Written by Stan Lee – Pencils by Jack Kirby – Inks by Paul Reinman – Letters by Sam Rosen
Another week. Another piece of the Marvel Universe falls into place.
September 1963 has already given us the Avengers. Now Lee and Kirby introduce another superhero team. The X-Men.
Much of what will define the series is already here, while so much of what those ideas will eventually mean isn’t.
We begin at Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, where four teenage mutants are training under Professor X.
Cyclops. Angel. Beast. Iceman.
Lee and Kirby spend the first several pages essentially demonstrating everyone’s powers and personalities. They’re recognizable, but they’re barely characters yet.
Hank McCoy certainly isn’t the verbose intellectual he’ll become. Right now, Beast is built like a gorilla and has a lot of Ben Grimm in his personality. Bobby Drake fills something closer to the Johnny Storm role.
Jean Grey, Marvel Girl, arrives and every teenage boy in the school immediately loses his mind. Beast gets a little handsy and Warren is already imagining dating her.
We get one more display of power, this time Jean’s telekinesis, and then Professor X gives us an exposition rant on what all this means and how the X-Men fit in the Marvel Universe.
Mutants are being born across the world with extraordinary abilities. Xavier has created a secret school where he can find them, teach them to control their powers, and prepare them to protect humanity.
Some mutants, however, believe their powers make them superior to ordinary humans. Those are the evil mutants.
That’s pretty much the entire philosophical conflict at this point.
The complicated relationship between mutants and humanity that will eventually become central to the X-Men isn’t really here yet. Xavier appears to work comfortably alongside the government, and there isn’t much sense that the X-Men themselves are feared or hated.
X-Men #1 also introduces their greatest adversary, Magneto.
If the X-Men haven’t completely become themselves yet, neither has he. Magneto calls mutants Homo superior and believes they should rule humanity. There’s no tragic history or complicated political philosophy presented here. He’s essentially a supervillain bent on world domination.
Lee and Kirby do, however, show off how terrifying Magneto can be. He demonstrates his abilities by sabotaging a missile launch before taking control of a military base. Guns, tanks, missiles—everything the military has built becomes a weapon he can turn against them.
In 1963, with the Cold War and nuclear arms race hanging over everything, there’s something particularly effective about a villain whose power allows him to seize control of humanity’s most dangerous weapons.
The X-Men are sent to stop him, giving Kirby another superhero team to play with. Cyclops unleashes the full force of his optic blasts. The team combines its powers to intercept missiles. Magneto moves through the base while machinery and weapons fly around him.
It’s big, chaotic superhero action.
Eventually Magneto escapes. But the X-Men have arrived.
The X-Men give Lee and Kirby something they haven’t been able to do since Fantastic Four #1: build a superhero team from scratch.
And while many of the hallmarks we’ll come to associate with the X-Men aren’t here yet, you can already tell this is a different team. A different book.
The potential is enormous.
Marvel in the 60s – Entry #82
Leave a Reply