UXM #39: "The Fateful Finale!"

(They always blame the cephalopod...)

Comments

We've now reached the conclusion of the Factor Three storyline.  A lot of it is just one mutant beating up another mutant (or a robot), but nothing that involves a giant space octopus can be all bad.  I note that "Mutant Master" hails from the Sirius system.  I wonder if he was from a different world to the one we saw in issue #21, or whether two different planets orbiting the same star managed to produce sentient lifeforms, one which focused on interstellar domination, and one which concentrated on figure-hugging briefs.

It's interesting that Cyclops and Iceman flee from a US military base with its commander convinced the X-Men are traitors.  I can't remember if this comes back to bite them, but it certainly should.

On that topic, a quick hypothetical for you.  If you'd captured your enemies in illusionary bonds that they believed totally real, and you were ready to send your android troops in to shoot them in the head, would you introduce yourself first, to remind them of your mental powers?

I ask because this question was presented to Mastermind at the top of page 3, and his response was "Hell, yeah!"  What an idiot.  I'm so glad he's dead.

Nice to see the X-Men - or three-fifths of them at least - working as a team.  Apparently without communication, Marvel Girl can nick a guard's keys whilst simultaneously throwing said soldier toward Beast to be punched out.  It's almost like these people have trained together, or something. 

Of course, once they've escaped, it's up to Hank and his "learn Russian fast" records to truly save the day, but then who could have expected anything else?  Jean Grey might be "the most attractive of the X-Men" [1], but when the shit's been shat, who do you send to sort things out?

That would be Hank McmotherfuckingCoy, I'll have you know.

Unless the crisis is fashion-based, of course, in which case you'd best send for Marvel Girl.  I'm really torn about what's worse - giving the job of designing the new costumes to the only girl on the team (she even starts whining when she doesn't think Beast is praising her enough) or the fact that the new designs are so jaw-droppingly awful.  Warren (presumably still nursing some hope that Jean will one day telekinetically remove his boxers) claims he finally looks like an angel, but in reality he's dressed too ludicrously to be let into a German gay disco.

Lastly, it's interesting to note that the Changeling's powers are finally revealed by him briefly pretending to be Professor X.  Combined with it being him who saves the day by switching sides (I guess he finally realised that it's probably best to consider whether you want a mad tyrant as a boss before he destroys civilisation), it actually sets up the "Professor X was Changeling all along!" twist that gets employed an a year or two.  I've never read the "official" line on this, but it always struck me as a pretty blatant retcon.  Having read this issue, though, it's a far more plausible scenario than I originally assumed.  The question now, of course, is when the switch took place. 

Clues

This issue follows on immediately from the previous one, and finishes on the same day.

Apparently Beast likes to acquire his audio entertainment/education on vinyl.  This is not evidence that this story took place before Walkman use became common.  It is merely evidence that Beast is a man of great taste and refinement, and who is happy to ignore changes in technology that he considers unnecessary because that is simply how he rolls.

Date

Sunday 6^th of April, 1980.

X-Date

X+737.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.11 standard years.

(Iceman is 38 years old.)

"I might as well be throwing
spitballs at the thing!

Contemporary Events

Somewhere, it will have been unseasonably warm.  Somewhere else it will have been snowing.  Somewhere out in America, it will have started to rain. In a thousand places, someone will have fallen in love, and in another thousand, someone will have fallen out of love.  On more than one occasion, both will have been true of the same person, and when they awoke the next day they will have blamed it on the drink.

In other words: it will have been business as usual.

Standout Line

"Of course it's insane, you fools!" The Mutant Master manages both to point out the idiocy of '60s supervillains and undermine this issue the same time.  Of course, molluscs like him make for excellent multi-taskers.  Onwards, my spineless brethren!

[1] I've mentioned before how narrative text boxes carry with them the weight of editorial opinion, so I'd like to ask: how dare Thomas dismiss Warren and Hank like that?  I'm sure any unbiased bisexual bystander would find it very difficult to choose between Jean's seductive curves and Warren's chiseled jaw.

That's assuming our hypothetical judge could even see them through the brilliant aura of awesomeness put out by Hank McCoy, obviously.

UXM #38: "The Sinister Shadow Of... Doomsday!"

(Killing time before the massacre.)

Comments

This issue raises a fascinating question: if you have only one hour to locate a bomb that could be anywhere in Soviet territory, and which will bring about nuclear Armageddon, what would you do?

That's such an insurmountable brain-trouncer of a question that I can't begin to sensibly choose my response, especially since The Other Half lives almost three hours away.

What I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't do is head in the exact opposite direction of anywhere the bomb could possibly be (in my egg-shaped disc-shaped gravo-/magno-disk), in order to get to a place I'm certain will be annihilated by the resulting nuke-blizzard.  And even that isn't so unforgivable as the fact that, with mere minutes remaining before the Earth becomes a worthless radioactive cinder, Scott still doesn't tell Jean how he feels.  You might not be able to search the whole of the USSR in an hour, but you can definitely make a fairly thorough study of a teenage girls body.  Er, as I dimly recall...

