Professor X Time Line

1935: Charles Xavier is born to Brian and Sharon Xavier, workers on an American nuclear project never revealed to the general public.

1945: The Trinity nuclear test at Alamogordo on the 16^th of July kills Brian Xavier.

1946: Sharon marries Kurt Marko - also at Alamogordo, and blamed by Charles for his father's death - who then moves into the Xavier family home.

c1948: Kurt is killed in a lab accident.  Soon after, Xavier discovers his psychic powers.

1953: After joining the army, Xavier (along with Kurt's son Cain) is deployed to Korea.

1968: Xavier faces Lucifer in Tibet, in a struggle that costs him the use of his legs.

1977: Xavier founds the X-Men.

UXM #21: "From Whence Comes... Dominus?"

("Dude, where's my property deeds?")

Comments.

.Before we get going, I really should give a shout out to coverbrowser.com, whose archive has saved me from having to spend time searching the intertubes for issue covers.  You guys are the awesomest!

It seems to me to be somewhat bathetic to resume a story about world-ending threats by having the X-Men fight four dude ranchers.  It doesn't really make for interesting reading to see the super-powered defeat ordinary humans who were outnumbered in any event.  I'm guessing Thomas' A-plot under-ran somewhat, but you'd think he'd come up with something better than this.  There's nothing wrong with the central idea, indeed I rather like the thought of a landowner watching the potential start of the apocalypse and only be able to process that it's on his land and he won't have it.  It's trying to turn it into an action sequence that proves problematic.  Indeed, when even the script refers to the scuffle as a "time-consuming interlude", you know you're in trouble.

How polite are Lucifer's robot minions?  Sure, they'll sneak up on a man and kidnap him so that he can be tortured and killed, but they'll take his wheelchair with them.  Truly they are gentlemen robo-thugs.  Their definitely far more classy that Lucifer, who's only too happy to rub Xavier's nose in it "He who foiled my first attempts at conquest on this puny planet now stands before me in abject defeat!"  Dude, that's a low blow.

Not as low as Xavier, though, obviously.  Because he's a cripple.

I'm sorry, but somehow Thomas has managed to make Lucifer's tower (now identified as "Dominus") look even more like a giant dick than last time around, which shouldn't have been possible absent the addition of testicular generators.  It even opens at the top to fire out mind-control rays.  Once that huge, turgid tube reaches full power and explodes from the tip, launching wave after wave of energy designed to reduce the recipients to mindless shells with no wills of their own, fated instead to do the bidding of the occupying force within...

Oh, I get it.  It's a pregnancy metaphor.  Clever.

It's a shame we don't learn anything about the inhabitants of the Sirius star system.  We don't even know if their fetching briefs were forced upon them by their conquerors, or if they were merely in fashion at the time.

It's not often that an X-Man story annoys me (they don't always manage to avoid boring me, but that's usually as far as it goes), but the ending of this one manages it.  Not only is Xavier's message to the X-Men pointlessly confusing (why say "Don't destroy the machine!" when he could say "Make sure you destroy the robots!"), but the idea that Cyclops wins the day by being so reluctant to consider the possibility that the message was faked he ends up shooting Angel.

That's not loyalty: that's bullheaded idiocy.  It's one thing when you stick with someone you love when they seem to have abadoned or even turned against you, but assuming messages can't be faked, intercepted or compiled under coercion?  That just makes you an idiot.

Clues

This issues follows on immediately from issue #20, and continues into the following day.  Beyond that, there really isn't anything to be said.  I guess the dude ranchers set the story as being after 1925, but so does, y'know, pretty much everything else.

Date

 

X-Date

X+220 to X+221.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel month = 4.51 standard months.

Contemporary Events

Indira Gandhi is re-elected to the Indian parliament, and remains Prime Minister.

Californians reject a proposition aimed at banning homosexuals from teaching in schools.

Stand-Out Line

"As always lad, our minds are kindred spirits!" I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't noticed until now, but the comic very much seems to have cast Iceman and Beast as a mis-matched duo.  They go on dates together, they spend all their time good-naturedly insulting each other.  They don't even seem all that interested in Jean, unlike Scott, Warren and (briefly) the Professor.  If this comic had started up forty years later, I'd assume they were both gay.  In fact, I still have my suspicions...

Monday 6^th to Tuesday 7^th of November, 1978.

UXM #20: "I, Lucifer..."

