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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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Uncanny X-Men, Part 12: X-Men Guest Appearances in 1971-1972 and Hank gets Furry!

Uncanny X-Men, Part 12: X-Men Guest Appearances in 1971-1972 and Hank gets Furry!

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We’re back in the Bronze Age, baby! We left the original X-Men in John’s Byrne’s X-Men: The Hidden Years and in this 12th installment in my reread of all the X-Men, we’re now into the guest appearances our merry mutants made in the dark period between 1970 and 1975 when they weren’t being published regularly.

I want to go over The Amazing Spider-Man #92 (guest-starring Iceman), The Incredible Hulk #150 (guest-starring Havok and Polaris), Marvel-Team-Up #4 (featuring Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel and Professor X), Amazing Adventures #9-10 (starring the Inhumans against Magneto), and finally Amazing Adventures #11, the most significant issue discussed today, because of permanent character changes to Hank McCoy.

I slagged a bit on The Hidden Years in my last post because it was a comic of the year 2000 with a 1980s writerly sensibility. We’re diving back 20 years now, where the action was more slap-dash and energetic, the dialogue more over the top, and the social-political positions both surprisingly advanced and backwards for the time.

The Amazing Spider-Man #92 is a quick single-issue story with pencils by Gil Kane, inks by John Romita Sr, and writing by Stan Lee. The webslinger finds Gwen Stacey and Sam Bullit, a secret criminal boss running for New York D.A. against Foggy Nelson.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 11: Storm, the FF and Phoenix in John Byrne’s The Hidden Years

Uncanny X-Men, Part 11: Storm, the FF and Phoenix in John Byrne’s The Hidden Years

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Welcome to my 11th installment of my epic rereading of the X-Men, starting in 1963. I say that like it’s a big thing I’ve done, but to put things in perspective, I’ve done 10 posts before this and I haven’t even gotten to Giant-Sized X-Men #1 yet! Partly for that reason and partly because there are some swings and some misses in X-Men: The Hidden Years, and I really want to get back to the Bronze Age appearances of the X-Men.

Let me start with some of the negatives with X-Men: The Hidden Years. I don’t start here to scare anyone off. I think the things that don’t work are generalized problems with this series and are also certainly not fatal. X-Men: The Hidden Years was in fact selling well and was only cancelled at 22 issues because Marvel saw it had too many X-Men books at the same time and needed to cut one.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 10: John Byrne’s The Hidden Years #1-4

Uncanny X-Men, Part 10: John Byrne’s The Hidden Years #1-4

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Holy cow! We’re into double digits of my reread of the X-Men story that began in 1963. I include a full set of links to the post series at the bottom of this post. As we saw last time, some later creators have had some fun in writing stories that fit into those empty years between 1970 and 1975 when X-Men was just a reprint title. One of the most famous is John Byrne’s 1999-2001 series X-Men: The Hidden Years. 

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 9: Filling in the Corners of the Original X-Men with Savage Hulk #1-4

Uncanny X-Men, Part 9: Filling in the Corners of the Original X-Men with Savage Hulk #1-4

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Welcome to the 9th episode of my reread of the vast X-Men story that began in 1963. The X-Men series stopped putting out original stories in early 1970, due primarily to low sales; it was a reprint magazine from issues #67–93, cover dated December 1970 to April 1975, until the beginning of the Claremont and Cockrum run in issue #94.

I’m going to go through their early Bronze Age appearances in coming blog posts, but for story continuity purposes, I’m also reading issues created in contemporary times but fitting into that 5-year dead period, like I covered for the original X-Men in X-Men: First Class.

So this time I read the 2014 series Savage Hulk, by writer/penciller Alan Davis, inker Mark Farmer and colorist Matt Hollingsworth. 