Ridiculously, the plan to mope around at home works.  Sure, we know (or at least are given reason to believe) that someone is aiding the X-Men from behind the scenes, but they don't, so I don't see why I should give them credit for mooching around the place until something happens. Especially since what Cyclops claims to be waiting for is Mutant Master to tip his hand, which he'll do by launching ICBMs at Russia.

Speaking of which, surely even supervillains as cranially challenged as the Blob or Unus must realise that "ruling the Earth" is liable to be far less fun once the vast majority of the planet is radioactive wasteland.  Are they really that desperate to be the only vertebrates left to challenge the giant mutant cockroaches?  Only the Changeling seems even close to getting it:

The Master grows more intolerably arrogant with each passing minute!  We mutants agreed to serve him out of hatred for normal humans -- because of their fear and hostility towards us!

Yet, have we merely exchanged our roles as outcasts -- for those of slaves? 

That's the spirit, Clarence!  Fight the power!  You have nothing to lose but your retarded helmet! 

But, we shall consider that later -- when the world of homo sapiens lies in smoldering, radioactive ruins! 

Godammit, Clarence!

Those Soviet troops speak very good English, don't they?  Maybe it's considered a point of pride in Russia to arrest people in their native language.

Clues

It's difficult to believe that the whole of this issue happens within the space of an hour, but there's no explicit suggestion anywhere that the Mutant Master has revised his schedule. We'll just have to assume that Factor Three's aircraft really can cross the Atlantic in the space of a few minutes.  Their speed, lest we forget, is "mind-staggering".

Beast mentions that it's been "long weeks" since their search for Factor Three began, but that's entirely consistent with it being half a year or so since the X-Men first realised the danger.

There's also a five-page back-up strip in this issue, detailing how Professor Xavier first heard of Cyclops.  The date is given only as being mid '60s, which means we're going to have to start ignoring specific dates, as originally planned.

Date

Sunday 6^th of April, 1980.

X-Date

X+737.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.07 standard years.

(Iceman is 39 years old.)

You mean we ran like rabbits
because of your itchin' toes?

Contemporary Events

Running out of ideas, now.  Um, it was Easter Sunday, I guess.

Standout Line

"They shall not even live to see the atomic Armageddon which you see mirrored on our Predicto-Scope!"  Man, I'd love to get me a Predicto-Scope.  Though for all I know it's just a Magic 8 Ball with "Outlook Hazy" replaced with "Atomic Armageddon."

Mind you, I'd still want one.

UXM #37: "We, The Jury..."

("Any shape imaginable and you chose that?")

Comments

Ugh.  This is a real mess of a comic. Vanisher shows up without explanation, despite having been rendered amnesiac.  Beast develops the ability to back-flip in mid-air.  We learnt hat Banshee spent the entirely of his appearance last issue wearing the symbol of Factor Three on his face.  People have extended conversations whilst inches above a rocky precipice they're about to hit full-force (to the point where a text box has to be inserted to claim this is due to the speed of human thought, which apparently also makes speech instantaneous as well).

The biggest problem of all, though, lies in how casually Cyclops chalks up the first direct killing of another human being by an X-Man, after he destroys the vehicle which forced the team to jump from their plane:

I didn't mean to destroy the ship -- only to damage it!  But, they were willing to murder dozens of innocent passengers to get at us -- so no use wasting too much pity on them!

No pun intended, but that's simply not going to fly.  The X-Men are far too noble and decent (at this early stage, at least) for any one of them - and Scott in particular - to respond to killing people (even by accident) with a shrug of their shoulders and a "shit happens" mentality.  Compared to that level of appalling writing, the fact that this all happens within a panel so badly put together it looks like Cyclops just blew up a Frisbee piloted by Lilliputians barely registers.

It's not all bad, though.  The Changeling makes his first appearance - the first particularly long-lasting character Thomas has introduced since Banshee nine issues earlier - though his purple-and-orange bike saddle helmet is probably best (if not easily) forgotten.  It's also grimly amusing how intent Factor Three are in carrying out so ridiculous a show-trial.  Letting the witnesses double as the jury must be a great money saver, and Unus' complaint about time-keeping is hilarious.

Cyclops also gets bonus novelty points for using Iceman's icicles, telepathically suspended by Marvel Girl, to create sufficient water to short-circuit the brilliantly named "Oblivio-Ray".  Frankly, I don't see why Bobby couldn't just smash the whole thing with multiple ice-boulders, but I guess this method is a good deal more subtle and less exhausting.

Clues

This story opens on the plane the X-Men boarded at the end of the previous issue.  Given how much of that day was spent trying to find cash, and then presumably packing and heading to the airport, I think it reasonable to assume that the team boarded the red-eye, and it's now the following day.

On the last page of the issue, the Mutant-Master announces that his infernal plan will commence in one hour, which presumably means that's the time-scale we'll be working with next time around.

Speaking of MM's evil scheme, it involves the murder of multiple "Iron-Curtain officials" (which seems rather redundant, actually, since stage two is the nuking of the USSR).   This doesn't date the story to the late '60s, though, since the Curtain wasn't pulled back until 1989.  God bless Soviet paranoia, I always say.

Date

Sunday 6^th of April, 1980.

