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Uncanny X-Men, Part 15: 1974 and 1975 – The Last Tales of the Original X-Men

Uncanny X-Men, Part 15: 1974 and 1975 – The Last Tales of the Original X-Men

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Welcome to post 15 of my re-read of the X-Men, which began in the Silver Age with X-Men #1 in 1963. We’re now well into 1974. We’ve gone through pretty much every appearance and guest appearance of the X-Men and even some X-Men-adjacent characters and we’re only a year away from Len Wein and Dave Cockrum’s new take on the X-Men in Second Genesis.  I’m going to talk about five issues in this post and note a few others for those who want to read in a really completist way.

The first set of issues is a two-part Magneto appearance in The Defenders #15-16. I glossed over Magneto’s Amazing Adventures appearance against the Inhumans in the last post because he was bringing a bit of a tired plot to the table (creating a bunch of mutants from scratch to command and send into battle).

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 13: Englehart’s Bronze Age Monster Horror – The Beast

Uncanny X-Men, Part 13: Englehart’s Bronze Age Monster Horror – The Beast

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Welcome to Part 13 of my complete reread of the X-Men. We’ve covered all the original X-Men run, many guest appearances and side stories. We’re now in 1972 and in my last post, Gerry Conway and Tom Sutton had taken the moribund second-strong superhero Beast and thrown him solo into the world of Jekyll-Hyde monster horror. In this post, we’re going to cover the remaining five issues of Amazing Adventures that follow Hank McCoy’s sundering from the X-Men.

Amazing Adventures #12 opens with Hank McCoy’s most obvious problem: His Jekyll and Hyde moment has permanently turned him into a twisted, inhuman beast, and he can’t change back. He can’t even pass for human. And he needs to pass for human to have a chance of marshalling his biochemical skills to cure himself. The artwork by Tom Sutton and Mike Ploog is perfect for a horror story, and we’ve seen Ploog do beautifully eerie with Doctor Strange’s contemporaneous stories in Marvel Premiere. Check out the splash page below.

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X-Men, Part 4: Issues #24-39: The Middle Years of the Original Team

X-Men, Part 4: Issues #24-39: The Middle Years of the Original Team

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While travelling in November, I loaded a bunch of X-Men comics onto my phone for the airports. I haven’t stopped reading and I started blogging about my reread. I’ve made the reread slightly more complete by adding in stories that were written later but fit into the canon.

In this post, I’m covering my thoughts on X-Men #24-39, with cover dates 1966-1967 which cover, most significantly, the introduction of Banshee and the multi-part Factor Three story. I mention the dates though because for the older issues I often spool up music from the corresponding year to play in the background for flavour. If you’re reading along at home via Marvel Unlimited or trades or Masterworks, give it a try. It’s weird way to situate yourself in the historical era.

It’s also important to situate ourselves in the comics era. During this period, Roy Thomas was getting his feet under him, with maybe as many hits as misses? Elsewhere in the Marvel Universe, Kirby and Lee were introducing the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and the Black Panther. On TV, the Adam West Batman series was premiering, as was the animated Spider-Man series, the first Fantastic Four animated series, as well as Marvel’s old Thor, Captain America and Iron Man cartoons which were half animated, half motion comic. It was a heady time to love superheroes, although I missed it by 15 years.

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