X-Men (1st series) 67-93 (April 1970 - April 1975)
The period covered by this entry is unique in that there were no comics dedicated to printing new X-Men material during this time. For a few months, there was no X-Men book at all, but the title was soon revived as a reprint series, continuing with its original numbering. Issues 67-93 reprinted various issues between 12 and 45. If you're noticing that those ranges don't match, it's because some issues reprinted two original issues, and some original issues in that range were never reprinted. And the last reprint is the first half of the Avengers crossover- the half from the Avengers was not reprinted at the time, oddly enough.
But even though they had no book of their own, the X-Men and Magneto made quite a few guest appearances as Marvel tried to figure out just how much appeal the characters still had. Most notably, the Beast briefly had his own feature series in Amazing Adventures, in which he became blue and furry, the form in which most people recognize him.
Continuity, Credits and Lineups
There's no core book to credit here, as the X-Men appearances during this time are all either guest spots in other books, or flashback titles published many years after the fact. So this all gets a little complicated. Those who aren't interested in these sorts of details or team membership charts, etc. should probably just skip down to the "Writing and Art Styles" heading at this point :-)
Uncanny X-Men.net has a good article illustrating the continuity in the gap between XM1 66 and GXM 1, which was my primary guide when figuring out which issues I needed to track down, although it is missing some interesting books that only include X-Men villains. I did actually find and read all of these except for X-Men: The Hidden Years, which was written many years after the fact. Based on summaries I've read it looks like a waste of time despite my love of the characters involved. More on that in the retcons section, though. We'll start with the list of appearances that were printed during the years in question (including one printed a bit earlier): Dr. Strange 182 (September 1969) Roy Thomas (Writer); Gene Colan (Pencils)
Fantastic Four (1st series) 102-104 (September 1970 - November 1970) Stan Lee (Writer); Jack Kirby (Pencils: 102); John Romita (Pencils: 103-104)
Amazing Spider-Man (1st series) 92 (January 1971): Stan Lee (Writer); Gil Kane & John Romita (Artists)
Incredible Hulk (2nd series) 150 (April 1972), 161 (March 1973), 172 (February 1974), 181 (November 1974): Archie Goodwin (Writer, 150); Steve Englehart (Writer, 161); Tony Isabella (Writer, 172); Len Wein (Writer: 181); Herb Trimpe (Pencils); John Severin (Co-artist: 150)
Amazing Adventures (2nd series) 9-16 (November 1971 - January 1973): Gerry Conway (Writer: 9-11); Steve Englehart (Writer: 12-16); Mike Sekowsky (Pencils: 9-10); Tom Sutton (Pencils: 11-15); Bob Brown (Pencils: 16)
The Avengers (1st Series) 102-105 (August 1972 - November 1972), 110-111 (April 1973 - May 1973): Roy Thomas (Writer, 102-104); Rich Buckler (Pencils: 102-104); Steve Englehart (Writer: 105, 110-111); John Buscema (Pencils: 105); Don Heck (Pencils: 110-111)
Marvel Team-Up (1st Series) 4 (September 1972), 23 (July 1974) Gerry Conway (Writer: 4); Len Wein (Writer: 23); Gil Kane (Artist)
Captain America & the Falcon (1st series) 169-176 (January 1974 - August 1974) Steve Englehart (Writer: 169-176), Mike Friedrich (Writer: 169-172), Sal Buscema (Pencils)
Defenders (1st Series) 15-16 (September 1974 - October 1974) Len Wein (Writer); Sal Buscema (Artist); Klaus Janson (Artist: 15)
Giant-Size Fantastic Four 4 (February 1975) Len Wein (Plot); Chris Claremont (Script); John Buscema (Artist)
With flashback series: X-Men (2nd series) 94 [2nd story] (November 1999) John Byrne & Tom Arnold (Writing & Pencils)
X-Men: The Hidden Years 1-22 (December 1999 - September 2001) John Byrne (Writing & Pencils)
Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine 3-4 (April 2001 - May 2001) Erik Larsen & Eric Stephenson (Plot); Tom DeFalco (Script: 3); Jeph Loeb (Script, 4); Erik Larsen (layouts); Eric Shanower, Ron Frenz, Bruce Timm, Keith Giffen, Al Gordon (Artists); Paul Ryan, Tom Scioli (Artists: 3); Erik Larsen, Joe Sinott, Shannon Denton, Al Milgrom (Artists: 4)
The X-Men
With no single series to use as a timeline, the membership chart gets a bit tricky. I've lettered the line-up changes here to demonstrate the order of events. The letters correspond to the following issues:
A: X-Men: The Hidden Years 1
B: Between Amazing Spider-Man 92 and Incredible Hulk 150
C: Incredible Hulk 150 (flashback)
D: Incredible Hulk 150
E: Amazing Adventures 11
F: Captain America & the Falcon 175
G: Defenders 15
H: Defenders 16
It's worth noting that Iceman meets up with the whole X-Men team in XHY 14 and from that point on acts more like a member than not. He makes a comment in Amazing Spider-Man 92 that could be read to mean that he was still (or again) off the team at that point, but it could just have meant that the team hadn't done much lately, which is more consistent with the other early 70's appearances. Either way, it doesn't really affect anything but my obsessive-compulsive desire to make membership charts.
Professor X Charles Xavier ...-... Cyclops Scott Summers ...-... Iceman Bobby Drake ...-A, B-... (Iceman's departure is a retcon by X:HY) Angel Warren Worthington, III ...-... Beast Hank McCoy ...-E Marvel Girl I Jean Grey ...-... Lorna Dane Lorna Dane ...-D, F-... (no code name most this time; briefly Magnetrix in X:HY) Havok Alex Summers ...-C, F-...
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants I
(Core three members team up after being released from the Sentinels in XM1 60)
Magneto alias "Erik Lehnsherr" G-H (only joins/takes control of this incarnation near the end of its existence) Blob Fred J. Dukes XM1 60-H Mastermind I Jason Wyngarde XM1 60-H Unus Angelo Unuscione XM1 60-H Lorelei G-H
Continuity
Juggernaut's appearance in Dr. Strange #182 was actually published during the Thomas/Adams run before X-Men was cancelled, but it just fits in better with these other guest appearances, including more by Cain, than with that run. I use a lot of abbreviations in this entry so check the reference entry if something's not clear.
XM1 ...-66 | FF:WGCM 3-4* | XM2 94.2* (X:HY Prologue) | X:HY 1-19* |_________________ | | XM:HY 20-22* FF 102-104 [Magneto only] | | ASM 92 | | | HLK 150 | | AA 9-10 [Magneto only] AA 11-14 | | DRS 182 | MTU 4 | | |________| | AVG 102-105 [Sentinels, Savage Land] | | | AA 15-16 | | | | | HLK 161 | | |________________|___________| | AVG 110-111 | HLK 172 | CPF 172-175 | MTU 23 | DEF 15-16 | HLK 181 [Wolverine] GFF 4 | |_____________| | | GXM / X:DG material in next post
Writing and Art Styles
With this period, we're now pretty solidly into what's often called the "Bronze Age" of comics. This is probably most immediately noticeable in the art, which has a realistic feel similar to (and to a large degree influenced by) the work Neal Adams did on the last few X-Men issues before it's cancellation. Various artists adapted or added to the new styles to varying degrees, but a lot of the artwork is closer to Adams's realism than Kirby's previously definitive style. Hank McCoy's new bestial form, in particular, gave the artists who draw him a great chance to showcase their handling of detail. Amazing Adventures #12 has a great splash page by penciler Tom Sutton and inker Mike Ploog of Beast perched on some sort of scaffolding in the rain. Not only is there a lot of (furry) anatomical detail, but the rain is drawn dripping over him and soaking him. You really feel what a wretched night it must be for him in that rain. That sort of effect was never part of the styles used on X-Men in the 60's. Which isn't to say that those styles were bad, but there was clearly a major shift in comic artwork right around 1970. Still, some artists, like Sal Buscema on the Captain America and the Falcon issues, continue to use a more Kirby-esque style.
But it's not just the art that changed. After Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams's Green Lantern/Green Arrow series broke new ground by confronting racism, class barriers and drug use over at DC, comics started trying to be socially relevant for the first time since World War II. The Comics Code censorship policies, which had forced anything of substance out of comics in the early 50's, had lightened just enough to allow real topics to be discussed. While the X-Men's own storylines aren't really that topical, the Captain America storyline they appear in very much is. At the end of it, Captain America, disgusted by Vietnam, Watergate, and the involvement of some high elected official (implied to be President Nixon) in the evil plot he just defeated, refuses to continue in his role. He doesn't feel that this America is the same one that he fought for in WWII. It doesn't have anything to do with the X-Men (who had slipped out of the story by then), but it's a pretty amazing storyline, and a big change from the light material we saw in the 60's.
