Giant-Size X1C: "The Thing (From Another Aisle)", "Invasion Of The Bobby-Snatchers", "The Day The Earth Just Would Not Stand Still"

(Late night triple-feature.)

Comments

Well, this is silly.  Wonderfully, unashamedly silly.  I don't know what got into the drinking water at Marvel's subterrenean volcanic lair that month, but it apparently convinced Parker that the best approach to the second X1C special (don't be fooled by the title, it's only "giant-size" because it re-prints UXM #40 AKA "The X-Men vs. Frankenstein's Monster That's Actually An Alien Android Shut Up Why Are You Laughing?") would be to write three stories based on classic sci-fi movies only without aliens.

I have no idea what led Parker down this gloriously insane path, though there's a clue at the very end where he implies the three "X-Files" (BECAUSE OF THE X, DO YOU SEE?) that Beast is tasked to solve were actually handed to him by a Skrull sleeper agent.  What better way to tie into Secret Invasion than to have the team debunk assumed alien threats.  It's just the sort of ridiculously complex yet strangely cunning plan the Skrulls live for - use their alien influence to have unsuspecting heroes disprove the existence of aliens.

Of course, maybe if Parker hadn't been chugging down quite so much H20LSD, he might have thought twice about two consecutive stories based on a mad Antarctic-based vegan accidentally creating sentient tofu, but it's not like The Thing or Invasion of the Body-Snatchers were really all that credible to begin with, or indeed are the X-Men themselves, as much as fans (including myself) want to believe otherwise (though this may be yesterday's arrival of the next three issues of the thoroughly self-unaware XHY talking). 

Even so, the best of the three stories is "The Day The Earth Just Wouldn't Stand Still", in which the X-Men themselves are mistaken for alien by the North Koreans, and resort to pretending to be Gort and Klaatu in order to escape with their lives (all drawn in wonderfully atmospheric monochrome, of course).

Clues

It would be tempting to write this whole issue off as some kind of group hallucination brought on by massive cheese consumption (making it more of a hallumi-nation, I guess.  Huh?  Huh?  SHUT UP I AM HILARIOUS!), but the Skrull coda suggests we're supposed to take this seriously, or at least as seriously as that time when Wolverine met those Leprachauns. 

Xavier mentions Beast can make use of any X-Men who aren't busy with exams at that particular time, and the team goes through at least one personnel shift during the issue (dude, seriously, why is Angel back?)  Let's assume the eXam period (see what I did there?) lasts a week, and all three stories take place within that period (I'm skipping the distinctly Poe-flavoured Vigil of the Mad, which is brilliant both in concept and structure, but which is too keen to have mini-Charles Xavier brick up his curious, gin-loving neighbour to be properly considered canonical).

Date

Wednesday 26^th April to Tuesday 3^rd May, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+24 to X+Y+30.

Contemporary Events

Greenland acquires home rule (though full autonomy takes a further three decades).

Standout Line

"On our world, there are many enforcers like this.  Keep up your warlike ways, and I will not be able to stop them from returning to reduce this planet to cinders! So anyway... we have another planet to threaten.  Good day!" - Beast.

X1C (v2) #16: "4X"

(A slum of ice and fire.)

Comments

I've decided that it's the little touches that make this comic so much fun. Last issue it was Jean trying to telekinetically animate her hair, this time it's Sue Storm fashioning her force field into an umbrella to keep the falling debris off her husband while he works.

It's just another way of distinguishing this book from the kind of po-faced retro wretchedness that clogged up the first three issues of XHY (and from what I can gather, I shouldn't have high hopes for the rest of that series, either).  It also means an issue like this, which are nominally supposed to brig things to a conclusion (there's still a special issue and the four part First Class Finals miniseries to get through, but this is the last issue of X1C as an ongoing book) can get away with being as lightweight as it is.

I can even forgive yet another guest appearance, since Bobby and Johnny are absolutely made for each other (did we really need Spiderman as well, though?).  It makes perfect sense that the two responsibility-phobic teenage boys from their respective teams would try to prove themselves by moving into their own pad (paid for by one of their relatives, natch).   It's like the first week of university, only with the emphasis more on finding cool villains to fight rather than girl to sleep with. 

Not that any self-respecting undergraduate female would be caught dead in that apartment.  You can tell how long our heroes have been in there by counting the pieces of discarded crap on the floor.  It's like stinky tree rings.

