Previous Posts: Introduction | Chapter 1: Lee/Kirby Era Part 1 | Chapter 2: Lee/Kirby Era 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 | Chapter 10: The Hidden Years | Chapter 11: X-Men on Hiatus (1970-75) | Chapter 12: The Champions Part 1 (1975-76) | Chapter 13: The Champions Part 2 (1977-78) | Chapter 14: The College Years (1978-83) | Chapter 15: The New Defenders Part 1 (1983-84) | Chapter 16: The New Defenders Part 2 (1984-85) | Chapter 17: The End of the New Defenders (1985-86) | Chapter 18: X-Factor Part 1 (1986) | Chapter 19: X-Factor – Mutant Massacre (1987) | Chapter 20: X-Factor – Fall of the Mutants (1987) | Chapter 21: X-Factor: Inferno Prologue

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched the X-Men in September 1963 with a bang, but the series never really developed the sort of fandom their other Marvel creations did. And while these early issues lay the groundwork for the sorts of stories that would eventually propel the series to mainstream success, you can tell it’s still very sketchy at this point.

So this is where Iceman makes his debut. And while it’s almost certain Lee and Kirby didn’t intend for him to be gay, these issues also lay down a lot of scenes that support a reading of him being gay, so there’s a lot to unpack here.

This entry covers the first 10 issues of X-Men, where a lot of Iceman’s basic character is developed. As this is the only period of the series where the main characters are high school students and portrayed as novices, there are a lot of flashbacks and continuity implants to this era (notably in X-Men: First Class) but we’ll get to those in a future installment. But Stan Lee had the X-Men make guest appearances across the line in their first year, so there’s still a lot of content to cover.

Don’t worry, future entries won’t be this long.

X-Men #1 (Sept 1963)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

It’s the first appearances of Magneto and the X-Men, including our man Bobby Drake, and he’s one of the few characters whose personality has been fairly worked out at this point. Stan Lee has said he intended Iceman to be like the X-Men’s version of the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch – the young, impetuous jokester. We see this play out with Iceman playing a prank on Beast, picking a fight with Angel, and dressing up as a snowman for a gag. Iceman says he’s a “couple years younger” than the other guys, but he might not be as young as you think – Xavier says he’s 16.

Fans looking for queer subtext didn’t have to do a lot of work in this issue. When Jean Grey shows up at the mansion for the first time, Cyclops, Beast, and Angel are all tripping over themselves to ogle her, while Iceman walks away saying “A girl… big deal! I’m glad I’m not a wolf like you guys!” Later, as Angel flirts with her, Bobby interjects “Y’know something, Warren, if I had your line, I’d shoot myself!” On the one hand, it seems like Stan had intended Iceman to be just too young to be into girls. On the other hand… he’s 16. And look at the way Bobby is looking at Warren in this panel.

 

 

Incidentally, Jean doesn’t know Bobby’s gay yet, because she doesn’t have access to her telepathic powers at this point in her history. Xavier on the other hand… not only is he the strongest telepath in the world, he’s demonstrably unconcerned with ethical questions around using his powers. He almost certainly knows that Bobby is gay. But we’ll get back to that soon.

Understandably, lots of other stories have flashed back to X-Men #1 over the years. These include X-Men #138, X-Men: Legacy #208 and #214, X-Men Origins: Cyclops, and X-Men: The Wedding Album. None of these add anything terribly important to Bobby.

 

X-Men #2 (Nov 1963)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men fight the Vanisher.

Iceman has now developed a really awful “I love cold” schtick that’s reminiscent of Batman & Robin’s Mr. Freeze. By the end of the issue even Cyclops is groaning at the ice puns. In this issue, he hitches a ride in the back of an ice cream truck in a poor sight gag. He’s also a bit of a brat, attacking the other X-Men with snowballs for no reason. He calls Beast a gorilla and jokes about sticking him with a cactus. He picks fights with Angel and Cyclops.

Then he has a little jealous fit when Cyclops saves Marvel Girl from a Danger Room trap. I’ll say this though – he certainly doesn’t seem to be trying to impress Marvel Girl by mocking her damsel in distress routine. It reads more like he wants attention from the guys for being manly, or from competing with the older Cyclops.

I’ve always loved that Vanisher specifies that the $10 million ransom he demands from the government must be “tax-free,” as if he was gonna declare it on his Form 1040.

X-Men #3 (Jan 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men fight the Blob and a bunch of carnies.

Stan has worked out the other X-Men’s characters by this point, but Iceman is still a brat picking fights with Beast and Angel.

We get another scene of the X-Men boys competing over who gets to team up with Jean on the mission. For the first time, Bobby seems really eager to be with Jean, or at least to beat the other guys to be with her. Stan likely intended this to be Bobby finally maturing into being a horndog, but we can read this as Bobby starting to play along to hide suspicions that he’s gay. To an extent, all his bratty behavior in this era can be read this way, as the other boys dismiss him as being basically a child. Anyway, when Angel “steals” Jean away for the team-up, Bobby puts on a good annoyed act for Scott and Hank.