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Uncanny X-Men Part 8, Issues 59-66: The Savage Land and the End of the Silver Age X-Men

Uncanny X-Men Part 8, Issues 59-66: The Savage Land and the End of the Silver Age X-Men

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This is a gigantic milestone! This is the 8th episode in my reread of the X-Men run. It covers from #59, the height of the Roy Thomas-Neal Adams run, to #66, the end of original X-Men stories, which hit the stands on March 10th, 1970. The end of the X-Men’s ongoing stories coincides with the end of the Silver Age and the beginning of the Bronze.

The Silver Age X-Men, as a distinctly 1960s phenomenon reached their peak with some of the Arnold Drake stories with some interesting experimentation under Steranko’s art. The arrival of Neal Adams feels much more like it belongs in the Bronze Age. Both the art and the story complexity (under Roy Thomas) feels like it’s breaking creative ground that the best of the 1970s will follow.

The merry mutants’ uneven momentum had carried them for 7 years, but even a spectacular finish couldn’t save the series from its failure to come into focus. We’re going to talk today about that end.

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Uncanny X-Men: Part 7, Issues #54-58 – Havok and Neal Adams

Uncanny X-Men: Part 7, Issues #54-58 – Havok and Neal Adams

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I was super-tempted to pause my blogging about my X-Men reread to complain about my reread of another classic, but I opted for the high road and am glad I did, because this was a fun post to think through. And, for those of you still with me, we’re almost at the end of the original X-Men! So pull up a chair for the 7th installment of my reread of the X-Men.

In this post, I want to look at issues #54-58 (March, 1969 – July, 1969), a run that contains two major Silver Age milestones. The first is the introduction of Alex Summer, the mutant brother of Scott Summers. Alex will eventually join the X-Men as their 7th member. The second is equally exciting – the beginning of Neal Adams’ brief but spectacular run. The team-up of Roy Thomas and Neal Adams marks the beginning of the zenith of the original team, outshining the Kirby-Lee issues and sitting comfortably at the same table as many of the great Claremont-Byrne stories.

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Uncanny X-Men Part 6: Issues #49-53: Reunion and Family and Steranko

Uncanny X-Men Part 6: Issues #49-53: Reunion and Family and Steranko

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Holy mutants, Batman! We’ve reached week 12, episode 6 of the great X-Men reread! This is an exciting run, because we get to experience the first of two  moments of major artistic experimentation in the Silver Age X-Men, as well as the first real addition to the X-Men’s roster since issue #1. This blog post will only cover the 4-issue Daughter of Magneto saga and a stand-alone issue with an FF villain (so October, 1968 to March 1969), but I think we’re getting to periods where it’s worth slowing down to experience the art and writing more slowly.

We left the X-Men at the end of issue #48, having been split up for two issues and still mourning their deceased professor. By the time issue #49 rolled around, we readers were ready to see the gang back together. Their reunion feels like a big deal not just because they’re together again, but because of the cover art and the new story.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 5: Issues #40-48: Death and Separation

Uncanny X-Men, Part 5: Issues #40-48: Death and Separation

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Welcome to the 5th installment of my reread of the X-Men from 1963 forward. This is a cool one, going from cover date January, 1968 to almost the end of 1968. There are some big stories and even the middling stories in this run have their charm, and the best ones hold up as exemplars of the best of the Silver Age, including an Avengers-X-Men cross-over. If this it the first of these posts that you noticed, my can find my previous ones here:

  • Part I: X-Men #1 (Nov, 1963) to X-Men #20 (May, 1966)
  • Part II: Early X-Men guest appearances (1964-1965), X-Men #21-23 (1966), and X-Men: First Class Volume I (2006)
  • Part III: X-Men: First Class, Volume II (2007)
  • Part IV: X-Men #24-39: The Middle Years of the Original Team

I wish I could say that this run opens with a bang, but after the work that went into ending the Factor Three multi-part story line, Roy Thomas and company come out with a forgettable (or best forgotten) Frankenstein’s monster story in issue #40. Issue #41 follows up slightly better, because although they’re fighting another poorly-drawn hulking brute, it’s about a secret subterranean civilization that have all died due to human action.

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