Another change was that superhero comics weren't quite as popular, and other genres, most notably horror, were attracting more interest. Gerry Conway, who wrote the issue in which Beast first becomes a literal Beast, also wrote werewolf horror tales, and that background shows in his style. For Hank's transformation story it's really quite effective- he uses a 2nd-person narration that puts the reader into Hank's place to make his anger and self-recrimination more immediate. In many ways, it is a horror story as Hank is certainly horrified at being trapped in his new form in this first issue. Conway's writing is less effective on the two issues he writes where the Inhumans go up against Magneto. While Magneto's deformed attempts at artificial mutants are suitably creepy, the story is a more conventional superhero tale, and the writing style does not work as well with that.
The other writers who worked on these stories all wrote in more or less the same style. Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart and Len Wein contributed the bulk of the writing. Englehart's dialogue may be a bit more natural-feeling than the others', and his Beast stories are quite enjoyable. He writes all of Beast's run except for that first issue by Conway. I should point out that while the general trend was towards "more natural-sounding", that doesn't mean "natural". There's still a good bit of verbal posturing, just not quite as much as in earlier years.
The Stories and Character Development
This time around it seems easiest to break up the stories mostly by characters. Without a book of their own (except Beast's brief run in AA), there's no central narrative, and the most significant thing about several of the storylines is character development. There are a few plot-oriented storylines, and I'll just list them mixed in with the character bits.
Havok and Lorna Dane
In one of the earlier guest appearances, Lorna Dane is tracking down Alex Summers in New Mexico, where he's living after having left the team and abandoning his identity as Havok. Apparently in yet another squabble between him and Iceman over Lorna, he accidentally blasted Bobby with his plasma beams, and decided he was too dangerous and that the whole superhero gig was not for him. Bobby, as it turned out, was not seriously injured, and after Alex stayed away for several months the Professor sent a concerned Lorna after him. Since this event happens in the Hulk's comic (#150), he shows up and runs off with Lorna because her green hair reminds him of someone. Alex has to pull out his Havok suit and rescue her, realizing that maybe he's not so bad at this after all in the process. The whole episode is significant as it solidly establishes that Havok was not just scared of his powers at the beginning, but is in general interested in life outside of the X-Men. This is in marked contrast to his brother, although both of them fear what their powers can do. Havok and Lorna head back to rejoin the team, but we don't actually see them with the team in any of the next several appearances. While there's no comment on it for a while, it eventually ties into a larger plot development.
Beast (Hank McCoy)
First Appearance in furry form: Amazing Adventures #11 (gray), Amazing Adventures #15 (blue)
Beast goes through several extremely important changes during this period, and definitely has the most material of any X-Man during this period (Magneto has more appearances in various titles, but with less character development). The most obvious change is that he becomes blue and furry, and somewhat apelike. Equally important are the personality changes that started before his transformation, and continued as a result of it. Getting the job as a researcher at Brand and starting his own life outside the school have a major effect on Hank, and the attentions of his lovely assistant Linda Donaldson is a factor as well. Hank becomes much more personally and professionally confident and comfortable in himself (sadly, Linda's an evil spy, but more on that in her section later on).
Unfortunately, it's his improved confidence that partially leads to his transformation. He discovers a plot to steal military secrets from Brand the same night he isolates the "chemical cause of mutation". Which can apparently be ingested like a magic potion. Anyway, he thinks he's needed to stop the theft but doesn't want to go bouncing around as the Beast because his build is just too recognizable. So he has the brilliant idea to test his potion on himself, saying that he can reverse it as long as less than an hour has passed. Of course, he doesn't make the deadline and gets stuck like that.
Initially he's gray (although inexplicably the "Marvel Milestones" reprint of AA #11 recolors him blue) and had a healing factor just like Wolverine would later posses. But he loses that power after a few issues, and while recovering from a major wound the normal way his fur turns blue for no particular reason.
As one might expect, the permanent transformation is pretty traumatic to Hank, especially after things were going so well for him. But when he's not worrying about interacting with normal humans, he actually feels more comfortable in his new body. A particularly notable side-effect is that he stops using convoluted sentence structure and starts using a less esoteric vocabulary. He figures that he used his old way of speaking as something of a shield to hide behind in social situations, but he's no longer really concerned about that. He's pretty disoriented by the more savage aspects his new form brings out in him, and Mastermind and the Brotherhood briefly exploit that. But during a confrontation with Iron Man exacerbated by Mastermind, Iron Man recognizes that Beast is not truly evil but struggling to deal with something very difficult and lets him escape. This leads to an interesting later discussion between Hank and Iron Man during which Tony calls him a man twice, which helps Hank's self-image a great deal.
Still, he is very concerned about what the X-Men might think when they find out, and tells Professor X not to interfere when Xavier contacts him telepathically. Eventually Angel gets worried and comes to visit. He's surprised, of course, but doesn't freak out. Warren and Hank actually bond a bit over the difficulty of hiding physical mutations in normal society. Like Warren, Hank uses a set of straps to force his body into normal shape, although where Warren is hiding extra limbs, Hank is just trying to get his now-bestial body to stand completely upright (he also wears a latex mask and gloves so he can appear human when wearing clothes, which really shouldn't work but it was within the suspension of disbelief of the time). When we last see Hank, his sense of humour has developed into the slightly more wry form that is familiar to later readers. He was always rather witty, but he now works his transformed state into his jokes, often playing off the expectations of those who see him.
Near the end of his Amazing Adventures run, his old girlfriend Vera Cantor shows up in dire need of his expertise in mutant genetics to help the Mimic (for details see Mimic's entry below). This storyline actually concludes in The Incredible Hulk #161 because Beast's run in Amazing Adventures gets cancelled. Apparently it got overwhelmingly positive reaction in fan mail, but not enough sales to keep it going. But in the story, while Hank has gotten more comfortable with the X-Men knowing his state, he still hides from Vera with the latex mask and gloves. It won't be until he joins the Avengers that he gets truly comfortable with his new form. (AA #11-16, HLK #161; AA #17 reprints old XM1 material).
The Sentinels and Larry Trask
The Avengers hear news that unidentified objects have been seen exiting a tight solar orbit and heading for Earth. Quicksilver thinks briefly of the Sentinels that Cyclops tricked into flying into the Sun in XM1 #59, but dismisses the idea as too unlikely. Of course, it turns out that's exactly what the objects are, and one of them shows up and abducts the Scarlet Witch while she's walking in Central Park despite Quicksilver and the Avengers' attempts to stop it. Oddly, it does not try to take Quicksilver. Just afterwards, strange and increasingly intense solar flares begin to occur, and seem likely to increase to the point of endangering the earth. Most of the Avengers track down the source of the flare-inducing rays to where the Sentinels have set up shop in Australia- apparently a second base built as part of Bolivar Trask's original program. Quicksilver, meanwhile, has run off to do things on his own, and thinks to track down Larry Trask. Larry forgot all about most of this sort of thing when his mutant-power-suppressing amulet was put back on in XM1 #60, but Pietro remembers the amulet and removes it. He forces Larry to help him, and they end up at the Sentinel base as well.
In the big battle, it comes out that Wanda is being used as a power source for the flare-inducing machine and the Sentinels intent to use the flares to sterilize the human population so that they can raise the next generation of humans in a genetically-controlled mutation-free environment. Quicksilver gets knocked out before he and Larry meet up with the rest of the Avengers, and during the fight Larry realizes that there's something wrong with Sentinel #2 (the leader since the Master Mold was destroyed). He turns on a mutant-detecting machine in the base, which shows that #2, who was flying closest to the sun and looks kind of melty, has become a mutant himself. The other Sentinels turn on him, and once he's destroyed they all shut down, too. One of them falls on Larry, killing him before he can tell the others that Quicksilver is in the base. The survivors escape with a rescued Wanda, and blow up the base on their way out. (AVG #102-104)
Magneto
Magneto makes quite a few appearances during this period, still mostly in his Silver Age cackling villain mode. His previous appearance during the Thomas/Adams run where he hides his identity from Angel was probably as subtle as the pre-Claremont Magneto ever got. During these guest appearances, he's found by Namor on the shores of the Savage Land (presumably having washed up there after the destruction of his base in XM1 #63, although X:HY retcons another Savage Land-based mad scheme and exploding base in the middle there). Magneto tries to goad the notoriously touchy Namor into having Atlantis declare war on the surface world, and succeeds in getting things going. But Namor eventually realizes that Magneto is way too crazy to be telling the truth, and switches sides to help the Fantastic Four defeat him. (FF #102-104)
We next see Magneto capturing Black Bolt of the Inhumans to aid his plan to mutate humans into some sort of army to take over the world (which will be his theme for the rest of this period). He apparently escaped his plastic prison by mastering Zen and Yoga techniques and focusing his mutant powers to, um, burst out of his prison by pure mutant-powerness. Right. Anyway, the machines he's constructed since then have produced monstrous mutations that were not as useful as his Savage Land mutates had been, and he wants Black Bolt to help him steal more technology. Predictably, this ends poorly, but Magneto escapes during the final fight. He's particularly mad-scientisty during this story, and one of his created mutants is a big gorilla-like thing with half the top of its skull missing so its brains are hanging out. Bizarre. (AA #9-10)
His next scheme is one of the more complex X-Men related storylines of the era. The Avengers, investigating reports of strange activity to try to find Quicksilver after defeating the Sentinels, go to the Savage Land and encounter all of the mutates except Piper. Since the mutates had reverted back to swamp savages last time anyone had seen them, the Scarlet Witch speculates worriedly that Magneto may be active once again. The Avengers soon get a video feed from someone showing the X-Men defeated in their mansion. They head off to help and it of course turns out to be a trap- that someone was Magneto, who has Piper with him to control some Savage Land dinosaurs they brought along (how do you get those through customs?). In a neat use of continuity, the uniform Magneto gave Angel back in XM1 #62 when he was badly injured in the Savage Land is revealed to have been designed to leech energy from its mutant wearer. Magneto went to the X-Mansion first to retrieve the suit and its stored energy, and then defeated the X-Men. This is intended to explain how he recovered from the weakness displayed in XM1 #62-63 that required him to augment his abilities with machines. Although he had seemed fine in the last few guest appearances so it's not entirely clear how that was all supposed to line up.