X-Date

X+737.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.02 standard years.

(Iceman is 39 years old.)

"Aw, why don'tcha go back to the
carnival where you belong, chubby?"

Contemporary Events

Author John Collier, author of several novels and various short stories ( a few of which were adapted into teleplays), including one, "The Chaser", for which the Wikipedia summary is one of the best I've ever heard: "A young man buying a genuine love potion cannot understand why the seller sells love potions for a dollar, but also offers a colorless, tasteless, undetectable poison at a much, much higher price."

Standout Line

"That's enough, Vanisher!  We don't have to spend all day on this trial!"

UXM #36: "Mekano Lives!"

(...But Lego and Playmobil remain in critical condition.)

Comments

I've been waiting to cover this issue since I started the blog, because it's by far my favourite in Roy Thomas' run.  Sure, the second half is the same morass of camp mediocrity we've come to expect of him, but the first half is sure lunatic genius.  The X-Men now finally know the location of Factor Three's secret headquarters (somewhere in the eastern Alps), and are dead-set on crossing the Atlantic and laying some mutant smack-down on the gits who kidnapped the Professor, only... they can't afford the plane fare.

For a comic that until now has had a vehicle for any occasion, including one issue in which one half of the X-Men use a jet to save the other half who've lost their helicopter, basing an issue about begging for the cash necessary to fly economy is a brilliant move.  Thomas even goes to the trouble of pointing out the X-Jet is out of fuel.  You could maybe quibble about the idea that a lack of proper paperwork would make it impossible to exchange a Rolls Royce for cold, hard cash, but I can't really blame Thomas for the way '60s superheroes always act so squeaky clean.

This gives us half a dozen or so brilliant pages in which the X-Men try to scrounge together the cash.  First, they apply for a loan to help their sick teacher, which is denied because they can't find Warren's parents to vouch for them (I guess Jean's parents aren't wealthy enough to count).  Then they try to get jobs as construction workers - a nice glimpse of what life as a mutant would really be like - only to be told that they can't be paid because the union would throw a fit.

Indeed, if you wanted to push things a bit (well, probably quite a lot) you could even convince yourself that this is the story where the first strands of the "mutants as race metaphor" start to appear.  The banks won't touch the X-Men, even though their story is true and they can easily pay back the money in time.  The foreman won't hire them either.  It's not his fault, he says, it's those pesky unions: they won't wear it.

So no help from the man, no chance of employment even though you clearly have the skills.  What do you turn to?

Entertainment.

Even then, problems arise.  Beast and Iceman are putting on a street show, without conning anyone or causing any kind of ruckus, and yet a pair of white policemen are standing by, ready to arrest them on the flimsiest of pretexts.  As soon as a costumed maniac appears and claims the X-Men work for him, the boys in blue reach for the handcuffs and wade in.

I'm not saying - and indeed, I highly doubt - that this was on Thomas' mind at the time, but that doesn't mean nothing's going on under the surface.

As for the rest of the issue, it's crap. Spoilt rich boy gives X-Men a lift.  Spoilt rich boy turns out to be supervillain who wants to wreck Daddy's library.  X-Men stop spoilt rich boy.  Daddy pays X-Men in gratitude and they board a plane.  Rubbish.
Clues

(This issue marks the fourth anniversary of the comic's run)

The majority, and perhaps whole, of this issue takes place over a night and a day.

Since Cyclops has only just worked out Factor Three is hiding in the Alps, and Jean showed him a map of a Central European mountain range at the end of last issue, we should probably assume this story follows straight on (assuming Scott didn't take some time off to make his eye-beams do push-ups). 

The X-Men acquire the money for their plane tickets early the next day.  It's not explicitly mentioned how long it takes for them to book a flight, but let's assume they found something that day.  There's bound to be plenty of flights from New York airports to Europe.

Date

Saturday 5^th of April, 1980.

X-Date

X+736.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 1.99 standard years.

(Iceman is 40 years old)

"Y'know, group, I'm getting
worried about Beastie"

Contemporary Events

Final days of the 1980 Islamic uprising in Syria, which ultimately leads to legislation three months later making membership in the Muslim Brotherhood punishable by death.

Standout Line

"Hmmm -- Hank and Bobby were pretty secretive about their plan!" I'll bet they were.  The evidence just keeps pouring in, doesn't it?

UXM #35: "Along Came A Spider...!"

(Because how many spiders can there be?)

Comments 

What is it about about-to-die or about-to-fall-unconscious people and their freaking terrible communication skills? "Beware of the spider" is about the least useful message Banshee could send and still claim to be vaguely on topic.  Professor Xavier sent him to find Factor Three's base, not gripe about its guardian.  It's like asking a friend for directions to their new house and getting a text back that says "Be careful of the wobbly paving slab after the garden gate."  Only in this analogy, your mentor is tied up somewhere in your friend's attic.