("This is how the world will end. Not with a bang, but with two clowns in spandex who fail to rob a bank.")

 Comments

You know, three years ago I would have said that this entire scenario was ridiculous; that it was obviously idiotic to expect the US press to blame the X-Men for a bank robbery just because two self-confessed and well-documented criminals said they were affiliated with the group. 

Nowadays I know better.  The only surprising aspect to this story by contemporary standards is that John McCain hasn't been invited onto a talk show to blame the bank heist on the Democrats.

(The fact that the general public are all idiots, on the other hand, would have surprised me at no point whatsoever.)

Having said that, though, I love the idea that Unus, with his essentially defensive power set, can fake being phenomenally dangerous just by dint of being a mutant.  It seems entirely reasonable that when the police face someone with an unspecified but clearly real power set they'd choose to exhibit a fair amount of discretion.  By that logic, Skyn, Sammy, Beak, Choir and all the other Z-listers (said with love) could do the same thing: just wander into a bank and say "Give me all your cash, or I'll go back in time and screw your momma prevent your birth!" This concept is rather undermined by the Blob actually displaying super-strength in marked contrast to his established powers, of course, but this is the '60s: we take what we can get.

Even at this point, I'm so thoroughly sick of Cyclops whinging about his uncontrollable powers that my immediate reaction to him quitting the X-Men is a resounding "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."  It is interesting to think about what would have happened if he had disappeared, only to return some time later with his powers under control.  Would he be any more of a pompous, tightly-wound prissy jackass?  We can never truly know.  Though I'd tend to doubt it.

Having labelled the radar-image beam as one of Lee's failures yesterday, it's only fair to point out that Thomas uses it this issue, which is a smart way to confirm the identity of Unus.  It's a shame the Blob blurts out his name during a struggle with the cops, I liked the idea that the two villains needed a little thought and knowledge for the reader to recognise.  The same should have been true for Lucifer, by the way, but the issue's cover renders that a moot point. 

I'm trying to think of a description of Lucifer's tower that's more interesting and original than "It's a huge fucking dick", but it is a huge fucking dick, and that's making my job more tricky than usual.

Also: damn, but that Xavier is a filthy racist.  After he slaps together a resistance movement against Lucifer in the Himalayas (apparently entirely populated by purchases from genericasain.com) , he starts pulling out the enlightened white man card, all "Through means you cannot understand..." and so forth.  What a dick. I hope he gets his legs crushed by an implausible death-trap involving a falling block of stone. Oh wait...

Clues
.
 This story takes place over a single day.

There's quite a lot to think about here.  Firstly, Angel notes that it's good to be back in action, which suggests that at least a little time has passed since Mimic's violent house call.  On the other hand, Xavier mentions that it's been "several weeks" since he bought his (newest) private jet, but that he hadn't gotten a chance to show it to the X-Men during their battles with Magneto and the Sentinels.  That places the purchase of the plane on the 4^th of September at the latest, two months before the Mimic attacked.

I think the best way to reconcile all this is to assume Warren's delight at being back in action is a reference to how nice it is to actually be sent on a mission, rather than just having someone come to his house and start summat. So let's set this on the Monday following the Mimic encounter, since it looks like a workday at the bank.  That curtails the X-Men's holiday by quite a bit, of course, but at this point you can forgive Xavier for abandoning the idea entirely, given that so far the X-Men have managed two holidays and been attacked three times during them.  This will of course become a long-standing problem for the X-Men: the only thing more dangerous than a holiday is a romantic getaway.

(There's also the greenery around the mansion to take into account, but since we know winter started after the Sentinel attack, we can't possibly be in spring already, given Xavier's comments on his plane purchase.  Maybe the grounds have bushes that don't lose their leaves.  Or maybe their not even real, and are just camouflage for a row of missile silos, or mental boosters to allow Xavier to contact teenage boys at greater range.  I mean, last time round his order of "One teenage boy: extra hot" nearly didn't make it on time.)

Date
.
.Monday 6^th of November, 1978.
.

X-Date

X+220.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel month = 4.42 standard months.

Contemporary Events

The first world championships of korfball (a Dutch sport, a bit like mixed-sex basketball) are held in Assen, Nuenen and Amsterdam.

Stand-Out Line

"As usual, a mob seldom makes the right decision!" If only Gerald was an X-Men fan, the Ratner's Group might still be going strong.  Or maybe he is a fan, but he'd have needed Cyclops to say "Keep your mouth shut, Jerry; not everyone can take a joke".

