Having read the announcement that Patrick Stewart will not be returning as Professor X after the Logan movie, I am crossing over with my Materioptikon blog in the second of three posts about the X-Men's adventures in British weeklies Fantastic and The Titans and collected in Lonely Are The Hunted. The first post can be found here https://materioptikon.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/fantastic-voyage/
The rather genteel, coffee-shop adventures of the Archie X-Men didn't seem to be setting the Sixties comics world on fire. The teacher-student status quo of the series seems to shift during this period and Roy Thomas continues to forge more links with the wider Marvel Universe. There's something of a Bond movie flavour to the series but science-fiction and fantasy elements still abound.
Beware the Juggernaut, My Son/ Into the Crimson Cosmos: the first part of this two-part adventure introduced me to Xavier's hulking evil step-brother, who literally bears the Mark' o Cain. It was reprinted in an issue of Fantastic which languished, mouldering, in our garage, until one summer's day in the early 70s. In his second appearance, Juggernaut is imbued with Xavier's telepathic abilities.
In order to defeat the enchanted villain, Scott and Jean are dispatched by Dr. Strange to another dimension where they are pitted against The Outcast, a demon with a terrific name but one who looks like the Abomination. FOOM 8 taught me that the original cover was considered too frightening.
Despite a clash with a Hell's Angels-type bike gang, this is our preppy heroes first full-on magical/mystical adventure and it's a milieu that Claremont is drawn to, possibly too often, in the All-New X-Men Era. Juggy is exiled to the Crimson Cosmos and in his next appearance, will encounter Dr. Strange. Kidnapped by Factor Three, a secret organisation with warlike ambitions, Xavier is inactive in the comic for the next seven issues.
War in a World of Darkness: Ralph Roberts, the erstwhile Cobalt Man is kidnapped in the continuing feud between subterranean warlords, Tyrannus and the Mole Man. Two giant robots battle, Harryhausen-style, representing the villains.Thomas throws in a reference to the River Lethe, in a callback to his use of Greek Mythology during Hercules' tenure with the Avengers. In its look (Dan Adkins) and its setting, this story is wearyingly similar to the Warlock/Merlin episode and equally dull. It also stalls the Factor Three story's momentum.
Along Came a Spider: a sales-boosting guest-star appearance from groovy, motorcyclist Peter Parker actually opens with the return of the Banshee. When the wraith-like Irish mutant falls foul of Factor Three's arachnid robot, a Merry Marvel Misunderstanding ensues. This is the last regular appearance by Roth as X-penciller, on the main feature at least.
Mekano Lives!: Ross Andru's grotesque and quirky style on Wonder Woman and Metal Men doesn't appeal to me here. Mekano is a troubled youth with daddy issues, who goes on a rampage in an exo-skeleton. This story is too much like the Cobalt Man debacle and while Philanthropist Dad rewards the mutants with money for their European expedition, Ralph Roberts would've been their logical first port of call. It's strange Thomas didn't think so.
We, The Jury/The Sinister Shadow of Doomsday/The Fateful Finale
I had been waiting to read the climax of the saga of Factor Three since the early 70s, when I read about them in the Fantastic Annual ( more about that in the next post). My first exposure to the story was mid-decade and this reprint from Stonehouse Hospital.
To my chagrin, the mainstays of this shadowy conspiracy turned out to be the more lacklustre members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. However, this is another high-stakes tale with its roots in Cold War anxieties as the mutants strive to avert a nuclear holocaust.
Don Heck replaces Werner Roth with this arc and while his futuristic backdrops and super-heroics make this more of a sister book to Avengers, I miss Roth's real-world settings and the youthful appeal of his characters.
The Factor Three, er, three-parter begins with a genuinely thrilling and dramatic skydiving sequence as the X-Men abandon their imperilled flight over a European mountain range; again, Claremont will return to this trope several times during the first Cockrum run. The European setting gives the team the globe-trotting quality of the spy movie genre.
The X-Men are captured and put on show-trial by two new villains: the Changeling and his fractious superior, the Mutant Master, who operates a hovering platform. The Changeling will be a pivotal player and Thomas very cleverly sets up his future role in this story arc. In the 90s, the Changeling will be a Plastic Man-substitute in the Age of Apocalypse event, where his character is merged with the short-lived Morph, from the animated X-Men tv series
In a surprising but disappointing turn of events, the Mutant Master is revealed to be an octopoid alien from Sirius: something of a blow for the Blob and Unus, who had been duped by the X-Men's first alien adversary Lucifer in exactly the same way. We also get a brief glimpse of the Changeling's power at last as he impersonates Xavier. The pacing of Heck's story and Thomas's scripting doesn't make it terribly clear that he is a shape-changer. Maybe it's intended to be a clue to a bigger mystery, as we'll see next time.
The fact that the Brotherhood members are allowed to escape is frustrating and the WWIII storyline is something of an anti-climax with its somewhat silly sci-fi twist.
The dénouement of the adventure unveils colourful new costumes, again designed by Jean Grey; Angel's "suspenders" costume is "noisy" and to be honest I actually prefer his plunging neckline/headband combo from the early days of the Champions! Clearly, this is another gimmick to boost sales but there is a tacit understanding that the team are entering adulthood and they will retain these costumes (with the exception of Angel) until the demise of their regular Sixties run.
Werner Roth pencils the "Origins of the X-Men" back up feature in these issues, recounting Xavier's first meeting with Scott Summers. We'll revisit those short strips in the next Materioptikon post.
Coming soon: The Last Hurrah of the War Doctor
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