By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Werner Roth & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4619-7 (TPB/Digital edition)
These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times so here’s my now-standard advisory on format.
The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line is designed with economy in mind. Classic tales of Marvel – such as birthday boys and girl on show today – have been an archival book staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, expensive hardback collectors’ editions. The new tomes cited here are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and are smaller, about the dimensions of a paperback book. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for the digital editions, that’s no issue at all…
Way back in 1963 things really took off for the budding Marvel Comics as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby expanded their meagre line of action titles: putting a bunch of relatively new super-heroes (including hot-off-the-presses Iron Man) together as The Avengers; launching a decidedly different war comic in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and creating a group of alienated heroic teenagers united to fight a rather specific, previously unperceived threat to humanity. Those halcyon days are revisited in this splendid trade paperback/eBook compilation, gathering from May 1965 to April 1966, the contents of X-Men #11-19.
Way back in the summer of 1963, the premiere issue had introduced Cyclops – Scott Summers, Iceman – Bobby Drake, Angel – Warren Worthington III and The Beast AKA Henry “Hank” McCoy: extremely special students of Professor Charles Xavier. He was a brilliant, charismatic and wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race: human mutants called Homo Superior. The story saw the students welcome newest classmate Jean Grey, who would be codenamed Marvel Girl. She possessed the ability to move objects with her mind.
No sooner has the Professor explained their mission than an actual Evil Mutant – Magneto – singlehandedly took over American missile base Cape Citadel. A seemingly unbeatable threat, the master of magnetism was nonetheless driven off in under 15 minutes by the young heroes on their first combat mission…
These days, young heroes are ten-a-penny, but it should be noted that these kids were among Marvel’s first juvenile super-doers (unless you count Spider-Man or Human Torch Johnny Storm) since the end of the Golden Age, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that in early tales the youngsters regularly benefitted from a little adult supervision, such as is the case in the landmark tale that opens this book and ended an era…
After spectacular starts on most of Marvel’s Superhero titles (as well as western and war revamps), Jack Kirby’s increasing workload compelled him to cut back to laying out most of these lesser lights. Captain America still offered nostalgic fun through astounding action whilst Thor and Fantastic Four evolved into perfect playgrounds and full-time monthly preoccupations for his burgeoning imagination, but illustrating most of Marvel’s covers and creating a House style for the new Age of Superheroes was unforgiving and all-consuming…
The last series to be surrendered was the still-bimonthly X-Men wherein an outcast tribe of mutants worked diligently and clandestinely to foster peace and integration between the unwary masses of humanity and the gradually-emergent “coming race”. The King’s departure in #11 also marked a major turning point. Drenched in irony, ‘The Triumph of Magneto!’ (scripted by Stan Lee & inked by Chic stone) sees our heroes and The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Mastermind, The Toad, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch) both seeking a fantastically powered being dubbed The Stranger.
None are aware of his true identity, nature or purpose, but when the Master of Magnetism finds him first, it spells the end of his long war with the X-Men…
With Magneto gone and the Brotherhood broken, Kirby relinquished pencilling to other hands, thereafter providing loose layouts and design only. Alex Toth & Vince Colletta proved a quirky, uncomfortable mix for #12’s tense drama ‘The Origin of Professor X!’: opening a 2-part saga introducing Xavier’s bully half-brother Cain Marko. It also told how the simplistic thug was mystically transformation into an unstoppable human engine of destruction.
The story concludes with ‘Where Walks the Juggernaut!’: a compelling, tension-drenched, all-action tale guest-starring Johnny Storm, and notable for the introduction of penciller Werner Roth (using the name Jay Gavin). He would be associated with the mutants for the next half decade. His inker for this first outing was the infallible Joe Sinnott.
Roth was an unsung veteran of the industry, working for the company in the 1950s on star features like Apache Kid and the inexplicably durable Kid Colt, Outlaw, as well as Mandrake the Magician for King Features Comics and Man from U.N.C.L.E. for Gold Key. As with many pseudonymous creators of the period, it was his DC commitments (mostly romance stories) which compelled him to disguise his moonlighting until Marvel grew big enough to offer him full-time work.
From issue #14 – still laid out by Kirby & inked by Colletta – ‘Among Us Stalk the Sentinels!’ celebrated the team’s inevitable elevation to monthly publication in the first episode of a 3-chapter epic introducing anthropologist Bolivar Trask, whose solution to the threat of Mutant Domination was super-robots that would protect humanity at all costs. Sadly, they mechanoids’ definition of “protect” varied wildly from their creator’s, but what can you expect when a social scientist dabbles in high-energy physics and engineering?
The X-Men took the battle to the Sentinels’ secret base but became ‘Prisoners of the Mysterious Master Mold!’ before beating their ferrous foes with ‘The Supreme Sacrifice!’
Veteran Dick Ayers joined as inker from #15: his clean line blending perfectly with Roth’s smoothly classicist pencils. They remained a team for years, adding vital continuity to this quirky but never top-selling series.
X-Men #17 dealt with the aftermath of the battle – the last time the US Army and government openly approved of the team’s efforts – and the sedate but brooding nature of ‘…And None Shall Survive!’ enabled the story to generate a genuine air of apprehension as safe haven and citadel the Xavier Mansion is taken over by an old foe who picks them off one by one until only the youngest remains to battle alone in climactic conclusion ‘If Iceman Should Fail..!’
With Roth fully laying out his own stories, ‘Lo! Now Shall Appear… The Mimic!’ in #19 was Lee’s last script: the pithy, semi-tragic tale of a troubled teen possessing the ability to copy the skills, powers and abilities of anyone in close proximity, but not the emotional maturity to handle his power. The writing reins were turned over to Roy Thomas in #20.
X-Men was never one of young Marvel’s top titles but it found a devout and dedicated following as the frantic, freakish energy of Kirby’s heroic dynamism comfortably transited into the slick, sleek attractiveness of Roth and the fierce tension of hunted, haunted juvenile outsiders settled into a pastiche of college and school scenarios so familiar to the students who were the series’ main audience, but that’s the meat of the next volume…
Supplemented by covers from Kirby, Stone, Frank Giacoia, Sinnott, Wally Wood, Dick Ayers & Roth, the extras here comprise the art for a 1965 X-Men T-shirt by Kirby & Stone and a copious gallery of original art pages – by Kirby & Stone, Toth & Colletta &Roth & Ayers – plus a compelling contemporary house ad from August 1965 picturing all 13 Marvel Masterpieces on sale that month!
These quirky tales are a million miles removed from the angst-ridden, breast-beating, cripplingly convoluted X-brand of today’s Marvel, and in so many ways are all the better for it. Superbly rendered, highly readable adventures are never unwelcome or out of favour, and it should be remembered that everything here informs so very much of the mutant monolith. These are stories for dedicated fans and rawest converts. Everyone should have this book.
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