Continuing the weird new abilities by meditation theme, Magneto can now apparently control the iron in people's blood in a way that essentially gives him mind control powers. After he captures the X-Men and half the Avengers, he makes the Scarlet Witch dance for him in her skimpy outfit, which is really creepy when you consider that she's his daughter. Although at this point neither of them know that, and the writers hadn't come up with it yet either. Magneto's trying once again to create a mutant army, this time with the involuntary assistance of several atomic scientists. Eventually, of course, the Avengers and X-Men defeat Magneto, and apparently the Avengers imprison him "at the center of the earth". Or at least really deep. (AVG #105, 110-111)
This leads into Magneto's final guest appearance, which also ends up, probably by accident, laying the groundwork for Magneto becoming such a different character during Claremont's run. Once he figures out how to escape from his most recent confinement, he stumbles across ancient alien technology buried underground on his way out. He still wants to create mutants to help him take over the earth and this alien tech allows him to create the ultimate mutant, Mutant Alpha. He tracks down the Blob/Mastermind/Unus incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, adds Lorelei to their ranks (apparently just because he's become fond of her), and goes about engineering his mutant. Professor X and the Defenders (the X-Men were busy) show up to stop him, but in the end as Alpha's mind matures, he "evolves" beyond humanity and certainly far enough to see that Magneto's morality is deeply flawed. So he de-ages Magneto and the Brotherhood back to early childhood and flies off to the stars. Eventually Magneto (and the others) will get restored to adulthood, of course, and after that Claremont will write him very differently. (DEF #15-16)
The X-Men and the Secret Empire
The X-Men spend much of this period lying low. Apparently the public battle with the Hulk in the final non-reprint issue (XM1 #66) stirred up so much anti-mutant sentiment that Professor X has been keeping the team out of the field. Jean mentions that Hank is the only one the Professor has allowed to leave, although that's not strictly true as Havok was gone by that time and Lorna was off trying to find him. Although perhaps sending Lorna counted as not letting Havok go, or maybe Englehart just forgot about those two. In any event, Iceman is excited to see some action after so long when he makes an appearance in Spider-Man's book (before Havok leaves) (ASM #92). When Xavier finally does feel the need to send the team on a mission, he has them do it in civilian clothes and admonishes them to keep a low profile (MTU #4). They're finally stirred to major action when they realize that mutants are disappearing. After Magneto's attack on the mansion where he took Angel's costume back, Angel was never found. Beast has gone missing from the Brand corporation as well.
Professor X sends out the remaining three X-Men to check on other known mutants, and Iceman never returns. Xavier, Cyclops and Marvel Girl travel to New Mexico in search of Havok and Lorna (HLK #172), but find their house empty. The Professor had assumed that they had simply retired from superheroing, but in truth they had been among the first to be captured. This leads to Xavier, Cyclops and Marvel Girl teaming up with Captain America and the Falcon when both encounter a paranoid Banshee, who has heard of the disappearances and is of a mind to shoot first and ask questions later. Cap, Falcon and the remaining X-Men end up freeing the mutants, and then the X-Men step back to allow Cap to finish defeating the plot against the government on the White House lawn (although they offer their support if its needed, but as it turns out it is not). Since this is really much more of a Captain America story, there's not much follow-up and the X-Men just disappear in the background. (CAP #172-175)
From that point on we never see the entire team, but presumably it consists of the lineup seen in GXM #1: Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl, Lorna Dane and Havok. Iceman makes another appearance with Spider-man (MTU #23), and the Professor appears with the Defenders (DEF #15-16) and the Fantastic Four (GFF #4), and then the team gets a big re-launch which will be the focus of the next entry.
Juggernaut (Cain Marko)
Juggernaut spends this period popping in and out of various mystical dimensions in which he keeps getting imprisoned. When we last saw him he was imprisoned in the Crimson Cosmos, in which we now find out that he's somehow gained some vaguely-defined mystic abilities. But they're not enough for him to escape on his own. Then Dr. Strange plucks Cain out of the Crimson Cosmos to use him as a distraction in a fight, which ends with Juggernaut being banished to yet another dimension (DRS #182). That dimension tries to drain his life force by aging him, and he finds that maintaining focused hate is the only thing that serves as a defense. When that dimension lets him out long enough to fight Beast, he loses, which stops him concentrating his hate and ages him to an old man as he is sucked back into the dimension (AA #16). But apparently the consciousness of that dimension regards him as a pest, so it proposes to restore Cain's proper age and send him permanently to Earth in return for the mystic abilities he had gained. This finally leaves Juggernaut free on Earth, although he ends up knocked out in a three-way fight with the Hulk and the X-Men (HLK #172). Throughout this, there's no real change in his character- he's single-mindedly focused on getting back to Earth and staying there. But the mystical powers are an odd and mostly forgotten detour in his abilities.
Mimic (Calvin Rankin)
Apparently died in: The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #161
Cal has apparently become a much more decent person since losing his powers and being thrown out of the X-Men. Vera Cantor, who was spurning his advances in favor of dating Hank when we first met both her and Cal, is once again dating him. His powers apparently came back but with the additional twist of draining the life force of people in a slowly increasing radius. Because of this, he's isolated himself in the Canadian wilderness, told Vera about his powers and sent her to get Hank. He ends up allowing himself to die in a fight with the Hulk in order to prevent his out of control powers from killing anyone else. It eventually turns out he only went into a deep coma, but for whatever reason, he doesn't show up again for many years. (HLK #161)
The Characters (new)
Linda Donaldson
Abilities: Baseline human with military / covert operations training.
First Appearance: Amazing Adventures #11
Linda Donaldson first appears as the assistant to Hank McCoy's boss at Brand, Dr. Carl Maddicks. It's soon revealed that both Linda and Dr. Maddicks are agents of an organization known as the Secret Empire which is trying to take over America and has an interest in mutants. Linda starts dating Hank in order to get closer to his research, and Hank is quite taken with her. Millionaire industrialist Tony Stark (secretly Iron Man) visits Brand, and when his girlfriend mentions that something seems off about Linda, Hank gets fairly defensive. He never does figure out her true purpose, and she ends up capturing him as Beast when the Secret Empire rounds up mutants to power its weapons. Amusingly, she wonders what happened to Hank, not realizing that she already captured him. By that point the Secret Empire has enough mutants captured and don't need Hank's research into the causes of mutation anyway. Linda is last seen during the last fight in the Secret Empire's base, but is not seen during the final fight on the White House lawn. To the best of my knowledge, she has made no further appearances.
Carl Maddicks
Abilities: Baseline human
First Appearance: Amazing Adventures #11
Dr. Carl Maddicks is an embittered researcher at Brand Corporation, and nominally Hank McCoy's superior. However, he wants nothing to do with Hank, and it soon becomes apparent that he is a spy for the Secret Empire. When his attempted theft fails, he is killed by Linda Donaldson who takes his place as the ranking undercover agent at Brand. Or at least that's what appears to happen- many years later he'll reappear, still bitter, in the pages of X-Factor where he's trying to find a "cure" for his mutant son Artie. He doesn't last much longer there before he's killed again, and this time it sticks. Artie's rather more important, but we'll get to him when he shows up- there's no hint of his existance here.
Patsy Walker
Abilities: Baseline human
First Appearance (historical): Miss America Magazine #2 (November 1944)
First Appearance (modern): Amazing Adventures #13
Patsy Walker first appeared as a humor/romance comic character starring in several titles from the mid-40's to the mid-60's. She then disappeared for 10 years until she shows up at Brand corporation, now married to her romantic interest from those earlier comics, Buzz Baxter. Buzz is now a Captain in the military, and the Pentagon has sent him to investigate the Beast sightings around Brand. He's suspicious of Hank, but Patsy is sympathetic to both him and the Beast, and learns that the two are one in the same when Beast passes out on her doorstep after being injured. She helps Hank out, but extracts an unspecified promise from him in return. We'll find out much later that he promised to help her become a superhero somehow- she eventually calls him on this and assumes the codename Hellcat. By that point she's divorced from Buzz Baxter, and not at all content to be a normal housewife.