Oh, also, a wobbly paving slab decides to show up in your neighbourhood for no reason and then you attack it, also for no reason.  I get that superhero internecine conflict is part of the great Marvel tradition (see issue #9, for a start), and when both sides are made up of heroes considered menaces by the majority of the public, it even takes on shades of genuine tragedy (just to get pretentious for a moment).  That said, you have to come up with a better set-up than "We distrust all arachnids!" vs "I showed up here for at random!".  Especially since the whole situation relies on the suggestion that "a mutant-built robot could affect Cerebro just like an actual mutant", which is just too idiotic for words.

In other news, Factor Three have picked up some wings!  In fairness, the suggestion is that they used their "gravo-disk" to swipe the Prof, whilst the X-Men were fighting the Juggernaut.  That's actually fairly sneaky, which means I need to revise my opinion of F3 from "Total idiots" to "Amazingly lucky that Juggernaut didn't question their apparent uselessness".

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

Banshee has been searching Central Europe for weeks, looking for Factor Three's HQ. Given the amount of technology Xavier has provided him, it seems reasonable to assume Banshee started searching more or less immediately after the transfer.  That in turn means it can't be more than a few weeks since the Professor was kidnapped.

On the other hand, the trees seem to be more or less in full bloom at this point. Let's add on a fortnight to the last date, to give the trees time to grow, and move to the weekend, to explain why Jean isn't at college.  This puts us at the start of the third year of the X-Men's adventures, in Marvel time.

Date

Saturday 5^th of April, 1980.

X-Date

X+736.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 1.94 standard years.

(Iceman is 40 years old.)

"Slug my buddy, willya?"

Contemporary Events

R.E.M. play their first gig in an converted Georgia church.  The band is still unnamed at this time, though "Negro's Eyes" and "Cans of Piss" are being considered as possible monikers.

Standout Line

"Also, turn around when I'm talkin' to you!  It isn't polite to ignore a threat!" Superheroes these days, eh?  No concept of threat etiquette.

("Threat Etiquette", by the way, will almost certainly be my next band name.)

UXM #34: "War -- In A World Of Darkness!"

(Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is a homocidal mole.)

Comments

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of amnesia stories, because what's remembered and what isn't always seems so random.  This issue is a particularly bad example - why can Bobby, Warren and Jean remember how to use their powers, but have forgotten about their training?

Still, it's almost worth it for Scott's final kiss-off to Tyrannus and Mole Man: "A little something to forget us by!" The idea of leaving two former mortal enemies (both of whom are thoroughly unsavory) left memoryless beside the River Lethe is really nice image.  Of course, as soon as their people find them, we might be back to square one (or perhaps I should say, all their squares will be back in place).  Or maybe not.  Maybe this is just the opportunity the subterranean dwellers have been waiting for to depose their tyrants and create a functioning, peaceful democracy. You know, like Iraq.

Why did the Mole Man put together an antidote, though?  Having three superhuman foot soldiers seems like a pretty nifty advantage (note how quickly Angel disposes of the Cobolt Robot)  He probably never intended to administer the cure, of course, but why even make it?

Still, as plot quibbles and mistakes go, that can just get in line.  You've got an entire page of characters referring to Angel as "Scott" (I've put this down to a Freudian slip from Jean before, but that raises interesting questions as to why Iceman is doing it too - trouble with Beast?), and you've got Cyclops and Beast using a rope to get down a vertical shaft twenty miles deep - which in itself might be deep enough to actually get our intrepid voyagers into the Earth's mantle.

Speaking of which, Ralph and Tyrannus' exchange: "Their grips are like iron!", "Of course! Do we not dwell beneath the earth itself?", has to be one of the most deliriously brilliant non-explanations I've come across.  Warren attributing his martial prowess to clean living Wheaties two issues ago was more convincing than this.

A few final points:

• No-one ever mention Jean threatening to take people over her knee telekinetically, 'kay?  'Kay.
• A new helicopter for the X-Men!  Well, kind of - they've stuck rotor blades on top of their jet.  Still, given the fate of their last two whirlybirds, I can't really say I blame them.
• Ralph Roberts is my new hero! An unpowered homo sapiens trapped twenty miles beneath the Earth's surface, and his first response when his super-strong dictator captor is briefly distracted is to punch him in the face.  That's how you get shit done!

Clues

This issue begins the same night as the battle against the Juggernaut, and continues into the following day.

It would appear that the trees have started to bud this issue.  Since the last two issues both had no leaves anywhere to be seen, it's clearly only the very start of Spring, so we'll put this issue on the spring equinox, which took place on Thursday the twentieth of March. 

This fits nicely with it apparently being a school day, but it also means another time-line jiggering.  I'll put it up later today. It also means I don't get to mark my own birthday as a "contemporary event," which obviously troubles me greatly.

Date

Wednesday 19^th to Thursday 20^th of March, 1980.

X-Date

X+719 to X+720.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 1.94 standard years.

(Iceman is 40 years old.)

"Maybe you'd better start
the story from scratch!"

Contemporary Events

Jimmy Carter announces that the US will boycott the Winter Olympics.

Standout Line

"Optic-blasts! Do your duty!" Woah, Scotty.  Once you're ordering your own bodily functions around, it's time to think about giving up the reins of power. "Anal sphincter!  In the name of America, release on my command!  Now shit! Shit for freedom!"

UXM #33: "Into The Crimson Cosmos!"

("Behold... the scarlet circles of doom!")

Comments

Factor Three don't seem to be selling themselves too well at this point:

F3: Now that we've made you unstoppably powerful and immune to psychic control, we demand you join us!
JUGGERNAUT: Er, why should I listen to you?  I'm unstoppably powerful and immune to psychic control!
F3: Ah.  Bums.
JUGGERNAUT: Still, I'll come visit you anyhow, out of the evilness of my heart.  How am I getting there?
F3: Well... you might have to steal a plane...

I say, if a secret society hell-bent on world domination can't afford their own plane, then they're just wasting everyone's time. They couldn't even book Juggie a seat somewhere?  My university can manage that, though possibly not without weeks of faffing and arguing over which credit card gets used.

Maybe there's some kind of mutant brain-virus going around, actually.  Certainly Factor Three aren't the only ones affected.  How else do we explain Iceman not being able to guess what the Juggernaut would want at a plane factory, or being surprised that the team's signal watches can be used not just for sending signals, but also as watches?

It may have hit Cyclops as well, actually.  "Jean and I will travel to Korea to cast an incantation.  The rest of you: fight the indestructible Juggernaut who has already beaten you twice, and once almost ripped of Beast's leg."  Nice work, fearless leader.  No wonder they were all so quick to volunteer for Operation: Avoid Certain Death.  "I'm not running away from a fight!  I'm running towards a fight with a much weaker opponent!"

Cyclops seems to be a bit quick to recognise Communist territory in Korea, doesn't he? No wonder patriotic, true-blooded Americans are suspicious of mutants.  I'm also not sure what those Korean helmets are about.  They don't look anything like the ushanka the KPA wear in Winter.  If anything, they're somewhere between Mongolian and Samurai helmets, which is to say a random combination of stereotypical archetypes, which makes me a little uncomfortable.  If you're going to use is this story to insult the DPRK, then why not show a little imagination?

Still on the subject of the young lover's mystical trip to Korea, it's nice when Doctor Strange can take a little time out from saving the world to cast his Spell of Increased Book Sales, isn't it?  I wonder if this is the first sign that the comic's sales are slipping?  The book lasts another three years after this, so I guess it can't be crisis time just yet, but it's an interesting thought.

I can't fault that ending, though.  An comatose Xavier kidnapped whilst the team were distracted by the Juggernaut? Ooooooooh!  Plus, the efforts by the three X-Men assigned to a suicidal attack against the Juggernaut are actually quite inventive.  Tipping up their own helicopter (with rotors still running) to try and slice him to pieces is a nice idea (scratch another X-vehicle!), as is trying to stop him with a wind tunnel.  I personally might have chosen to set it to blow the Juggernaut away from them, rather than suck him inwards, but it's still markedly above average intelligence-wise for this issue.

Clues

The events of this issue take place over a few hours (indeed, pp 10-20 explicitly happen over a single hour) , and presumably therefore within the same day as issue #32. Juggernaut is mentioned as taking a "Sunday stroll" at the beginning, but it would seem to be one of Lee's editorial insights, rather than an actual time-stamp.

The trees are still bare, despite the issue's cover date being June.  Thomas might have finally worked out the importance of story continuity.

Date

Monday 14^th of December, 1979.

X-Date

X+623.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.20 standard years.

(Iceman is 37 years old.)


"Temerity? I can't even spell
 words like that, Mr McCoy!"

Contemporary Events

Michael Owen is born.  See previous post for my hilarious joke on the subject.

Standout Line

"He must have been caught off guard... confused by my power based on science, not magic!"  I actually thought this was a terrible line when I first read it, but thinking about it, I really like the idea that the giant demon ruler of an entire magical dimension wouldn't be able to get his head round DNA mutations giving people preternatural abilities.  It reminds me of the dispatching of the Judge in the second season of Buffy, actually, which can be no bad thing.

Killing the Outcast with a watch is still fucking atrocious, though.

UXM #32: "Beware The Juggernaut, My Son!"

("The fists that punch, the hands that catch!")

Comments

Thomas definitely seems to be upping his game now, which is nice to see.  The overall plot - the sinister machinations of Factor Three - is really picking up speed, as the shadowy organisation engineers the escape of Cain Marko.

An escape, mark you, from being locked in the basement by his own half-brother.  That's actually brilliantly fucked-up, even if Xavier is convinced he's doing Cain a favour by keeping him in a coma whilst the Professor searches for a cure.

And, whilst Thomas might still be relying on obvious filler to pad out his two-parters, at least this time round the X-Men's scuffle with entirely ordinary humans a) doesn't have the humans outnumbered, b) has the humans on motorbikes rather than horsies, and c) happens in public forcing the mutants to hide their powers.  I'm not sure that even Hell's Angels (sorry, "Satan's Saints") are mental enough to try and attack a coffee house because one of the occupant's turned down their leader for a date, but maybe I'm being too kind to them.  I feel on somewhat firmer ground suggesting that "cats" and "squares" wouldn't be high up their list of dialogue choices, though.

Annoyingly, Juggernaut is some way off model, repartee-wise.  "I am no mere prankster, you frigid foe -- as you shall learn to your ultimate dismay!"  That's skirting dangerously close to Adam West-era Batman; replace "frigid" with "feathered" and it could easily be Cesar Romero mocking Burt Ward.  I'd say it was just a case of a character not being fully defined yet, but Lee's two Juggernaut issues set the template pretty well.  I suppose it was a lot to ask for Thomas not to be thoroughly appalling for an entire issue.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single evening.

Well, this cut out a lot of theorising and hypothesising: Iceman just turned eighteen, so there is no chance whatsoever that in the Marvel Universe these first 32 issues took less than a year, or more than two years, to play out.

As far as our own count is doing, this is just fine.  If we wait until the other side of the weekend (otherwise Iceman would have been pretty unlikely to forgot when Friday came around), we can put Iceman's birthday as being Monday the fourteenth of December, 1961.  This puts Bobby as being only 25 months younger than Beast according to what we already know, but we'll worry about that when we have to.

One slight problem stems from the Juggernaut claiming it took him a decade to escape from the collapsed cave in which he found the Gem of Cyttorak.  Of course, even if we reset our timescale to make sense of this comment, we're still going to have massive problems later on by tying ourselves so directly to the Korean War (it would put the Onslaught Saga in the mid '60s, for instance).  So let's take an alternative approach, and simply assume Cain didn't make a bee-line for Xavier once he was free.  Indeed, we can be fairly sure he took something of a roundabout route; a direct line of devastation from the Korean Peninsula to New York State is probably something that would attract attention.

Date

Monday 14^th of December, 1979.

X-Date

X+623.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.15 standard years.

(Iceman is 38 years old.)

"Oops... I slipped..."

Contemporary Events

Michael Owen is born.  Ironically, he's a better striker at this point than he is after the Germany World Cup.

Too soon?

Standout Line

"I always knew, deep down, he was petit bourgeois!" Man, the poetry critics at Coffee-A-Go-Go are a rough crowd!  You try out one composition that actually rhymes, and you're dismissed from the lumpenproletariat before you can say Vladimir Ilyrich Ulyanov. 

UXM #31: "We Must Destroy... The Cobalt Man!"

(Capable of turning everything in a five-mile radius into a shade of desaturated blue...)

Comments

Ah, simpler times.  Back then, "I'd soon turn into a walking c-bomb!" means becoming some kind of dangerous weapon.  Of course, if the suit does have the effect of turning you into an ambulatory cunt, it seems to have affected Ralph roughly 118 minutes too quickly.

I am desperately trying to not make a joke about how unerringly Hank manages to find Iceman's pole, and the fact that Iceman is worried about not being able to get it up on time is making it tougher still.

But even if I'm not going to make any cheap wise-cracks, I have to ask: why are Zelda and Vera still going out with the two of them?  If I saw them constantly abruptly end double dates to head home together, I know what conclusion I'd come to: that maybe the internal network wasn't exactly as advertised.

(DAMMIT!)

Maybe that's why they keep going to see that shitty beat poet, Bernard.  Easier to believe your date bailed because he couldn't stand that sub-Kerouac bollocks than it is to accept that he's heading off to search for Iceman's pole again (DAMMIT!)

Actually, there's a lot to love in this issue, especially considering how limp much of Thomas' era to date has been.  I'm not totally sold (to put it mildly) on the idea of Xavier trying to fix Jean and Scott up [1], but at least it moves us on, and seeing Scott and Warren bury the hatchet and decide to actually tell Jean how they feel is a long-overdue development.  Admittedly, it doesn't pan out, but then that's the way it goes sometimes, you spend all your time screwing your courage to the sticking place, only to find the object of your affections has been busy moving on.

There's some nice work in moving the plot along, too.  The locked door in the basement, whilst still seeming a little too obvious, is gathering importance and mystery.  Just what is Xavier hiding in their, and what does it have to do with his private experiments?

Also, it's a small detail, but it's nice to see someone finally using their brains, with Ted being smart enough to work out the disappearance of Scott and Jean and the arrival of Cyclops and Marvel Girl (whose voice and figure he presumably knows quite well by now) probably aren't independent events.

Lastly, there's probably my favourite scene with Hank so far in this issue (those of you who've waded through my X-Men essays on the other blog will know he's my personal choice for best X-Man ever).  It's only two panels long, but it's very telling: Hank admits to himself that his extensive vocabulary is just a way to hide his discomfort with the way he looks, but is also aware that in doing so he's creating a persona that might actually swallow his own personality whole.  It's a lovely, sad scene, and makes a wonderful change to the constant melodrama over Scott's eyes and (to a lesser extent) Xavier's legs.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single evening.

Iceman states that today is Friday, and the Professor notes that the team has acquitted itself well against Banshee and Ogre, the Super-Adaptoid, and the Warlock "in recent weeks".  It would make more sense if he'd said "in recent months", but this is a Thomas script, so we should just be grateful he didn't say "in the last ten minutes." 

In any case, the earliest we can put this issue is the second weekend in December so that's what we'll do.  Helpfully, the one image of trees in the issue show them stripped of leaves. Iceman also tells Bernard to "come back next winter", but given he just froze the poet's espresso, it may have just been one of the jokes for which Iceman is so rightly famed.

One of the "watusi-ing teeny-boppers" in the Monkey's Paw mentions that "I'm A Believer" has only been out for "several months", which would put us in 1966 (surprise).  We can easily assume though that it's a cover (Neil Diamond released a version that year, for example),  or that our checked-trousers wearing "Clyde" is simply smacked off his tits.  It does at least confirm that the X-Men stories can't be taking place in the near past, though.

Date

Friday 11^th of December, 1979.

X-Date

X+620.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.11 standard years.

(Iceman is 38 years old.)

"Er, you'll have to pardon our dust,
gals, but, Hank and I gotta split!"

Contemporary Events

The last day of the Fourth Republic of South Korea (a coup d'etat takes place the following day).

Standout Line

"Alas, as usual, the multi-talented Beast merits no special approbation!"  Poor Hank.  His inability to receive anything approaching a compliment on his regular displays of physical and mental prowess is becoming a running joke.  I wonder if he's planning on just packing it all in and becoming a wrestler again.

[1] At best, I'd have thought he'd be neutral on the matter, and since a) a relationship between two people repeatedly thrust into harm's way is probably dangerous, and b) now that Jean is at college and Xavier can walk again, he can finally put the moves on the girl he once loved, I'm not sure why he'd be too keen on pushing Scott her way.

(Actually, I've never thought about this before, but it suddenly occurs to me that Jean Grey looks quite a lot like Xavier's former love, Amelia Voght.  Of course, where comics are concerned, "looks quite a lot like" is basically short-hand for "same sex, same race, same hair colour", so take the similarity how you will.)

UXM #30: "The Warlock Wakes!"

(If Merlin ages backwards, how come he's gone so completely senile?)

Comments

Warren seems to have put on a little weight recently; it's hard to tell him from Hank just from head shots.  I guess not being able to fly right has led to him going to seed a bit.  It's a good job he's still insanely rich.

"So -- at last we meet our attacker face to face!".  You must learn patience, Xavier; we're only on page 3.  That's like Vader saying "At last my troops have taken the Tantive IV!": you just sound like an impatient whiner.

I know this is the sort of complaint that's pretty pointless in the context of '60s comics, but the Warlock's plan (which of course he explains to Xavier in detail, "because it pleases me") makes absolutely bugger-all sense.  How is having your mind re-written to think oneself a dark age peasant going to stop you working out how to use the guns you own?  Sure, not everyone will succeed, and some of them are going to shoot themselves and each other trying, but you could give two million howler monkeys guns, and you'd still be pretty fucking wary about heading into the jungle the day after.

Even if the US citizenry couldn't figure this stuff out by trial and error, they'd soon catch on from watching the Warlock's flunkies dish out hot lead salads.  At which point you're horribly outnumbered and wearing massively heavy, decidedly non-bulletproof armour.  It's like old school Daleks invading Stone Age Earth using only weaponised staircases - sooner or later their own weapons are going to be turned against them.

Original concept artwork for "An Unearthly
Child" 's segue into "The Daleks"

Clues

This issue takes place over a single night.

Date

Sunday 6^th of December, 1979.

X-Date

X+615.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.08 standard years.

(Iceman is 38 years old.)

"You don't think the Iceman would
let his ol' buddy down, do ya?"

Contemporary Events

Standout Line

"You know, I think we just finished saving the world -- and I'm still not exactly sure what happened!"

UXM #29: "When Titans Clash!"

(If you can't trust an android bent on global domination...)

Comments

And so we bid adieu to the first new recruit to the X-Men, only two issues after he joined up.  Mind you, within the Marvel universe his tenure lasted somewhere around three months, which makes Xavier look pretty stupid for putting up with him so long.  I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt (unless they're Republicans), but if you've spent twelve weeks insisting someone has great potential only for them to decide they can't be bothered fighting evil and respond to being expelled by attempting to take over the world, you're going to end up with some serious egg on your egg-head.  Indeed, even Cal's eleventh-hour conversion loses what little credibility it had when you consider he fought the Super-Adaptoid not because he decided to become a hero, but because he decided to avoid becoming a brainless zombie.

Hardly the stuff champions are made of.

In other news, I was so surprised that Jean would be preparing to ice-skate in the shortest skirt imaginable and with bare legs that I actually checked Marvel Digital Downloads to check how they were coloured.  But no, it's true (this is the only picture I could find, it's also the only one in which you could plausibly think she might be wearing leggings):

Clearly Jean has some Geordie blood in her. Explains why she has an English surname, at least.

Whilst on the subject of mutandom's premier redhead, we clearly haven't gotten any further with Cyclop's obsession for her.  I actually quite like the idea that the more he tries to hold in his blasts, the more powerful they become whenever he loses control, but things get exceptionally silly after that.  Why is Scott so surprised that blasting a hill to rubble turns out to be a terrible idea?  Why does he blame his mutant power for almost getting himself killed, rather than taking the Occam's Razor approach and concluding that he's just an idiot?  And what's with all this nonsense about "smashing" everything that stands between him and Jean?  What if she isn't in to him?  What if she prefers Warren? 

Whomever was directly responsible for managing the Super-Adaptoid's construction seems to have cut more than a few corners, and not just on the paint job. This guy boots up slower than my decade-old first laptop (though he's admittedly less plagued by paint stains and superglue spills).  For an emotionless android, he's also an impressively mardy bastard. "Beware, mortal -- lest you try my patience!" doesn't exactly suggest the strict dictates of logical thought, does it?

Maybe that's why no-one can believe Iceman's outlandish story of battling a ten-foot robot.  God, I hate this trope.  It kept cropping up on Buffy as well. How can it possibly be difficult for the X-Men to believe Bobby fought a giant robot only a year after they all fought an army of giant robots?  Or that time a few months before that, when they fought an army of giant robots?  Number of daydreams Iceman has mistaken for reality: 0.  Number of armies of giant robots: 2.  I think we're all capable of doing the maths, here. [1]

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

We're now in December, on the day of the month's first freeze.  Warren also notes that it's a weekend, which puts us, at the earliest, on the fifth of December, a Saturday.  Despite this, Scott refers to his accident with Warren happening "only a few weeks ago." Since by our count the actual time-span is closer to six months, something's clearly not right.

This has long passed the point of being sloppy and taken us into full-blown insanity.  I can't see any option other than to bring the events of issue #25 forward after all, and assume there really were several months between Jean receiving her letter and deciding to do anything about it. I'll put the updated timeline for all the issues to date into a separate post later today.

Date

Saturday 5^th of December, 1979.

X-Date

X+614.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year =  2.03 standard years.

(Iceman is 39 years old.)

"I've got my eye on ya
every second, Beastie!"

Contemporary Events

Jack Lynch resigns as Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland.

Standout Line

"Dust and stones -- dislodged on my head!  What being would dare --?"  Don't sweat the small stuff, Mr Emotionless Killer Robo-Man!

[1] This is somewhat off the point, but it's worth noting that there is an inverted version of this trope that's equally maddening, though somewhat rarer.  There's a prime example of it in the last episode of Firefly; Wash complains the idea of River being a mind-reader belongs in the world of science-fiction, only for his wife to point out they live in a spaceship.

A lot of people love that line, but it makes no sense.  It's no different to me finding it hard to believe in telepathy and someone pointing out I flew to Munich last year.  You can't have characters pointing out things that are odd to the audience if they're supposed to be normal to everyone the audience is watching.

UXM #28: "The Wail Of The Banshee!"

("Of course, they're always open for crime!")

Comments

At last!  A character who isn't entirely disposable!  Say hello to the first appearance of everyone's favourite boisterous boyo, Banshee!

(God, I'm even starting to sound like Stan Lee.  This experiment is clearly detrimental to my health).

This, then, is Thomas' first real contribution to X-history.  We also hear the name "Factor Three" for the first time, which starts this story arc in earnest.  It's all so exciting that there's barely time to notice the Ominous Locked Door in the cellar, which is presumably why nobody bothered to mention it before now.

Ted seems to have quietly dropped his psychology major and taken up English literature.  No wonder his parents prefer his brother...

Doesn't the "I was all mind-controlled and shit!" ending of this issue rather jibe with the Banshee's gleeful crime-wave earlier in the issue?  It certainly wasn't the Ogre who made him steal that painting and a pouch of tobacco. It looks like the X-Men have been had.  If Xavier had spent a little more time scanning Banshee's mind, and a little less time trying to create a superior form of earwax, he might've picked up on what was really taking place.

Clues

This story takes place over two days, judging from the change in sky tone across the issue.

This time there's no ambiguity; we're definitely in Autumn.  That puts the Angel's convalescence at three months and counting, but then that actually works quite well, narratively: it drives home how much damage Scott did back in issue #26.  It's annoying that we have to swallow up so much time in one go, though.  We'll set this issue on the first day of Autumn, so as to minimise the damage.  Even so, we've burned through more time in Thomas' first eight issues than we did throughout Lee's run.  This does not bode well.

But there's another, even larger problem: the narration explicitly refers to each "teenager" playing their part, in a panel in which Beast is doing just that.  This seems the clearest indication yet that Beast was originally intended to not have reached his twenties.  Whilst fully aware of the problems this will cause down the road, I shall bow to this pressure, and assume that Beast turns twenty the day after this issue; meaning he was born on the 24^th of September, 1959. In order to maximise the difference between them, we shall further assume that Iceman only turned sixteen the day before the first issue, making his birth date the 30^th of March, 1962.

Date

Wednesday 22^nd to Thursday 23^rd of September, 1979.

X-Date

X+541.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.25 standard years.

(Iceman is 37 years old)

"Factor Three? That sounds like
some kind of toothpaste!"



Contemporary Events

The South Atlantic Flash is observed.  The cause is hypothesised to have been a nuclear test, but the truth is still as yet unknown.

Standout Line

"I always say, it's no fun being slugged by strangers!"  That's probably the best line the 616 Mimic has ever been given, so I'll judge it the issue's best line out of sheer pity.  God knows, the rest of it's dreary enough...