Incidentally, all of the X-Men boys, including Iceman, are pretty awful about making cracks about Blob’s weight.

Tales of Suspense #49 (January 1963)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Steve Ditko

While flying over a Stark weapons factory, Angel gets caught in an atomic blast (!!) that makes him become evil. The now smarter and craftier Angel announces he’s quitting the X-Men and mops the floor with all of them in a fight. Professor X is terribly concerned that if Angel joins Magneto, the evil mutants will be unbeatable, so he calls in the Avengers to help track him down, but only Iron Man responds. Angel actually manages to run rings around Iron Man, and only comes to his senses when he sees Iron Man falling to his death. Angel and Professor X tell Iron Man they owe him a favor, which he cashes in almost immediately…

 

 

Avengers #3 (January 1963)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

Iron Man interrupts a Danger Room session to ask the X-Men if they’ve seen the Hulk. Xavier says he’ll let him know, and asks him to leave. That’s it. It’s basically just a tour of the other titles for cross-promotion purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

X-Men #4 (Mar 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men fight the Brotherhood (of Evil Mutants) in Santo Marco.

Also debuting this issue: Iceman’s arms akimbo pose! Somewhat overlooked in X-Men history, from this point forward, when artists have to draw Iceman in the background or in a group shot and he doesn’t have anything specific to do, he stands with his hands on his hips in a sassy little pose. As a visual signifier, it’s pretty key, and it pops up all over the place. Kirby gives us two such panels in this issue.

Finally annoyed by all Iceman’s attitude, Angel bullies a half-naked Iceman at the end of a Danger Room session. It may have been exactly the attention he was craving. Later, Iceman bursts in on Angel while he’s getting dressed for a mission, which becomes a bit of a running theme for them in the Lee/Kirby run.

This being the debut of the Brotherhood, it’s been the subject of a few flashbacks, notably X-Men: Legacy #209 and Avengers #234, but neither adds anything of consequence.

X-Men #5 (May 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men fight the Brotherhood (again), and when they win, Xavier says they’ve all graduated.

Just look at Iceman’s facial expression when Warren, watching a track meet on TV, says “There’s the fella I wanted you to see! He’s bringing up the rear! Don’t take your eyes off him!” To be fair, Angel is throwing some very mixed signals here.

 

 

Strange Tales #120 (May 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The Human Torch and Iceman meet by coincidence on a harbor cruise and stop some pirates led by Barracuda.

Johnny Storm reads in the newspaper that Iceman is “a frozen version of the Human Torch,” which, as noted, is exactly what Stan Lee had in mind.

Meanwhile at the X-Mansion, Iceman laments that “Whenever I get the nerve to ask Jean for a date, the Angel, or Cyclops, or someone beats me to it.” A convenient cover.

Xavier, who, remember, knows that Iceman is gay, suggests that Bobby go see the sights in New York. He may as well direct him straight to the Stonewall Inn. When we get to X-Men: First Class, we’ll see Xavier be a bit more pointed in setting up his students romantically. Iceman decides to go on a boat cruise around Manhattan, because “there are always lots of swinging teens on these cruises!” Maybe he just wanted to hang around the docks.

Once on the boat, Bobby’s thoughts race. “There are a zillion chicks, just as I hoped… But they’ve all got dates!” Let’s just play with some punctuation and conjunctions “There are a zillion chicks… Just as I hoped, they’ve all got dates!”

Bobby does flirt with a girl, who turns out to be Johnny Storm’s date Doris. But when she tells him she’s taken, he seems really curious about what makes her guy so special. Sounds a little jealous to me. Come on, you wanna see Doris and Bobby in some Will & Grace hijinks, don’t you?

After dealing with the pirates, Bobby slinks off, thinking to himself that “all those guys and their dates will have something to talk about for months.” Johnny laments that he would have liked to get to know Iceman better and remarks to Doris that he must have dozens of girlfriends.

Marvel Chronology Project has this between the pages of X-Men #5, but that has to be an error, because Xavier is catatonic until the end of that issue. Iceman and Human Torch go on to have several team-ups in the silver age and in modern stories set it the silver age, notably in X-Men: First Class Vol 2 #16, Fantastic Four Vol 6 #23, and Marvel Team-Up #23, all of which we’ll get to later.

 

Fantastic Four #28 (July 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The Puppet Master and Mad Thinker mind control Professor X and have him order the X-Men to fight the Fantastic Four.

Nothing much important happens here except that the two teams meet in full for the first time. I do have to note that the contrast between Kirby’s art here and in X-Men is striking. There are interesting compositions, perspectives, and backdrops… X-Men is clearly not his priority title. To be fair he was drawing half the line at the time.

 

 

X-Men #6 (July 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men and the Brotherhood try to recruit Namor.

Nothing of any importance for our man Bobby.

There’s a brief flashback to this issue in Avengers #16 (1964).