It's an interesting thing to do with a character from a genre that celebrated normal married life as the ultimate goal. Interestingly, Patsy's humor/romance comic appearances are later revealed to have been comics within the Marvel Universe written by her mother, loosely based on Patsy's life at the time. Patsy's not really significant to the X-Men, but she is to Hank as she helped him out here and tries out for the Avengers along with him a few years later (both are accepted, but Patsy accepts another heroine's offer of training instead). Plus, her history is just so unusual that I wanted to comment on it.
Wolverine (James "Logan" Howlett)
Abilities: Healing factor enables him to survive and rapidly recover from nearly any wound and drastically slows his aging process. Natural retractable bone claws that emerge from the back of his hands. Bones artificially coated with the nearly-invulnerable metal adamantium. Adamantium-covered claws can slice through almost any substance. Enhanced senses, especially a sense of smell keen enough to use for tracking. More recently possesses the ability to appear in all significant Marvel Comics titles simultaneously.
First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #180 (cameo on final page), #181 (full)
Wolverine makes his first appearance in the pages of the Hulk's magazine, and it's an interesting contrast to the established character who now appears in more titles and concurrent storylines than should be even remotely possible. The immediately obvious difference is that the cowl on his costume is rather different, and is more suggestive of an actual Wolverine than his more well-known look. Apparently, the change to the classic version (with the big ears) was the result of an artist mistake that they just kept.
Anyway, Hulk #181 is just a big fight scene, so there's not much to say about his character yet. He's asked his superiors at Weapon X to give him a few hours to take down the Hulk before they send in the heavy artillery. He makes a respectable go at it, but the Hulk does win in the end. He's got the recognizable short, stocky build (he's said to be 5'5"), and the metal claws, but they can't cut through the Hulk's skin in this version. Woverine also uses the word "impregnable" to describe the Hulk's skin, which is another difference- the Wolverine of today would have just said "tough". There's also no sign of the famous mutant rapid healing factor- that appears once he joins the X-Men. There's also no indication whether the claws are part of him or part of his costume- that's not actually revealed until several issues into his time with the X-Men. And finally, when he mentions the adamantium claws there's no hint of his other bones being coated in the metal. His military commanders just refer to his natural mutant speed, strength and agility. Interestingly, they also comment that he still has some quirks in his psychological makeup, although they think he's field-ready despite that. Early in his time as an X-Men Logan expresses dismay (in a thought balloon, not out loud) over how quickly he goes for the kill in a crisis even with all of the therapy and mental treatments he's had.
While there's not much room for character development here, none of it really contradicts how he's portrayed when he joins the X-Men in his next appearance a few months later. He's gruff and confident in his physical abilities, and challenges Cyclops's authority regularly. But in his early appearances he's a much more withdrawn, introspective character. While he's still not one to easily share confidences, he now has such an enormous reputation within the Marvel Universe that he can dominate an event just by stepping into the room. During his first few adventures with the X-Men, he's often less than sensitive, but he also is trying to deal with being around people on an ongoing basis for the first time in many years. Unlike his employment for Weapon X, the X-Men are a social team, rather than agents drawing paychecks. Logan doesn't really know how to fit in with people or how to deal with his unrequited attraction to Jean Grey. And the others really don't know what to make of him.
In modern stories, everyone knows Wolverine at least by reputation, and while still a private man by nature he's become much more of an extrovert. Rather than being mysteriously withdrawn he exudes the raw charisma that has made him one of Marvel's most popular characters, and knows that often the intimidation of his reputation is enough to end a fight. On the other hand, he's in so many books he's over-exposed, and far too many writers fall into the trap of writing the fanboy version of him who just snarls one-liners and slices things up. At his best, Logan is a complex character. At his worst, he becomes self-parody.
The Weapon X Program
First Appearance:
The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #181
The Weapon X program makes its first appearance at the same time as Wolverine (who is also called "Weapon X" himself). We don't know much about them at this point other than that they're a Canadian defense program of some sort. Many future storylines will fill out histories for Weapon X, with the current line being that the "X" is really a roman numeral 10, meaning that they were/are the 10th program in the Weapon Plus series. The Weapon I program was the super-soldier program that produced Captain America, and other programs up through Weapon XV have been mentioned. But here the Weapon X program is just generically mysterious.
Multiple Man (Jamie Madrox)
Abilities: Can produce duplicates of himself in response to physical contact. The dupes are independent but are absorbed back into the main Jamie, who then remembers their experiences. Initially, the dupes all do what he wants without showing their own personalities, but much later they start to develop variations and have their own agendas.
First Appearance: Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4
While he might not be a mutant (it's a complicated and unclear recent development), Jamie is primarily associated with the X-teams, and was presented as a mutant in his original appearance and for many years thereafter. He's never been an X-Man (although he's been invited twice), but was a long-time member of the government-backed incarnation of X-Factor and now leads the independent X-Factor Investigations detective agency.
Whatever his actual status, Jamie's introduced as a mutant, eventually turning out to be the son of a former colleague of Professor X. He was raised on an isolate Kansas farm where his parents made him wear a suit that suppressed his powers. When they died in a tornado, he continued to live on the farm alone, using his dupes to help out once the containment suit ceased to function. After the suit malfunctions further, leading to a fight with the Fantastic Four ended by Xavier's intervention, the Professor claims Jamie is his responsibility and takes him away to help him recover from his temporary insanity and learn to manage his power. For some reason, Xavier thought leaving Jamie alone on his deceased parents' farm all those years was OK, though.
Jamie's lonely teenage years on the farm left several marks on him. While his personality remains fairly generic in his first few appearances, as his character develops it becomes apparent that he's quite the prankster. He hates to feel alone (and his dupes don't count), and craves any sort of attention, so like so many others in his situation he often plays the clown. Recently he's gotten a bit more serious as he's assumed leadership of the newest incarnation of X-Factor, but he's not yet entirely comfortable in the role. His ability lets him send out duplicates to experience all different paths in life, so faced with all the possibilities he sometimes ends up doing nothing at all. Which makes his leadership role unusually challenging.
Retcons
For the first time, with this era we have an entire series of retroactive continuity inserted. Strictly speaking, that's not entirely true as Emma Frost probably starts sometime between XM1 #40-60, but it doesn't really intersect with any of the characters being written at the time. The series in question here is John Byrne's 1999-2001 series X-Men: The Hidden Years, which picks up right where XM1 #66 left off and then meanders about fairly pointlessly for 20+ issues before being cancelled.
On the one hand, Byrne tries to line things up with existing continuity points even when they're very small- the last few issues of the series show the X-Men hovering around the edges of the Magneto/Namor storyline from FF #102-104. But that also illustrates the problem with the series, which is that Byrne can't really change anything that happened, so the X-Men end up never getting all that close to the principle characters in the main story. They're just kind of around fighting side stuff.
A lot of the series is like that. Byrne has the team (minus Iceman who quite, and Havok and Lorna who are apparently too junior) go down to the Savage Land again where he writes another plot about Magneto having a base and a crazy plan and seemingly getting killed. Once again, he has to make it line up with Namor finding Magneto in FF #102, so it really doesn't add anything.
On the other hand, Byrne does some weird messing about with continuity, even while trying to synch up with other bits. He has the team coincidentally meet Ororo Munroe (Storm) in Africa, but has to resort to keeping Cyclops unconscious the whole time so as not to contradict him meeting Storm for the first time in GXM #1. Also, all of the X-Men's original appearances during this time made it pretty clear that the X-Men were keeping a very low profile. Of course, that doesn't go well with writing a series about them, so it kind of had to be ignored.
The only really worthwhile plot the seems to have come out of this (and except for the first two issues I'm writing this entirely based on indexes at The X-Axis and Uncanny X-Men.net) is an explanation of how Angel's mother died. Unfortunately, it strains credibility as it hinges on Warren not having noticed that his evil uncle Burt, who was the villain in the brief Angel solo stories written back around XM1 #47-ish, didn't die after all. Having killed Warren's father (his own brother) in that earlier story, Burt now tries to marry Warren's mother, who he's also having slowly poisoned so he will inherit all of the family riches. The upshot is the X-Men expose Burt, but not until Kathryn Worthington has been exposed to too much of the poison, and dies. Which does tie up a loose plot end, but it would have been nice if it was done more credibly.
Other than X:HY, a Fantastic Four anniversary retrospective miniseries included an appearance by the X-Men. The plot's unimportant (it involves captured Sentinel's being reactivated by Dr. Doom in order to distract the FF), but it's a bit annoying in that it's placement in FF continuity means that it had to happen in the first few issues of X:HY. However, almost the first thing that happens in that series is Iceman quitting. The FF series, of course, shows all seven late-60's X-Men, so it gets wedged into the 30-hour timeframe between XM1 #66 and the X:HY preview in XM2 #94. It's doesn't really matter, though, as there's no real impact on X-Men history whatsoever.