Of course, such domestic bliss cannot last.  Two adolescents who can't stand the company of adults are unlikely to do much better with each other.  Like-pole magnets have nothing on teenage solipsism when it comes to mutual repulsion. The neutral observer can see trouble coming when Bobby starts bitching about his team having only one girl to a guy who's only options for an intra-team romance are homosexuality and incest.  Which is a little thoughtless, I think, though admittedly Johnny ups the ante rather too much by trying to pull Bobby's girlfriend (these kids today, huh?)

Before that happens, though, there's just enough time for a scrap with two super-villains - the Scorpion and the Beetle, foes more commonly seen brawling with Spiderman but who have now been press-ganged into service in the "4X" rogue's gallery ("We ain't "your" bad guys!" "Yes you are, I called it!").  Frankly, I think these two deserve their own series.  With lines such as "The beetle is un-beetle-ble." and a name like "the Insidious Insects" ("Avaricious Arthropods" would be more accurate, of course, but one shouldn't expect too great a grasp of taxonomy from one's street-level supervillains), it'd be brilliant! 

In conclusion then, an entirely throwaway but very funny end to an entirely throwaway but frequently very funny book.  Good job all round.

Just for the record, though, why did Angel come back?

Clues

This issue takes place over three days.

Date

Sunday 23^rd to Tuesday 25^th April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+22 to X+Y+24.

Contemporary Events

Anti-Nazi League demonstrators and the Metropolitan police clash in Southall over a National Front town meeting.  Activist Blair Peach is knocked unconscious during the fight, and dies the next day.

Standout Line

"The Iceman is in fact... BOBBY DRAKE."
"Yeah... that doesn't really mean anything to me."

X1C (v2) #15: "Bad Hair Day"

("Much hair-do about nothing")

Comments

Boo!  This recycled cover is a disgrace!  And for an issue that features not one but two redheaded women!  I am outraged, I tell you!  Outraged!

I guess they make up for it inside, though.  There's one panel in particular, where Jean has her tongue stuck out in concentration as she tries to use her powers to move her hair like Medusa's, that's easily may favourite ever image of the young Ms Grey.

On any other day, I'd probably have really liked this issue - there's a lot of great dialogue, and having Medusa stay (however briefly) at the mansion because she can't be sure she isn't a mutant is a reasonable set-up.  Today, though, I'm not so charitably inclined, because a) it's another special-guest issue and I'm sick of them, and b) Medusa's "amnesiac alien" routine is a bit too reminiscent of Machine Mans "awkward robot" shtick from the last two issues.  Again, that sort of thing can be fun, but it's not really particularly taxing, and trying twice in a row feels a little lazy.

You do have to respect a supervillain who rings the doorbell, though.  Even if he is doing it with the barrel of his super-advanced ray-gun.  Manners cost nothing, after all.

Oh look, Angel's back, as of course he ultimately had to be.  I guess arial sex with a never-ending supply of half-naked hotties doesn't really make up for not being able to spend his ludicrous amounts of money.  Must be tough to be a millionaire, huh?

Clues

This issue takes place over two days.

From the conversation the team are having whilst on the X-jet - regarding the destruction of X-50 in their last adventure - it seems plausible that they are returning from that mission when this story starts, placing this issue on the same day as the previous two.

Date

Friday 21^st to Saturday 22^nd April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+20 to X+Y+21.

Contemporary Events

The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC unveil the Albert Einstein Memorial.

Standout Line

"Then we jump off at the last second before it hits, right?"
"Yes, because physics works just like your favourite cartoons" - Iceman and Beast.

X1C (v2) #14: "Lava Man Attack!"

("Our destructive robot pal.")

Comments

Hoo, boy.  I would not want to be Dr Stack right now.  Just as soon as you've discovered that your mechanical progeny won't defend his new team-mates without your express orders ("He appears to be carefully recording our demise for posterity!"), it turns out that all the other robots back at the lab have joined hands for a few quick choruses of "Kill All Humans!"

It's like Sophie's Choice, only you've built the machine that's making you choose in the first place.  Think of the stress!

Actually, remove the body count and this is pretty much what life is like for all academics, all the time.

