X-Men put Avia in the sick bay, where she stays for the rest of the series.

Candy finally tells Warren about the wedding, so the original group (including Iceman, who hasn’t actually rejoined but wants to help out his high school crush Warren) go to try to stop it. Warren has never told the X-Men about his run-in with his uncle in Ka-zar #2-3 and Marvel Tales #30. Unfortunately, Dazzler has ditched the pink and orange studded leather getup from the original story.

Uncle Bert is the villainous Dazzler, who has scientifically derived light powers and murdered Warren’s father. Bert somehow survived falling to his apparent death in the original story and Warren apparently never noticed his uncle still being alive. And since that happened max a couple months previous, Warren’s mom seems to be moving on incredibly fast.

Warren says he’s never told his mother about being a mutant. That contradicts X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #12.

This whole story is stupid melodrama to the extreme. Warren can’t warn his mother that Dazzler is a supervillain who killed her husband because the shock would kill her. Meanwhile, Dazzler is poisoning her to take the family fortune for himself but can’t be bothered to wait until the wedding, so she dies a day early. In the end, Jean mindwipes Dazzler and has him turn himself in to the authorities next issue. I guess the point of this story was to explain what happened to Angel’s mother, who Warren just announced was dead in an issue of The Champions.

Warren’s doctor explains to his mother’s recent turn to religion by saying “Your mother has returned to the faith of her fathers.” Was Warren’s mom raised by two dads?

Meanwhile, Lorna meets Tad Carter in Salem Centre, beginning the “Promise” story. Tad Carter appeared in a five-page strip in Amazing Adult Fantasy #14, a story that served as a prototype for the X-Men. It’s a very obscure reference, but it was reprinted in the X-Men: Rareties TPB, and I suppose it’s nice that Byrne wanted to tie it directly into the mythos.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #16 (January 2001)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

The X-Men go to the Himalayas to track a new mutant, who turns out to be Yeti of The Lost Generation, a little-remembered book that Byrne had just finished working on. It’s kind of a reverse trailer for that series.

The X-Men recognize the Inhumans when they show up, which is surprising since they’ve never met at this point. Well, except for Medusa, who was briefly a team member in X-Men: First Class Vol. 2 #15.

Iceman has a little scene where Lorna chides him for not understanding romance. It kinda reads a bit like Bobby’s not caring about girls bit from X-Men #1.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #17 (February 2001)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

Kraven wants to hunt the Beast. Beast beats him, and Jean mindwipes him and sends him to confess to the police. A subplot has Beast brooding about a darker nature that took over during his fight with Kraven, retroshadowing his transformation in Amazing Adventures #11.

Lorna floats away to kick off the Promise story.

Bobby is still bickering with Alex, and this time it seems weirdly sexual. He threatens to undress Alex down to his ankles. Alex threatens to shove a carrot up his nose.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #18-19 (March-April 2001)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

We learn that the Promise are a group of mutants who were recruited by Messenger, whose plan is for them to wait out the inevitable mutant-human wars in suspended animation and awake to rule whoever is left. Only one of the members ever develops a personality in this story, but three characters are specifically tied to an issue of Yellow Claw from the Golden Age, for some reason. One of them, Craig, has illusion powers and tricks the X-Men into fighting each other into submission. Bizarrely, this scene also has Havok knock out Cyclops with his powers even though they’re supposed to be immune to each other.

Messenger’s base is built into a series of tunnels we later learn were built by the Deviants. Messenger puts Lorna, Havok, and Angel in suspended animation, but just chucks the other X-Men into the tunnels, where they stumble into Mole Man. A member of the Promise, Lucy Robinson, frees Angel so he can help her escape the group.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #20-21 (March 2001)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

The X-Men fight Mole Man, who’s still pissed about the time they beat him in the execrable X-Men #34 (and Fantastic Four Annual #3, but it seems even fewer people remember that).

Meanwhile, Magneto persuades Namor to invade the surface world, building up to the story that appeared in Fantastic Four #102-104 and will be largely repeated in the next few issues. Xavier tries to convince Magneto to stop the invasion and fails.

And Lucy turns out to have the power to compel people to do things, which explains why Angel was so eager to help her. Her surviving son is not at all impressed to see his mom show up thirty years after she disappeared.

Angel convinces her to go back and free the other Promise members, but Lucy can’t figure out how to open the time lock tubes. Xavier comes up with the simple solution of turning the clocks forward.

Messenger took off Alex’s clothes before putting him in stasis, a recurring theme (see also Living Pharaoh, Sauron…).

Havok goes to help stop the invasion but gets beat up by a bunch of angry humans.

 

X-Men: The Hidden Years #22 (May 2001)
Writer and Artist: John Byrne and Tom Palmer

Xavier gives Reed Richards the idea for the device he uses to stop Magneto at the end of Fantastic Four #104. This is the X-Men’s entire contribution to this story. I can only imagine it’s here to explain why the X-Men weren’t involved in a major battle involving their arch foe. If you’re wondering how Magneto escaped the prison Richards built for him, it gets an explanation in Amazing Adventures #9-10, where he uses his heretofore unspoken mastery of yoga to escape. Yes, really. After this point, Magneto drifts into becoming a generic world-conquering supervillain for other characters for the remainder of the Silver Age, the X-Men no longer having a book to fight him in.

The X-Men escape Mole Man and Iceman decides Xavier wasn’t so bad for lying to them. It’s not terribly convincing. The X-Men emerge on Monster Island, which looks like a radioactive wasteland post-Fantastic Four #1. That doesn’t match what the island looks like in other stories, even ones from this era. Beast recognizes the island nonetheless, since the team has previously been there in X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #2-3, and X-Men: First Class Special (which, yes, I know haven’t yet been written). It’s never explained how they get home, but I like to think Jean stopped by to say hello to Dragon Man while there.

Havok says he’s never experienced anti-mutant prejudice before, apparently forgetting his capture by Sentinels in X-Men #57-59.

The members of the Promise decide to go about their lives and are never seen again. It’s implied that Lucy Robinson did something to kill Messenger before he awoke.

The story with the Martins just ends, having gone nowhere. Ashley was never seen again. And Avia is sent back to the Savage Land off panel, her story never going anywhere either.

And Beast turns twenty, symbolically ending the X-Men’s run as “the strangest teens of all.” Warren notes that he and Scott are also about to turn 20. This has to be viewed with a little license, since Alex was at least 18 in his debut (where Scott took him to a bar to celebrate his graduating from college as a child prodigy), and Scott is clearly more than a year older than him. In fact, since Beast is at least two, probably three years older than Iceman, and Iceman turned 18 in the original silver age run, Beast should have turned 20 well before this.

And that ends The Hidden Years! Twenty years later I still have no idea what the point of it was, and literally none of the plot developments mentioned in it have ever been brought up since.

Where to find these issues: The whole series is available on Marvel Unlimited, or you can track down the two volumes of TPB that it was released in a couple years ago.

Next week: We’ll pick up where the original series left off, covering the hiatus period from 1970-1975.