Up Next: A new era begins with an almost entirely new team, featuring such classic favorites as Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler.
But even though they had no book of their own, the X-Men and Magneto made quite a few guest appearances as Marvel tried to figure out just how much appeal the characters still had. Most notably, the Beast briefly had his own feature series in Amazing Adventures, in which he became blue and furry, the form in which most people recognize him.
Continuity, Credits and Lineups
There's no core book to credit here, as the X-Men appearances during this time are all either guest spots in other books, or flashback titles published many years after the fact. So this all gets a little complicated. Those who aren't interested in these sorts of details or team membership charts, etc. should probably just skip down to the "Writing and Art Styles" heading at this point :-)
Uncanny X-Men.net has a good article illustrating the continuity in the gap between XM1 66 and GXM 1, which was my primary guide when figuring out which issues I needed to track down, although it is missing some interesting books that only include X-Men villains. I did actually find and read all of these except for X-Men: The Hidden Years, which was written many years after the fact. Based on summaries I've read it looks like a waste of time despite my love of the characters involved. More on that in the retcons section, though. We'll start with the list of appearances that were printed during the years in question (including one printed a bit earlier): Dr. Strange 182 (September 1969) Roy Thomas (Writer); Gene Colan (Pencils)
Fantastic Four (1st series) 102-104 (September 1970 - November 1970) Stan Lee (Writer); Jack Kirby (Pencils: 102); John Romita (Pencils: 103-104)
Amazing Spider-Man (1st series) 92 (January 1971): Stan Lee (Writer); Gil Kane & John Romita (Artists)
Incredible Hulk (2nd series) 150 (April 1972), 161 (March 1973), 172 (February 1974), 181 (November 1974): Archie Goodwin (Writer, 150); Steve Englehart (Writer, 161); Tony Isabella (Writer, 172); Len Wein (Writer: 181); Herb Trimpe (Pencils); John Severin (Co-artist: 150)
Amazing Adventures (2nd series) 9-16 (November 1971 - January 1973): Gerry Conway (Writer: 9-11); Steve Englehart (Writer: 12-16); Mike Sekowsky (Pencils: 9-10); Tom Sutton (Pencils: 11-15); Bob Brown (Pencils: 16)
The Avengers (1st Series) 102-105 (August 1972 - November 1972), 110-111 (April 1973 - May 1973): Roy Thomas (Writer, 102-104); Rich Buckler (Pencils: 102-104); Steve Englehart (Writer: 105, 110-111); John Buscema (Pencils: 105); Don Heck (Pencils: 110-111)
Marvel Team-Up (1st Series) 4 (September 1972), 23 (July 1974) Gerry Conway (Writer: 4); Len Wein (Writer: 23); Gil Kane (Artist)
Captain America & the Falcon (1st series) 169-176 (January 1974 - August 1974) Steve Englehart (Writer: 169-176), Mike Friedrich (Writer: 169-172), Sal Buscema (Pencils)
Defenders (1st Series) 15-16 (September 1974 - October 1974) Len Wein (Writer); Sal Buscema (Artist); Klaus Janson (Artist: 15)
Giant-Size Fantastic Four 4 (February 1975) Len Wein (Plot); Chris Claremont (Script); John Buscema (Artist)
With flashback series: X-Men (2nd series) 94 [2nd story] (November 1999) John Byrne & Tom Arnold (Writing & Pencils)
X-Men: The Hidden Years 1-22 (December 1999 - September 2001) John Byrne (Writing & Pencils)
Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine 3-4 (April 2001 - May 2001) Erik Larsen & Eric Stephenson (Plot); Tom DeFalco (Script: 3); Jeph Loeb (Script, 4); Erik Larsen (layouts); Eric Shanower, Ron Frenz, Bruce Timm, Keith Giffen, Al Gordon (Artists); Paul Ryan, Tom Scioli (Artists: 3); Erik Larsen, Joe Sinott, Shannon Denton, Al Milgrom (Artists: 4)
The X-Men
With no single series to use as a timeline, the membership chart gets a bit tricky. I've lettered the line-up changes here to demonstrate the order of events. The letters correspond to the following issues:
A: X-Men: The Hidden Years 1
B: Between Amazing Spider-Man 92 and Incredible Hulk 150
C: Incredible Hulk 150 (flashback)
D: Incredible Hulk 150
E: Amazing Adventures 11
F: Captain America & the Falcon 175
G: Defenders 15
H: Defenders 16
It's worth noting that Iceman meets up with the whole X-Men team in XHY 14 and from that point on acts more like a member than not. He makes a comment in Amazing Spider-Man 92 that could be read to mean that he was still (or again) off the team at that point, but it could just have meant that the team hadn't done much lately, which is more consistent with the other early 70's appearances. Either way, it doesn't really affect anything but my obsessive-compulsive desire to make membership charts.
Professor X Charles Xavier ...-... Cyclops Scott Summers ...-... Iceman Bobby Drake ...-A, B-... (Iceman's departure is a retcon by X:HY) Angel Warren Worthington, III ...-... Beast Hank McCoy ...-E Marvel Girl I Jean Grey ...-... Lorna Dane Lorna Dane ...-D, F-... (no code name most this time; briefly Magnetrix in X:HY) Havok Alex Summers ...-C, F-...
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants I
(Core three members team up after being released from the Sentinels in XM1 60)
Magneto alias "Erik Lehnsherr" G-H (only joins/takes control of this incarnation near the end of its existence) Blob Fred J. Dukes XM1 60-H Mastermind I Jason Wyngarde XM1 60-H Unus Angelo Unuscione XM1 60-H Lorelei G-H
Continuity
Juggernaut's appearance in Dr. Strange #182 was actually published during the Thomas/Adams run before X-Men was cancelled, but it just fits in better with these other guest appearances, including more by Cain, than with that run. I use a lot of abbreviations in this entry so check the reference entry if something's not clear.
XM1 ...-66 | FF:WGCM 3-4* | XM2 94.2* (X:HY Prologue) | X:HY 1-19* |_________________ | | XM:HY 20-22* FF 102-104 [Magneto only] | | ASM 92 | | | HLK 150 | | AA 9-10 [Magneto only] AA 11-14 | | DRS 182 | MTU 4 | | |________| | AVG 102-105 [Sentinels, Savage Land] | | | AA 15-16 | | | | | HLK 161 | | |________________|___________| | AVG 110-111 | HLK 172 | CPF 172-175 | MTU 23 | DEF 15-16 | HLK 181 [Wolverine] GFF 4 | |_____________| | | GXM / X:DG material in next post
Writing and Art Styles
With this period, we're now pretty solidly into what's often called the "Bronze Age" of comics. This is probably most immediately noticeable in the art, which has a realistic feel similar to (and to a large degree influenced by) the work Neal Adams did on the last few X-Men issues before it's cancellation. Various artists adapted or added to the new styles to varying degrees, but a lot of the artwork is closer to Adams's realism than Kirby's previously definitive style. Hank McCoy's new bestial form, in particular, gave the artists who draw him a great chance to showcase their handling of detail. Amazing Adventures #12 has a great splash page by penciler Tom Sutton and inker Mike Ploog of Beast perched on some sort of scaffolding in the rain. Not only is there a lot of (furry) anatomical detail, but the rain is drawn dripping over him and soaking him. You really feel what a wretched night it must be for him in that rain. That sort of effect was never part of the styles used on X-Men in the 60's. Which isn't to say that those styles were bad, but there was clearly a major shift in comic artwork right around 1970. Still, some artists, like Sal Buscema on the Captain America and the Falcon issues, continue to use a more Kirby-esque style.
But it's not just the art that changed. After Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams's Green Lantern/Green Arrow series broke new ground by confronting racism, class barriers and drug use over at DC, comics started trying to be socially relevant for the first time since World War II. The Comics Code censorship policies, which had forced anything of substance out of comics in the early 50's, had lightened just enough to allow real topics to be discussed. While the X-Men's own storylines aren't really that topical, the Captain America storyline they appear in very much is. At the end of it, Captain America, disgusted by Vietnam, Watergate, and the involvement of some high elected official (implied to be President Nixon) in the evil plot he just defeated, refuses to continue in his role. He doesn't feel that this America is the same one that he fought for in WWII. It doesn't have anything to do with the X-Men (who had slipped out of the story by then), but it's a pretty amazing storyline, and a big change from the light material we saw in the 60's.
Another change was that superhero comics weren't quite as popular, and other genres, most notably horror, were attracting more interest. Gerry Conway, who wrote the issue in which Beast first becomes a literal Beast, also wrote werewolf horror tales, and that background shows in his style. For Hank's transformation story it's really quite effective- he uses a 2nd-person narration that puts the reader into Hank's place to make his anger and self-recrimination more immediate. In many ways, it is a horror story as Hank is certainly horrified at being trapped in his new form in this first issue. Conway's writing is less effective on the two issues he writes where the Inhumans go up against Magneto. While Magneto's deformed attempts at artificial mutants are suitably creepy, the story is a more conventional superhero tale, and the writing style does not work as well with that.