UXM #19: "Lo! Now Shall Appear -- The Mimic!"

(Imitation is the sincerest form of battery)

Comments

It's the last Stan Lee scripted issue, exactly two and a half years since the comic began.  As mentioned previously, this is a good time to list all of the concepts, inventions and characters central to the X-books for which Lee is responsible.

• Professor X
• Cyclops
• Angel
• Beast
• Marvel Girl
• Iceman
• Magneto
• Quicksilver
• Scarlet Witch
• Mastermind
• Toad
• Blob
• Vanisher
• Unus the Untouchable
• Ka-Zar
• Juggernaut
• Bolivar Trask
• Mimic

Inventions and locations

• The mansion
• The Danger Room
• Cerebro
• Asteroid M
• The Savage Land
• The Sentinels

Which pretty much just leaves Lucifer, the Stranger, the radar-image beam and the dreaded mento-helmet that didn't really go anywhere.  Even if you can't find a good word to say about Lee's writing (which would be a tad unfair; it's a lot closer to massively outdated than actually terrible), you have to respect his success in terms of world building. 

His swansong issue is pretty strong as well  Just as you're wondering what the Mimic hoped to gain from attacking the X-Men, we learn it was all a ruse to get them to follow him to where he could put their stolen powers to use.  It might not exactly be a Shyamalan twist (even one of the shit ones), but it does play smartly off the standard "villain shows up, X-Men beat him" template that was so in evidence during the early issues.

The psychology of the Mimic is also fairly interesting, especially for a '60s character.  Calvin's obsessive need to prove himself (to his classmates, to his father, even to the X-Men, in a delightfully twisted way) not only explains why he does what he does, but also explains why it never works.  His ability to share someone else's powers means any attempt to prove his superiority boils down to tossing a coin.  Like the doppelganger in Talisman, once you're faced with something which is identical to you by definition, all that's left is the luck of the draw.

Which is why Mimic keeps failing to be satisfied, even as he wins all those medals, and beats (temporarily) the X-Men at their own game.  The real problem is that he isn't just mimicking powers, he's mimicking ambition.  He wants to be good at sports like the people he steals from.  He wants to impress the girls like Hank and Bobby have (or seem to have).  He wants to be a powerful man, like his father, to the point where he makes a costume which apes the design on the door to his father's lab.  Ultimately, of course, he joins the X-Men because he wants to be a superhero too.  It's a really nice idea for a character, I think, a good use of tying in a personality to their power without making it too literal or obvious, and might in fact explain why Rankin is forever in the lower tier of Marvel characters - all he can do is fret about what others think of him.

I vaguely remember the "Is Mimic a mutant" argument taking up a lot of fan's time at one point.  Within the context of this issue, I wonder if Lee thought ti was pushing credulity too much (even for him) to have a chemist smart enough to make a mutant enhancement machine[1] happen to have a mutant for a son. I don't see why else Lee wouldn't have gone for it; easy superpower justification being the whole point.  Interestingly, this then led to a large number of X-Men villains with preternatural origin stories during Roy Thomas' run, bu we'll get to that in due time.

Clues

This story takes place over two days.

Apparently it's vacation time again.  This is somewhat confusing, actually.  Xavier mentions their encounters "with the Sentinels and with Magneto in the past few months", apparently forgetting that they both happened within the same three day period.  It's possible he was including one of their earlier bouts with Magneto (just before he was abducted by the Stranger, for example), but then why skip over the Juggernaut?

Well, maybe Xavier doesn't like talking about his stepbrother; that's hardly unreasonable.  In any event, the leaves have finally fallen from the trees (some of them at least), so if we assume this story takes place at the start of November, everything fits neatly into place.

Cyclops refers to Beast as "boy", which previously I took as evidence of chronological superiority.  This time, I think Cyclops is just being a dick.

Date

Wednesday 1^st to Thursday 2^nd of November, 1978.

X-Date

X+215 to X+216. (Lee era: 7 months)

Compression Constant

1 Marvel month = 4.37 standard months.

Contemporary Events

Ugandan forces annex Tanzanian territory across the Kagera River.

Stand-Out Line

"Zelda's not here yet! We might as well case the other chicks!" You stay classy, Bobby.

[1] Or so he told Calvin, at least. This issue really does deserve credit for how hideously bitter the ending is: the X-Men don't stop the Mimic, he's undone by his own father secretly thinking he was a prick.  That's some dark shit, right there.