 

 

 

 

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (July 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Steve Ditko

The X-Men make a one-panel cameo to advertise their own book. Nothing of importance happens.

 

 

 

 

 

Journey Into Mystery #109 (Oct 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

Magneto send the Brotherhood off to find the X-Men, and then stumbles into a battle with Thor. The X-Men are off-panel for the whole story.

This is where Excalibur: XX Crossing goes, but we’ll come back to that in a future installment.

 

 

 

 

X-Men #7 (September 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The Brotherhood tries to recruit the Blob.

Bobby and the rest of the original class officially graduate. Xavier takes a leave of absence to go fight Lucifer.

Bobby takes Hank to the (unnamed in this issue) Coffee A-Go-Go, “the coolest little coffee shop in Greenwich Village, with the dreamiest waitress!” That waitress is Zelda, who goes on to be Bobby’s pseudo-girlfriend for most of the sixties. But bear in mind, they go months at a time without seeing each other and never consummate their relationship. Bobby’s pick up line: “If you twist my arm, I think I could learn to like you.” No, Bobby, you can’t, and it would be illegal to offer or advertise services that suggest you can in the state of New York. They’re not even looking at each other in the panel. Bobby is also doing double-time trying to hide his homosexuality by wearing the ugliest fucking suit imaginable.

Coffee A-Go-Go is likely a reference to the Café Au-Go-Go, a nightclub under Andy Warhol’s Garrick Cinema from 1964-69. Stan Lee was probably thinking of it as a music and comedy venue that hosted the Grateful Dead and Joni Mitchell (among others), but the Garrick Cinema was also notable as the premiere screening location for Warhol’s very queer films.

Later at the X-Mansion, Bobby helps Warren get undressed, and gets so excited he freezes his own clothes off. Hmmm. That’s right, Jack Kirby drew Iceman getting hard while tearing off Angel’s clothes. Better cover it up by talking about your girlfriend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incidentally, this issue is also the first appearance of Bernard the Poet, who performs/grifts at the Coffee A-Go-Go. A non-continuity story from 2008 reveals he’s a mutant whose powers are related to his performance poetry, but in this issue he’s performing at the same time as a jazz combo so presumably no one can hear him if that is indeed true.

X-Men #8 (November 1964)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

While Xavier’s away, Beast temporarily quits, and the team meets Unus the Untouchable.

Iceman adopts his familiar icy form rather than the snowman look for the first time.

After Beast rescues a child from a water tower, an angry mob attacks him and Iceman. It’s their first real experience with intolerance in print and it drives Beast to quit the X-Men (it doesn’t last). As we’ll eventually see when we get to the “Origins of the X-Men” backup strips, Iceman is already very familiar with violent intolerance, so he’d rather stick with the X-Men. By contrast, Beast has grown up with a relatively welcoming family and community.

But before he leaves, this is where a time-travelling Beast brings the original X-Men to the future in 2012’s All-New X-Men #1, and they stay in that era until the 2018 Extermination miniseries. That means between pages 6 and 7, the X-Men have lived 7 years of publishing time, and Iceman has come out and had his first boyfriend. But that story is written such that their memories of their time in the future are completely wiped until the moment the story catches up with their adult selves, so it need not concern us here. (Although, sidebar, the fact that other than Iceman, none of the adult X-Men were changed by their memories of their younger selves being in the future does seriously undercut the significance of that whole story).

X-Men #9 (January 1965)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men go to the Balkans to help Xavier fight Lucifer and end up fighting the Avengers first.

It’s not really a classic, but it is the first time the X-Men meet the Avengers as a team. Bobby seems to have been particularly excited to see Thor, staring longingly at him in one panel. When the Avengers leave, he laments “Too bad Goldilocks broke it up so soon! I was just getting warmed up!” I’m sure you were, Bobby. Bobby actually first met Thor in X-Men: First Class Vol 1 #7, but that story won’t come out for 40 years. 

Fantastic Four #36 (Mar 1965)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men attend the engagement party of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. For completists, Professor X and Cyclops also make a cameo out of costume in Fantastic Four #35, trying and failing to find mutants on the State University campus. Nothing of real consequence to the X-Men happens in either issue.

This is where the 2010 “First and Last” story from X-Men Vol 3 fits.

X-Men #10 (March 1965)
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciler: Jack Kirby

The X-Men visit the Savage Land and meet Ka-Zar for the first time. Bobby does seem more than a little impressed with Ka-Zar, who he refers to as a “muscle man” at one point.

Iceman’s bad fake flirting with Marvel Girl: “Terrif, Jeanie! If you had ice power you’d be perfect!” Uh-huh.

This is a good spot for a break. Next week, we’ll cover the second half of the Lee/Kirby era.

Next week, we’ll finish off the Lee/Kirby era of the X-Men.

Where to find these issues: All of these issues are available on Marvel Unlimited. The X-Men issues are collected in X-Men Epic Collection Vol 1 – Children of the Atom.