The other writers who worked on these stories all wrote in more or less the same style. Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart and Len Wein contributed the bulk of the writing. Englehart's dialogue may be a bit more natural-feeling than the others', and his Beast stories are quite enjoyable. He writes all of Beast's run except for that first issue by Conway. I should point out that while the general trend was towards "more natural-sounding", that doesn't mean "natural". There's still a good bit of verbal posturing, just not quite as much as in earlier years.
The Stories and Character Development
This time around it seems easiest to break up the stories mostly by characters. Without a book of their own (except Beast's brief run in AA), there's no central narrative, and the most significant thing about several of the storylines is character development. There are a few plot-oriented storylines, and I'll just list them mixed in with the character bits.
Havok and Lorna Dane
In one of the earlier guest appearances, Lorna Dane is tracking down Alex Summers in New Mexico, where he's living after having left the team and abandoning his identity as Havok. Apparently in yet another squabble between him and Iceman over Lorna, he accidentally blasted Bobby with his plasma beams, and decided he was too dangerous and that the whole superhero gig was not for him. Bobby, as it turned out, was not seriously injured, and after Alex stayed away for several months the Professor sent a concerned Lorna after him. Since this event happens in the Hulk's comic (#150), he shows up and runs off with Lorna because her green hair reminds him of someone. Alex has to pull out his Havok suit and rescue her, realizing that maybe he's not so bad at this after all in the process. The whole episode is significant as it solidly establishes that Havok was not just scared of his powers at the beginning, but is in general interested in life outside of the X-Men. This is in marked contrast to his brother, although both of them fear what their powers can do. Havok and Lorna head back to rejoin the team, but we don't actually see them with the team in any of the next several appearances. While there's no comment on it for a while, it eventually ties into a larger plot development.
Beast (Hank McCoy)
First Appearance in furry form: Amazing Adventures #11 (gray), Amazing Adventures #15 (blue)
Beast goes through several extremely important changes during this period, and definitely has the most material of any X-Man during this period (Magneto has more appearances in various titles, but with less character development). The most obvious change is that he becomes blue and furry, and somewhat apelike. Equally important are the personality changes that started before his transformation, and continued as a result of it. Getting the job as a researcher at Brand and starting his own life outside the school have a major effect on Hank, and the attentions of his lovely assistant Linda Donaldson is a factor as well. Hank becomes much more personally and professionally confident and comfortable in himself (sadly, Linda's an evil spy, but more on that in her section later on).
Unfortunately, it's his improved confidence that partially leads to his transformation. He discovers a plot to steal military secrets from Brand the same night he isolates the "chemical cause of mutation". Which can apparently be ingested like a magic potion. Anyway, he thinks he's needed to stop the theft but doesn't want to go bouncing around as the Beast because his build is just too recognizable. So he has the brilliant idea to test his potion on himself, saying that he can reverse it as long as less than an hour has passed. Of course, he doesn't make the deadline and gets stuck like that.
Initially he's gray (although inexplicably the "Marvel Milestones" reprint of AA #11 recolors him blue) and had a healing factor just like Wolverine would later posses. But he loses that power after a few issues, and while recovering from a major wound the normal way his fur turns blue for no particular reason.
As one might expect, the permanent transformation is pretty traumatic to Hank, especially after things were going so well for him. But when he's not worrying about interacting with normal humans, he actually feels more comfortable in his new body. A particularly notable side-effect is that he stops using convoluted sentence structure and starts using a less esoteric vocabulary. He figures that he used his old way of speaking as something of a shield to hide behind in social situations, but he's no longer really concerned about that. He's pretty disoriented by the more savage aspects his new form brings out in him, and Mastermind and the Brotherhood briefly exploit that. But during a confrontation with Iron Man exacerbated by Mastermind, Iron Man recognizes that Beast is not truly evil but struggling to deal with something very difficult and lets him escape. This leads to an interesting later discussion between Hank and Iron Man during which Tony calls him a man twice, which helps Hank's self-image a great deal.
Still, he is very concerned about what the X-Men might think when they find out, and tells Professor X not to interfere when Xavier contacts him telepathically. Eventually Angel gets worried and comes to visit. He's surprised, of course, but doesn't freak out. Warren and Hank actually bond a bit over the difficulty of hiding physical mutations in normal society. Like Warren, Hank uses a set of straps to force his body into normal shape, although where Warren is hiding extra limbs, Hank is just trying to get his now-bestial body to stand completely upright (he also wears a latex mask and gloves so he can appear human when wearing clothes, which really shouldn't work but it was within the suspension of disbelief of the time). When we last see Hank, his sense of humour has developed into the slightly more wry form that is familiar to later readers. He was always rather witty, but he now works his transformed state into his jokes, often playing off the expectations of those who see him.
Near the end of his Amazing Adventures run, his old girlfriend Vera Cantor shows up in dire need of his expertise in mutant genetics to help the Mimic (for details see Mimic's entry below). This storyline actually concludes in The Incredible Hulk #161 because Beast's run in Amazing Adventures gets cancelled. Apparently it got overwhelmingly positive reaction in fan mail, but not enough sales to keep it going. But in the story, while Hank has gotten more comfortable with the X-Men knowing his state, he still hides from Vera with the latex mask and gloves. It won't be until he joins the Avengers that he gets truly comfortable with his new form. (AA #11-16, HLK #161; AA #17 reprints old XM1 material).
The Sentinels and Larry Trask
The Avengers hear news that unidentified objects have been seen exiting a tight solar orbit and heading for Earth. Quicksilver thinks briefly of the Sentinels that Cyclops tricked into flying into the Sun in XM1 #59, but dismisses the idea as too unlikely. Of course, it turns out that's exactly what the objects are, and one of them shows up and abducts the Scarlet Witch while she's walking in Central Park despite Quicksilver and the Avengers' attempts to stop it. Oddly, it does not try to take Quicksilver. Just afterwards, strange and increasingly intense solar flares begin to occur, and seem likely to increase to the point of endangering the earth. Most of the Avengers track down the source of the flare-inducing rays to where the Sentinels have set up shop in Australia- apparently a second base built as part of Bolivar Trask's original program. Quicksilver, meanwhile, has run off to do things on his own, and thinks to track down Larry Trask. Larry forgot all about most of this sort of thing when his mutant-power-suppressing amulet was put back on in XM1 #60, but Pietro remembers the amulet and removes it. He forces Larry to help him, and they end up at the Sentinel base as well.
In the big battle, it comes out that Wanda is being used as a power source for the flare-inducing machine and the Sentinels intent to use the flares to sterilize the human population so that they can raise the next generation of humans in a genetically-controlled mutation-free environment. Quicksilver gets knocked out before he and Larry meet up with the rest of the Avengers, and during the fight Larry realizes that there's something wrong with Sentinel #2 (the leader since the Master Mold was destroyed). He turns on a mutant-detecting machine in the base, which shows that #2, who was flying closest to the sun and looks kind of melty, has become a mutant himself. The other Sentinels turn on him, and once he's destroyed they all shut down, too. One of them falls on Larry, killing him before he can tell the others that Quicksilver is in the base. The survivors escape with a rescued Wanda, and blow up the base on their way out. (AVG #102-104)
Magneto
Magneto makes quite a few appearances during this period, still mostly in his Silver Age cackling villain mode. His previous appearance during the Thomas/Adams run where he hides his identity from Angel was probably as subtle as the pre-Claremont Magneto ever got. During these guest appearances, he's found by Namor on the shores of the Savage Land (presumably having washed up there after the destruction of his base in XM1 #63, although X:HY retcons another Savage Land-based mad scheme and exploding base in the middle there). Magneto tries to goad the notoriously touchy Namor into having Atlantis declare war on the surface world, and succeeds in getting things going. But Namor eventually realizes that Magneto is way too crazy to be telling the truth, and switches sides to help the Fantastic Four defeat him. (FF #102-104)
We next see Magneto capturing Black Bolt of the Inhumans to aid his plan to mutate humans into some sort of army to take over the world (which will be his theme for the rest of this period). He apparently escaped his plastic prison by mastering Zen and Yoga techniques and focusing his mutant powers to, um, burst out of his prison by pure mutant-powerness. Right. Anyway, the machines he's constructed since then have produced monstrous mutations that were not as useful as his Savage Land mutates had been, and he wants Black Bolt to help him steal more technology. Predictably, this ends poorly, but Magneto escapes during the final fight. He's particularly mad-scientisty during this story, and one of his created mutants is a big gorilla-like thing with half the top of its skull missing so its brains are hanging out. Bizarre. (AA #9-10)
His next scheme is one of the more complex X-Men related storylines of the era. The Avengers, investigating reports of strange activity to try to find Quicksilver after defeating the Sentinels, go to the Savage Land and encounter all of the mutates except Piper. Since the mutates had reverted back to swamp savages last time anyone had seen them, the Scarlet Witch speculates worriedly that Magneto may be active once again. The Avengers soon get a video feed from someone showing the X-Men defeated in their mansion. They head off to help and it of course turns out to be a trap- that someone was Magneto, who has Piper with him to control some Savage Land dinosaurs they brought along (how do you get those through customs?). In a neat use of continuity, the uniform Magneto gave Angel back in XM1 #62 when he was badly injured in the Savage Land is revealed to have been designed to leech energy from its mutant wearer. Magneto went to the X-Mansion first to retrieve the suit and its stored energy, and then defeated the X-Men. This is intended to explain how he recovered from the weakness displayed in XM1 #62-63 that required him to augment his abilities with machines. Although he had seemed fine in the last few guest appearances so it's not entirely clear how that was all supposed to line up.