UXM #18: "...If Iceman Should Fail!"

("Welcome to Magneto's Bed and Breakfast.  You'll never hear a soul complaining!")

Comments

Few small points, first.  I think if there's anything that deserves a yearly award, it's "Most Convoluted And Unreliable Execution Method Devised By A Leading Supervillain".  If such a thing that existed in 1966, Magneto would surely at least be nominated for a hot-air balloon with a sealed and air-tight gondola.  I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh on him, though; he must have spent the majority of his very tight timetable rewriting and rebuilding the mansions security systems.  Oh, and learning to use magnetism to hypnotise people.

(He also seems to have gone to the effort of identifying the guest rooms.  I'd question the utility of that, but only one of the people in this paragraph is a dangerous supervillain, and it sure isn't me.)

As ridiculous as his death-traps are, though, I have to give him style points for how he opens his front door. "I?  I am power!  Men call me -- Magneto! And now -- come in!"  You're not likely to be bothered by too many travelling salesmen or Jehovah's Witnesses with that welcome, I'd have thought. 

I do feel a little sorry for poor old Toad. Mind you, I get annoyed enough when ingratiating snivellers follow me around at a party.  If one dogged me whilst I spent a few weeks exploring a new world, I wouldn't let him into my cramped spaceship either.

For all his lunatic ideas and ridiculous devices, I actually quite like the idea of a hypodermic syringe that uses a laser to cut through a superhero's skin.  As far as such things go, that's eminently logical and clever.  It certainly works better than Magneto's "magna-car".
Of course, all of the above pales into insignificance compared with the madness of Magneto's ultimate scheme: using the Angels' unconscious parents to breed a race of mutants.  The WTF reading on that starts at roughly 7 Russells [1], and just keeps climbing, especially when Magneto announces he's attached a device which will let him pick each mutant's power-set.  
.
 It raises all sorts of questions, from the immediate (why did Magneto nor anyone else ever try this again) to the more in-depth (couldn't this have been used to repopulate the species following M-Day), but at the time you read it, you're brain is too busy trying to switch gears to process anything.  About the only thing that registered was the question of whether shutting down the process mere seconds before the first clone stepped into the world technically makes Iceman a murderer.

Clues

 This story takes place over a night and a day.

Date

Thursday 7^th to Friday 8^th September, 1978.

X-Date

X+160 to X+161.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel month = 6.22 standard months.

Contemporary Events

Iranian troops open fire on rioters in Tehran.

Stand-Out Line

"More than any other force on Earth, the power of magnetism is -- infallible!"  Actually, for all I know, Magneto might be right.  But I can't help reading this line and not seeing it as some kind of bizarre product placement.

[1] Named after the tsar of WTF? moments himself: Mr Russell T Davies.  If you're wondering, 1 Russell is equal to watching the Daleks squaring off against an overweight R2 unit painted up as Ann Robinson.  During the height of his tyrannical assault against storytelling logic, measurements into the hundreds of Kilorussels, or even Megarussels, were not uncommon.

UXM #17: "... And None Shall Survive!"

("His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking")

Comments

This is not a proud day for Xavier's skills at deception. Marvel Girl starts the issue wondering how the Professor will hide his affiliation with the team.  I'd be prepared to bet she didn't imagine him asking if an X-Man would drive him home in his nearby car, which conveniently now has no driver.  On the other hand, he's apparently been controlling the soldiers since they arrived, so I suppose it doesn't matter too much.  Of course, this is another one of those times when Xavier's willingness to fuck around with innocent people's synapses raises the eyebrows, but these are still early days. [1]

Do we ever find out how Magneto found the X-Men's base?  Or did he just have enough time to work it out whilst he was a prisoner of the Stranger.  I suppose he can't have spent all his time being rectally probed.

I see from Cyclops' "perfect circle" defence in Xavier's study that the X-Men still aren't getting the hang of the third dimension.  This is reinforced by Marvel Girl "forgetting" that she can use her telekinesis to float down from windows.  I bet she never forgets she can sew with it, though.  Not if she doesn't want to feel the back of Cyclops' hand, anyway.

At least Cyclops has the excuse that he was nearly deafened by Cerebro, at least.  Actually, I meant to ask this after issue #12, but did it really never occur to Xavier that there was an obvious tactical disadvantage to creating a mutant detector capable of shattering the ear bones of the operator and anyone near him?  Maybe he was still to busy designing the precise spermicide formula for his mento-helmet.