You have to feel for the X-Men too, advancing into a tunnel filled with Lava Men whilst trying to keep quiet about the fact that Aaron could go nuts at any moment (having already seen that "go nuts" can include detaching his head and using his arms to slaughter indiscriminately everything within a ten foot radius).  They try to keep him as at ease as possible, but the ungrateful robo-wretch still goes mental the very instant he gets his face torn off. Which is probably the sort of thing that would invalidate the warranty, I suppose, but even so...

Seared by lava or disemboweled by an android with a terrible hair cut?  Man, there are some tough choices on offer today.  Not least our own, which is whether we should feel gypped that we're watching the X-Men fight creatures fashioned from living molten rock, instead of watching a crack team of US soldiers blowing the crap out of a small army of killer robots. 

Truly this issue is a moral minefield.

Clues

This issue takes place over a few hours.

Date

Friday 21^st April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+20.

Contemporary Events

Dominic Zamprogna (James "Jammer" Lyman in Battlestar Galactica) is born.

Standout Line

"Stop hitting yourself.  Stop hitting yourself." Telekinetic powers = all kinds of bitchy fun.

X1C (v2) #13: "Rise, Robot, Rise"

(Lava and robots and sloths.)

Comments

Today's extinct mammal: the megatherium.


It's a good job my friend A doesn't read this blog,
 she has a crippling phobia of sloths.  True story.

Even though it's a massively overrated film (except HAL's final moments, which are genuinely beautiful), I'm willing to give plenty of bonus points to Parker for a brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey riff here, in which the megatherium bone Hank tosses in the air (whilst resembling a cave-man in both pose and rage) turns in a single frame to a telephone receiver.

The reference is more than a quick joke, as well.  We move in this issue from a gift from the prehistoric Land of the Mists to the arrival of the original Machine Man and his creator, Doctor Abel Stack.

This issue makes a lot out of the "robot fails to adequately understand human interactions/speech patterns" idea, which is frankly probably one of the laziest comedy routes available for a writer, but that doesn't mean it can't raise the odd chuckle ("I take no offence, female"; "I will not terminate canines unless they pose a direct threat to national security").  There's also a nice callback in the X-Men initially assuming Machine Man is the Super-Skrull, since his powers seem to be limited to fire, strength, and being stretchy.

Also featured: Lava Men! Giant red-hot super-strong vandals that apparently have been covered up as "hoaxes"!  How can that possibly work in the Marvel Universe?  A giant alien overlord dressed in purple and blue and sporting a helmet carved from a robotic beetle just tried to eat the fucking planet a few months ago.  Who's gonna find Lava Men tough to swallow?

And if all that isn't enough, serious shit is going down at Stack's base.  Once again humanity has flown, Icarus-like, too close to the Sun, creating machines that wish only our destructions.  Mind you, Stack hasn't really helped matters by ignoring the real First Law of Robotics: if you want your mechanical creations to stay on-side, do not make them look evil/scary as all fuck.

Clues

This story takes place over a single day.  There's no suggestion of how long Angel has been in the Land of the Mists, and presumably Hank could have been given the megatherium skeleton during his initial visit.  Bobby's insistence that Warren will come back within the fortnight also suggests that little time has passed, so we'll place this issue as taking place the day after the team returns from Brazil.

Hank mentions that it's been decades since Mt St Helen's last eruption, which suggests this issue is intended to be set in the 21st century (i.e. that we're supposed to believe that at most eight years have passed between the X-Men fighting Factor 3 and the beginning of Secret Invasion).  As usual, though, we shall ignore specific references to historical events.

Date

Friday 21^st April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+20.

Contemporary Events

James McAvoy, future Charles Xavier, is born.

Standout Line

"In the future!  Robots will be able to talk to muffins!  They will tell them to be more delicious!" - Bobby

X1C (v2) #12: "Fly Away"

(Birdman of Alcantara)

Comments

Oh, for God's sake.  Just how many secret prehistoric lands is the Southern hemisphere bogarting, anyway?  C'mon, under-siders!  Swing a few glyptodons our way!

Seriously, those things are cute!

Basically, it's a sloth inside a Tunnock's teacake

Fascinating presumed-extinct mammals aside, this is something of a family reunion for Warren.  First of all, his parents visit the mansion.  Warren's father is certainly interesting, a man with the kind of social ill grace that only the very rich can get away with.  His nominal acceptance of his son's mutation certainly doesn't stretch to him being comfortable with the wings being out on display, and his reaction to Scott's polite welcome is to talk as though he wasn't there: "Except for sporting sunglasses indoors, I like this one."

They in turn tell him his aunt Mimi - last mentioned giving the team the address of a talking gorilla - has disappeared, causing him to head for Brazil.  Turns out she's been living behind a waterfall in the mammary-gland equivalent of Jurassic Park (Paleogenic Park?) and dressing up like Lara Croft.  She's also been grooming a local girl with tales of Warren's awesomeness, which isn't at all creepy and disturbing.

(Mind you, it's a miracle she got here at all, given that the legendary land she was searching for was apparently behind a waterfall in either South America or Africa.  What the hell kind of legend isn't specific about which side of the Atlantic you're on?)

Of course, if we're talking about family reunions, we should probably mention the flock of birds that starts following Warren as he flies over Brazil, thinking that he must be in charge.  This is probably one of my favourite character beats since I started this blog, as Warren admits that he feels guilty when birds flock to him, since he doesn't really have anywhere to lead them.  It's a small window into his basic confusion as to who he is, what he wants, and where he fits in the world, and it makes his decision to stay in the Land of the Mists at the close of the issue all the more understandable, beyond the place being "full of half-naked hotties".

Oh, and just for the sake of pedantry, there's a small continuity glitch in this issue: Scott tells Warren's parents how nice it is to meet them, despite having met them already in UXM #18.  Attempts to fit this story in before that issue run into the now standard problem of how the students are aware of Cerebro.

Clues

I'd initially assumed that this issue was supposed to run concurrently with issue #11, in which Angel was missing, but apparently not, given there's no mention of the team's battle with Mysterio.  I suppose it's possible that said throwdown happened after Jean and Angel end their cross-continental phone-call, but that wouldn't explain why Cyclops suddenly disappears.

I guess we'll have to assume that either Cyclops' or Angel's absence during the "Continui-Teens" episode will remain a mystery for now.  We might as well leave the timeline as is for now, then, and put the visit of Angel's parents as being the day after Mysterio is defeated.

It's not really clear how quickly the other X-Men arrive to find Warren, but it's clearly at least the next day.  Given the last contact Jean had with him was when he decided to fly full speed at a cliff wall, I'd expect a fairly swift response time, so let's assume that's what happened.  They then spend the night there, and return to the school the next day, meaning the whole story from the arrival of Warren's parents takes place over four days.

Date

Monday 17^th to Thursday 20^th April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+16 to X+Y+19.

Contemporary Events

Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit, in a scene that presumably wasn't anything like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I choose to imagine it as such in any case (if only my desktop wasn't at the shop, I'm sure this would have lead to a hi-larious Photoshop picture).
Standout Line

(Bobby waves at the Worthingtons through the window, hoping for an introduction.)

"Who's that?"
"Oh, he's not a student.  He's... the pool boy."
"I didn't think the school had a pool."
"Yeah, he shouldn't even be here."

X1C (v2) #11: "...Canon"

(First-Class Post-Modern?)

Comments

Wait, what?

I really can't decide what to make of this one.  It seems pretty clearly to have been born from the comparatively recent idea that because people love Deadpool, and because Deadpool is as likely to piss against the fourth wall as he is to lean against it, that must mean that anything absurdly self-referential must be a good thing.

Well, maybe it is.  I've never been too sure of that, though.  Much as I love a lot of Deadpool stories, I think they work only because we understand what we're going to get right from the start.  Wade Wilson's adventures should not be read by those without a sense of humour about their love of comics, or who (and consider the source here) take the concept of continuity too seriously.

All of which is fine, so long as it's compartmentalised.  But letting Deadpool lose across the wider Marvel universe (he showed up in Messiah War, for fuck's sake, the most ultra-serious po-faced bloodbath of a story imaginable) has had the effect of forcing pretty much everyone to be pulled out of the narrative, whether they wanted to be or not.

"...Canon" has a similar problem.  At heart, it uses a similar conceit to the She-Hulk stories of the mid noughties, namely that Marvel comics are actually historical documents within the 616 universe.  The "Continui-Teens", as our new friends call themselves, have access to "docoments" from the future, and use them to erase continuity glitches - in this case, those arising from the strange effect the catalysthad upon the nexus of realities within Man-Thing's swamp, which apparently includes allowing Mysterio to create illusions of Marvel villains to use as minions, including those who haven't appeared by the the 1960s.