Continuing the weird new abilities by meditation theme, Magneto can now apparently control the iron in people's blood in a way that essentially gives him mind control powers. After he captures the X-Men and half the Avengers, he makes the Scarlet Witch dance for him in her skimpy outfit, which is really creepy when you consider that she's his daughter. Although at this point neither of them know that, and the writers hadn't come up with it yet either. Magneto's trying once again to create a mutant army, this time with the involuntary assistance of several atomic scientists. Eventually, of course, the Avengers and X-Men defeat Magneto, and apparently the Avengers imprison him "at the center of the earth". Or at least really deep. (AVG #105, 110-111)
This leads into Magneto's final guest appearance, which also ends up, probably by accident, laying the groundwork for Magneto becoming such a different character during Claremont's run. Once he figures out how to escape from his most recent confinement, he stumbles across ancient alien technology buried underground on his way out. He still wants to create mutants to help him take over the earth and this alien tech allows him to create the ultimate mutant, Mutant Alpha. He tracks down the Blob/Mastermind/Unus incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, adds Lorelei to their ranks (apparently just because he's become fond of her), and goes about engineering his mutant. Professor X and the Defenders (the X-Men were busy) show up to stop him, but in the end as Alpha's mind matures, he "evolves" beyond humanity and certainly far enough to see that Magneto's morality is deeply flawed. So he de-ages Magneto and the Brotherhood back to early childhood and flies off to the stars. Eventually Magneto (and the others) will get restored to adulthood, of course, and after that Claremont will write him very differently. (DEF #15-16)
The X-Men and the Secret Empire
The X-Men spend much of this period lying low. Apparently the public battle with the Hulk in the final non-reprint issue (XM1 #66) stirred up so much anti-mutant sentiment that Professor X has been keeping the team out of the field. Jean mentions that Hank is the only one the Professor has allowed to leave, although that's not strictly true as Havok was gone by that time and Lorna was off trying to find him. Although perhaps sending Lorna counted as not letting Havok go, or maybe Englehart just forgot about those two. In any event, Iceman is excited to see some action after so long when he makes an appearance in Spider-Man's book (before Havok leaves) (ASM #92). When Xavier finally does feel the need to send the team on a mission, he has them do it in civilian clothes and admonishes them to keep a low profile (MTU #4). They're finally stirred to major action when they realize that mutants are disappearing. After Magneto's attack on the mansion where he took Angel's costume back, Angel was never found. Beast has gone missing from the Brand corporation as well.
Professor X sends out the remaining three X-Men to check on other known mutants, and Iceman never returns. Xavier, Cyclops and Marvel Girl travel to New Mexico in search of Havok and Lorna (HLK #172), but find their house empty. The Professor had assumed that they had simply retired from superheroing, but in truth they had been among the first to be captured. This leads to Xavier, Cyclops and Marvel Girl teaming up with Captain America and the Falcon when both encounter a paranoid Banshee, who has heard of the disappearances and is of a mind to shoot first and ask questions later. Cap, Falcon and the remaining X-Men end up freeing the mutants, and then the X-Men step back to allow Cap to finish defeating the plot against the government on the White House lawn (although they offer their support if its needed, but as it turns out it is not). Since this is really much more of a Captain America story, there's not much follow-up and the X-Men just disappear in the background. (CAP #172-175)
From that point on we never see the entire team, but presumably it consists of the lineup seen in GXM #1: Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl, Lorna Dane and Havok. Iceman makes another appearance with Spider-man (MTU #23), and the Professor appears with the Defenders (DEF #15-16) and the Fantastic Four (GFF #4), and then the team gets a big re-launch which will be the focus of the next entry.
Juggernaut (Cain Marko)
Juggernaut spends this period popping in and out of various mystical dimensions in which he keeps getting imprisoned. When we last saw him he was imprisoned in the Crimson Cosmos, in which we now find out that he's somehow gained some vaguely-defined mystic abilities. But they're not enough for him to escape on his own. Then Dr. Strange plucks Cain out of the Crimson Cosmos to use him as a distraction in a fight, which ends with Juggernaut being banished to yet another dimension (DRS #182). That dimension tries to drain his life force by aging him, and he finds that maintaining focused hate is the only thing that serves as a defense. When that dimension lets him out long enough to fight Beast, he loses, which stops him concentrating his hate and ages him to an old man as he is sucked back into the dimension (AA #16). But apparently the consciousness of that dimension regards him as a pest, so it proposes to restore Cain's proper age and send him permanently to Earth in return for the mystic abilities he had gained. This finally leaves Juggernaut free on Earth, although he ends up knocked out in a three-way fight with the Hulk and the X-Men (HLK #172). Throughout this, there's no real change in his character- he's single-mindedly focused on getting back to Earth and staying there. But the mystical powers are an odd and mostly forgotten detour in his abilities.
Mimic (Calvin Rankin)
Apparently died in: The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #161
Cal has apparently become a much more decent person since losing his powers and being thrown out of the X-Men. Vera Cantor, who was spurning his advances in favor of dating Hank when we first met both her and Cal, is once again dating him. His powers apparently came back but with the additional twist of draining the life force of people in a slowly increasing radius. Because of this, he's isolated himself in the Canadian wilderness, told Vera about his powers and sent her to get Hank. He ends up allowing himself to die in a fight with the Hulk in order to prevent his out of control powers from killing anyone else. It eventually turns out he only went into a deep coma, but for whatever reason, he doesn't show up again for many years. (HLK #161)
The Characters (new)
Linda Donaldson
Abilities: Baseline human with military / covert operations training.
First Appearance: Amazing Adventures #11
Linda Donaldson first appears as the assistant to Hank McCoy's boss at Brand, Dr. Carl Maddicks. It's soon revealed that both Linda and Dr. Maddicks are agents of an organization known as the Secret Empire which is trying to take over America and has an interest in mutants. Linda starts dating Hank in order to get closer to his research, and Hank is quite taken with her. Millionaire industrialist Tony Stark (secretly Iron Man) visits Brand, and when his girlfriend mentions that something seems off about Linda, Hank gets fairly defensive. He never does figure out her true purpose, and she ends up capturing him as Beast when the Secret Empire rounds up mutants to power its weapons. Amusingly, she wonders what happened to Hank, not realizing that she already captured him. By that point the Secret Empire has enough mutants captured and don't need Hank's research into the causes of mutation anyway. Linda is last seen during the last fight in the Secret Empire's base, but is not seen during the final fight on the White House lawn. To the best of my knowledge, she has made no further appearances.
Carl Maddicks
Abilities: Baseline human
First Appearance: Amazing Adventures #11
Dr. Carl Maddicks is an embittered researcher at Brand Corporation, and nominally Hank McCoy's superior. However, he wants nothing to do with Hank, and it soon becomes apparent that he is a spy for the Secret Empire. When his attempted theft fails, he is killed by Linda Donaldson who takes his place as the ranking undercover agent at Brand. Or at least that's what appears to happen- many years later he'll reappear, still bitter, in the pages of X-Factor where he's trying to find a "cure" for his mutant son Artie. He doesn't last much longer there before he's killed again, and this time it sticks. Artie's rather more important, but we'll get to him when he shows up- there's no hint of his existance here.
Patsy Walker
Abilities: Baseline human
First Appearance (historical): Miss America Magazine #2 (November 1944)
First Appearance (modern): Amazing Adventures #13
Patsy Walker first appeared as a humor/romance comic character starring in several titles from the mid-40's to the mid-60's. She then disappeared for 10 years until she shows up at Brand corporation, now married to her romantic interest from those earlier comics, Buzz Baxter. Buzz is now a Captain in the military, and the Pentagon has sent him to investigate the Beast sightings around Brand. He's suspicious of Hank, but Patsy is sympathetic to both him and the Beast, and learns that the two are one in the same when Beast passes out on her doorstep after being injured. She helps Hank out, but extracts an unspecified promise from him in return. We'll find out much later that he promised to help her become a superhero somehow- she eventually calls him on this and assumes the codename Hellcat. By that point she's divorced from Buzz Baxter, and not at all content to be a normal housewife.