Does "John Thomas" mean something different in the States?  Or did he become a doctor as a way of proving himself after years of cruel, vindictive bullying?

Clues

 This is a difficult one to figure out.  We know the story starts just after the Sentinel base explodes, so that's all right.  The implication is that all the hospital scenes follow on very quickly. Certainly, some of Xavier's mental dialogue (as in thought bubbles, not "Charlie is a mental", which I suspect was a B-side to an '80s B-Line Matchbox Disaster single) doesn't really work if he hasn't pretty much followed the ambulance carrying Scott, Hank and Bobby to the hospital.

 On the other hand, having Beast recover from a fractured foot within an hour is pushing it.  Or is it?  Maybe this just demonstrates how much damage Juggernaut did to his leg back in issue #13.  At the time, I thought it was ridiculous that Cain's blow didn't do far more damage, but if Beast has himself a healing factor (less powerful than Wolverine's, sure, but still there), then some hobbling around on crutches back then, and a 60 minute recovery now, would both make some sense.

Let's split the difference, and assume the ambulance arrived close to midnight on the Wednesday (the Sentinels attacked during an evening broadcast, after all) and that the hospital scenes take place the following day.

 This has the knock-on effect of allowing Magneto almost 24 hours to booby-trap the mansion, rather than less than a day.  It still makes bollocks-all sense that he's able to overcome Xavier's security and re-write it so quickly, but at least this way he's had some time to puzzle it all out. 

Date

Wednesday 6^th to Thursday 7^th September, 1978.

X-Date

X+159 to X+160.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel month = 6.08 standard months.

Contemporary Events

Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov is stabbed in London, with a poisoned umbrella.   Tragically, Mathew Horne survives the attack.  Or maybe he orchestrated it.  It's difficult to be sure.

Stand-Out Line

"He's delirious!  No way of knowing whether it's a good symptom -- or a dangerous one!"  No way of telling whether delirium is good?  Did Johnson go to the same school as Doctors Spaceman and Fisher?

[1] indeed, waaaaay in the future, in issue #331, Warren explicitly calls the Professor out on his previous history of re-writing minds left, right and centre.  So it does get addressed eventually.

UXM #16: "The Supreme Sacrifice!"

("Bolivar Trask... The thing you've got to remember about Bolivar Trask... Bolivar Trask... Bolivar Trask was a prat!") 
Comments


I confess ahead of time that this might be my terrible grasp of physics talking, but I really like Iceman's idea of breaking their prison walls by rustling up an ice-beam and repeatedly adding ice to the centre until it shatters the glass (even if it didn't work).  Presumably that can exert more force than Cyclops wouldn't be able to keep his balance if his force-beam got too strong without it getting though.  I think.  Hang on, momentum equals force times velocity, so -

Never mind.  I'm pretty sure I'm five seconds away from grabbing for a white board.  Back away from the equations, slowly.

 I note that Master Mold has finally concluded that the X-Men can't hurt him.  Whether he made this decision before, after, or during Beast's in-depth description of his first year of postgraduate work, history does not recall.  Old Double-M seems to have caught a case of the Raving Thesps that so plagued his minions last issue.  "Yonder machine?" I ask you...

It's nice of Stan Lee to give us pointers on how to build a heavy gravity globe, but I don't think it's necessary: I've been building one of those inside my torso ever since I started drinking heavily.

(Hah hah hah!  Humour, to disguise my alcoholism.)

Having mentioned above my total inability to grasp even fairly basic physics, I am prepared to take it on faith that a crystal can interfere with transmissions, even if it does sound a bit New-Agey.  Even so, how can you block the Sentinels' transmission from base while they're in the base?  No wonder Washington eventually turns against Xavier; the man's a loon.ever mind

Clues
Once again, this issue follows on immediately from the previous one, and is finished within a few hours at most.

Date
Wednesday 6^th September, 1978.

X-Date

X+159.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel month = 5.36 standard months.

Contemporary Events

The Camp David accords continue, never suspecting that Mathew Horne is preparing, even from his crib, to render world peace seem irrelevant in the face of his smug, worthless grin.

Stand-Out Line

"Beware the fanatic! Too often his cure is deadlier by far than the evil he denounces!" Not exactly Sorkin, I grant you, but I give Lee credit for the balls he's showing here.