It's all very funny (well, somewhat chucklesome, at least), and I'm not even slightly against giving die-hard comic fans the occasional good-natured knocking.  I just have something of an aversion to picking up a comic that's determined to remind me that not only are comics not real, but that there's no point in ever investing in them.  That's a little too cynical, even for me.

Clues

This story takes place over the course of a few hours.  The fact that Cyclops is missing at least suggests that this issue is intended to take place more or less at the same time as the last one.  Presumably Cyclops is en route back to the mansion, and the other X-Men have only just recovered from their unfortunate experience with Montezuma's revenge.  Other than Angel, apparently - I guess his spoiled rich-kid system just couldn't handle the strain.

Date

Sunday 16^th April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+15.

Contemporary Events

Alexei Kosygin attempts to combat Soviet economic stagnation by introducing a series of reforms designed to centralise the economy.  These reforms are never fully implemented, and are generally considered a failure.

Standout Line

"THAT DOES NOT EVEN LOOK LIKE THE ULTIMATE NULLIFIER." - "Galactus".

X1C (v2) #10: "Frederick"

(Miner's strike.)

There is, or at least there should be, a rule in fiction writing that states "if your story starts at the end of some other story, make damn sure no-one wishes they were reading that story instead."  I mention this because this issue takes place soon after the team returns from searching for El Chupacabra (the legendary Mexican goat-sucker, as if you didn't know).  This might initially seem like a violation of the above law, but Parker gets away with it, I think, as the team a) doesn't find a monster that interacts with goats in any way, and b) they all drink the local water and get the shits.

Except Cyclops, of course.  Poor ol' Scott gets a fair amount of ribbing in this issue about being so tightly-wound and boring, but if "never drops his guard" translates to "doesn't drink the local water that turns bowels into riot-hoses", I'd say he deserves to be let off.

Either way, this unfortunate turn of events colon-wise leaves Cyclops the only X-Man available when he goes searching for a group of missing people.

I can't decide if this story's refusal to suddenly reveal hidden depths to Cyclops is a comment on how competence is more important than flashiness, or just makes the story a little bit flat.  Nice to see the X-Men (well, one of them) doing their thing of searching out/dealing with new mutants, without a bevy of cameos trying to steal the show.

Also in the plus column, there's a nice layer of ambiguity lightly dusted over Frederick's actions.  Sure, he's abducted several people, but at least some of them genuinely are at least partially responsible for making him a mutant and making his father a corpse.  Their (horribly overstated) argument whilst Cyclops tries to free them makes clear that, even having been kidnapped for the damage they've done, they still have no intention of taking responsibility for the lives they've ruined.  On the other hand, Frederick's definition of "responsible" for his situation is fairly expansive, which means he can't really be cast as a wronged vigilante either (though be honest, who amongst us hasn't thought about taking those who teased us at school and shoving down a disused radiation-soaked mine-shaft?)

That's not to say I don't feel sorry for him, buried alive by a cave-in Cyclops starts as he's leading the prisoners to freedom.  Frederick seems pretty clearly to be mentally ill, and whilst that doesn't excuse his multiple abductions, I'm not sure Cyclops is really sufficiently upset about the first fatality his actions have caused. 

Who knows, though?  Maybe there'll be more on this next issue.  Hell, he might spend the whole of the rest of the series agonising over what he had to do.  It's not like we'd know, is it?

Clues

This story takes place over a single day, but we need to include another day for the mission to Mexico.  The foliage tells us that we're out of winter again, so we'll set this story two days after X1C (v2) #8.

Date

Sunday 16^th April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+15.

Contemporary Events

The aftermath of a 7.0 earthquake which hit Montenegro and Albania.

Standout Line

"What's got four arms, twenty toes, and one personality?  Cyclops and ANYbody else!" - Bobby

X1C (v2) #9: "The New Recruit"

(Fury's Angels.)

Comments

Isn't this getting a little bit ridiculous.  I don't mean a superhero battle in an undersea HYDRA base, obviously, that's just how these comics work.  I mean the fact that this story takes a significant step forwards from the "special guest issue" tendency that already felt a little overused, and essentially marginalises the X-Men within their own book.  For those of us with both an interest in and a reasonably extensive knowledge of the Marvel universe, this maybe isn't too much of a problem, but for semi-casual readers and fans of the X-Men only, it must be kind of baffling to open a copy of X-Men: First Class and find that you've bought a story about SHIELD trying to recruit Wanda Maximof.

Maybe I'm still not getting what this comic is trying to do.  If Parker wanted to put together some kind of anthology series set in the early days of the Heroic Age (the first one, not the post-HAMMER period), that would be interesting in itself.  Piggy-backing one through on the back of the X-Men seems a bit... confused.

Once again, though, on its own terms, this is definitely another fun issue (maybe Parker wanted to focus on an entirely inconsequential romp after the very slightly heavy going of "Adventure into Fear").  It's totally over the top, of course ("Eat Dugan's knuckles!"), but then it's a spy story in which the two competing organisations are called SHIELD and HYDRA, so a certain application of hyperbolics is probably a good idea.  Ass-kicking female spies are always fun, too (shame they only get out alive by the intervention of a rich middle-aged white guy).

Also, without wishing to contradict myself too much, I am beginning to warm to having Wanda around the place as X-Man 5.5.  There's something quite telling in the way Wanda responds to Jean's "cheating" at skating by plunging her into freezing cold water.  Even at this stage, the girl is clearly not entirely right.

Clues

This story takes place over a single day.  Warren mentions his (massively solipsistic) concern that saving Wanda will make her think he's carrying a torch, which places this issue after X1C (v1) #7.  It's also clearly mid-winter, giving the ice-skating scene early in the issue.

We can therefore place this issue in the winter of 1979, which we've previously had to skip in any case (note that this issue confirms that there was well over a year between Jean arriving at the school and the end of Mimic's brief tenure on the team).

Date

Tuesday 2^nd January, 1979.

X-Date

X+277.

Contemporary Events

Morena Baccarin (Firefly, V) is born.

Standout Line

"Wha -- How did you change so fast?" Poor Wanda.  So innocent in the ways of KGB strip-training.

X1C (v2) #8: "Adventure Into Fear"

(Apocalypse later.)

Comments

Into 2008 properly this time, and it's special guest time again!  Double trouble, no less, with both the Man Thing and Curt Conners making appearances.  Actually, having Connors in again is a fun call-back to "The Bird, The Beast, And The Lizard" - I particularly like how nonchalantly he reminds Hank and Warren about that time he nearly ate them.  Ah, memories.

Man-Thing pretty much seems to be here entirely to facilitate the "X-Men glimpse their potential futures" idea, which seems fair enough.  It's certainly a nice idea for a single issue, especially since the nature of the book means that these glimpses of possible fates don't act as teasers (which can get tiring in comics), and just allow the characters to react.  This spectres of the future approach is helped along by Nguyen's pale, shadowy artwork.

As for the visions themselves, they're all quite short, but interesting nevertheless ("Do any of us end up happy and retired?").  Beast gets his first glimpse of his upcoming transformation as they face off against a grey-furred feral Hank somewhere in a snowy forest (kind of a cross between Beast and Wolverine, in that sense).  Jean ends up inside the body of her Phoenix Force-possessed older self, at the conclusion of a Days of Future Past style war (which is kind of interesting giving the hints Bishop's been dropping about how things turn out for Hope).

Bobby's future is perhaps the most interesting, as it finally returns to the only hint of an ongoing storyline First Class has had so far - the Midgard Vanir's interest in Bobby's potential destiny as an Elemental.  In the reality the X-Men visit, this is indeed what has happened to hi, which has required Thor (special guest #3, for those keeping score) to show up and try to deliver a quick Mjolnir-ing to Iceman's sub-zero testicles.  I don't know whether this is a sign that Parker will return to the idea, but it's good to know he hasn't completely forgotten about it.

There's also a brief Heart of Darkness river ride in the middle that seems a bit tangential, but as various enemies from history and myth start to attack, it's definitely fun, and provides the best lines of the issue (see below, also: "Oh, like a winged horse is perfectly natural and I'm all weird!").

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day, and Jean's narration tells us that last issue's rocket launch took place the day before. We also have to set this issue after X1C (v1) #2.  Happily all of that can be done with the timeline we've already built.

Date

Friday 14^th April, 1979.

X-Date

X+Y+13.

Contemporary Events

Yusufu Lule is sworn in as President of Uganda following Idi Amin's ousting by Tanzanian forces.

Standout Line

X-Men versus Nazi submarine! 

"Das ist kein Deutsches Boot!"
"Die sehen wie Franzosen aus!"