It's an interesting thing to do with a character from a genre that celebrated normal married life as the ultimate goal. Interestingly, Patsy's humor/romance comic appearances are later revealed to have been comics within the Marvel Universe written by her mother, loosely based on Patsy's life at the time. Patsy's not really significant to the X-Men, but she is to Hank as she helped him out here and tries out for the Avengers along with him a few years later (both are accepted, but Patsy accepts another heroine's offer of training instead). Plus, her history is just so unusual that I wanted to comment on it.
Wolverine (James "Logan" Howlett)
Abilities: Healing factor enables him to survive and rapidly recover from nearly any wound and drastically slows his aging process. Natural retractable bone claws that emerge from the back of his hands. Bones artificially coated with the nearly-invulnerable metal adamantium. Adamantium-covered claws can slice through almost any substance. Enhanced senses, especially a sense of smell keen enough to use for tracking. More recently possesses the ability to appear in all significant Marvel Comics titles simultaneously.
First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #180 (cameo on final page), #181 (full)
Wolverine makes his first appearance in the pages of the Hulk's magazine, and it's an interesting contrast to the established character who now appears in more titles and concurrent storylines than should be even remotely possible. The immediately obvious difference is that the cowl on his costume is rather different, and is more suggestive of an actual Wolverine than his more well-known look. Apparently, the change to the classic version (with the big ears) was the result of an artist mistake that they just kept.
Anyway, Hulk #181 is just a big fight scene, so there's not much to say about his character yet. He's asked his superiors at Weapon X to give him a few hours to take down the Hulk before they send in the heavy artillery. He makes a respectable go at it, but the Hulk does win in the end. He's got the recognizable short, stocky build (he's said to be 5'5"), and the metal claws, but they can't cut through the Hulk's skin in this version. Woverine also uses the word "impregnable" to describe the Hulk's skin, which is another difference- the Wolverine of today would have just said "tough". There's also no sign of the famous mutant rapid healing factor- that appears once he joins the X-Men. There's also no indication whether the claws are part of him or part of his costume- that's not actually revealed until several issues into his time with the X-Men. And finally, when he mentions the adamantium claws there's no hint of his other bones being coated in the metal. His military commanders just refer to his natural mutant speed, strength and agility. Interestingly, they also comment that he still has some quirks in his psychological makeup, although they think he's field-ready despite that. Early in his time as an X-Men Logan expresses dismay (in a thought balloon, not out loud) over how quickly he goes for the kill in a crisis even with all of the therapy and mental treatments he's had.
While there's not much room for character development here, none of it really contradicts how he's portrayed when he joins the X-Men in his next appearance a few months later. He's gruff and confident in his physical abilities, and challenges Cyclops's authority regularly. But in his early appearances he's a much more withdrawn, introspective character. While he's still not one to easily share confidences, he now has such an enormous reputation within the Marvel Universe that he can dominate an event just by stepping into the room. During his first few adventures with the X-Men, he's often less than sensitive, but he also is trying to deal with being around people on an ongoing basis for the first time in many years. Unlike his employment for Weapon X, the X-Men are a social team, rather than agents drawing paychecks. Logan doesn't really know how to fit in with people or how to deal with his unrequited attraction to Jean Grey. And the others really don't know what to make of him.
In modern stories, everyone knows Wolverine at least by reputation, and while still a private man by nature he's become much more of an extrovert. Rather than being mysteriously withdrawn he exudes the raw charisma that has made him one of Marvel's most popular characters, and knows that often the intimidation of his reputation is enough to end a fight. On the other hand, he's in so many books he's over-exposed, and far too many writers fall into the trap of writing the fanboy version of him who just snarls one-liners and slices things up. At his best, Logan is a complex character. At his worst, he becomes self-parody.
The Weapon X Program
First Appearance:
The Incredible Hulk (2nd series) #181
The Weapon X program makes its first appearance at the same time as Wolverine (who is also called "Weapon X" himself). We don't know much about them at this point other than that they're a Canadian defense program of some sort. Many future storylines will fill out histories for Weapon X, with the current line being that the "X" is really a roman numeral 10, meaning that they were/are the 10th program in the Weapon Plus series. The Weapon I program was the super-soldier program that produced Captain America, and other programs up through Weapon XV have been mentioned. But here the Weapon X program is just generically mysterious.
Multiple Man (Jamie Madrox)
Abilities: Can produce duplicates of himself in response to physical contact. The dupes are independent but are absorbed back into the main Jamie, who then remembers their experiences. Initially, the dupes all do what he wants without showing their own personalities, but much later they start to develop variations and have their own agendas.
First Appearance: Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4
While he might not be a mutant (it's a complicated and unclear recent development), Jamie is primarily associated with the X-teams, and was presented as a mutant in his original appearance and for many years thereafter. He's never been an X-Man (although he's been invited twice), but was a long-time member of the government-backed incarnation of X-Factor and now leads the independent X-Factor Investigations detective agency.
Whatever his actual status, Jamie's introduced as a mutant, eventually turning out to be the son of a former colleague of Professor X. He was raised on an isolate Kansas farm where his parents made him wear a suit that suppressed his powers. When they died in a tornado, he continued to live on the farm alone, using his dupes to help out once the containment suit ceased to function. After the suit malfunctions further, leading to a fight with the Fantastic Four ended by Xavier's intervention, the Professor claims Jamie is his responsibility and takes him away to help him recover from his temporary insanity and learn to manage his power. For some reason, Xavier thought leaving Jamie alone on his deceased parents' farm all those years was OK, though.
Jamie's lonely teenage years on the farm left several marks on him. While his personality remains fairly generic in his first few appearances, as his character develops it becomes apparent that he's quite the prankster. He hates to feel alone (and his dupes don't count), and craves any sort of attention, so like so many others in his situation he often plays the clown. Recently he's gotten a bit more serious as he's assumed leadership of the newest incarnation of X-Factor, but he's not yet entirely comfortable in the role. His ability lets him send out duplicates to experience all different paths in life, so faced with all the possibilities he sometimes ends up doing nothing at all. Which makes his leadership role unusually challenging.
Retcons
For the first time, with this era we have an entire series of retroactive continuity inserted. Strictly speaking, that's not entirely true as Emma Frost probably starts sometime between XM1 #40-60, but it doesn't really intersect with any of the characters being written at the time. The series in question here is John Byrne's 1999-2001 series X-Men: The Hidden Years, which picks up right where XM1 #66 left off and then meanders about fairly pointlessly for 20+ issues before being cancelled.
On the one hand, Byrne tries to line things up with existing continuity points even when they're very small- the last few issues of the series show the X-Men hovering around the edges of the Magneto/Namor storyline from FF #102-104. But that also illustrates the problem with the series, which is that Byrne can't really change anything that happened, so the X-Men end up never getting all that close to the principle characters in the main story. They're just kind of around fighting side stuff.
A lot of the series is like that. Byrne has the team (minus Iceman who quite, and Havok and Lorna who are apparently too junior) go down to the Savage Land again where he writes another plot about Magneto having a base and a crazy plan and seemingly getting killed. Once again, he has to make it line up with Namor finding Magneto in FF #102, so it really doesn't add anything.
On the other hand, Byrne does some weird messing about with continuity, even while trying to synch up with other bits. He has the team coincidentally meet Ororo Munroe (Storm) in Africa, but has to resort to keeping Cyclops unconscious the whole time so as not to contradict him meeting Storm for the first time in GXM #1. Also, all of the X-Men's original appearances during this time made it pretty clear that the X-Men were keeping a very low profile. Of course, that doesn't go well with writing a series about them, so it kind of had to be ignored.
The only really worthwhile plot the seems to have come out of this (and except for the first two issues I'm writing this entirely based on indexes at The X-Axis and Uncanny X-Men.net) is an explanation of how Angel's mother died. Unfortunately, it strains credibility as it hinges on Warren not having noticed that his evil uncle Burt, who was the villain in the brief Angel solo stories written back around XM1 #47-ish, didn't die after all. Having killed Warren's father (his own brother) in that earlier story, Burt now tries to marry Warren's mother, who he's also having slowly poisoned so he will inherit all of the family riches. The upshot is the X-Men expose Burt, but not until Kathryn Worthington has been exposed to too much of the poison, and dies. Which does tie up a loose plot end, but it would have been nice if it was done more credibly.
Other than X:HY, a Fantastic Four anniversary retrospective miniseries included an appearance by the X-Men. The plot's unimportant (it involves captured Sentinel's being reactivated by Dr. Doom in order to distract the FF), but it's a bit annoying in that it's placement in FF continuity means that it had to happen in the first few issues of X:HY. However, almost the first thing that happens in that series is Iceman quitting. The FF series, of course, shows all seven late-60's X-Men, so it gets wedged into the 30-hour timeframe between XM1 #66 and the X:HY preview in XM2 #94. It's doesn't really matter, though, as there's no real impact on X-Men history whatsoever.
Up Next: A new era begins with an almost entirely new team, featuring such classic favorites as Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler.