X-Men Part 10

The X-Men #17–19, 1966, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby/Werner Roth/Jay Gavin

The first two issues we’re talking about are honestly pretty forgettable and mostly pointless. Magneto has returned, and he can’t wait to take his revenge on the X-Men. So, he lures them back to the mansion, one at a time, and takes them each out. There’s not a thing they can do to stop him, especially when they’re isolated from each other like this. But it ultimately doesn’t matter because Professor Xavier telepathically contacts the Stranger and lets him know that Magneto escaped and is back terrorizing humanity. The Stranger arrives in the form of a giant floating head (there is zero explanation given for this), and chases Magneto away. We’re left with the impression that he’s back in the clutches of the Stranger, but Stan Lee didn’t feel like he really needed to give us any closure there. So, once again, the X-Men couldn’t defeat Magneto, but Magneto was also unable to overcome the Stranger, so we’re left exactly where we started. Like I said, mostly pointless.

There is, however, one interesting thing going on in the background of the story. And by interesting, I, of course, mean absolutely insane. Warren’s parents just happen to be visiting the mansion at the same time as Magneto. After capturing them and rendering them both unconscious, he uses his magnetic powers to construct a machine unlike anything we’ve seen before. This machine will construct androids without any sense of freewill. At the same time, once the Worthingtons are plugged in, it will use whatever genetic fluke allowed them to give birth to a mutant child to give mutant powers to those same mindless androids. In other words, it will create the ideal mutant army for Magneto to use to conquer the world. It’s very unclear how any of this works, but, as with most things that happen when Stan is writing Magneto, we can probably assume that it’s simply magnetism.

We will see in later years that parents can have both mutant and homo sapien children. In the case of Elizabeth and Brian Braddock we even have a set of twins where one is mutant and one isn’t. So it’s a mystery how this machine is able to guarantee that the android “children” of the Worthingtons will be mutants. It also feels very out of character for Magneto to accept androids as mutants, even if it will allow him to have the absolutely subservient henchmen that he’s been dreaming of.

But putting those issues aside, the biggest question here is: what exactly is happening to the Worthingtons? Is this machine somehow harvesting sperm and eggs from them? Is it simply scanning their genetic makeup and then recreating it to combine with the blank androids? Will this all result in a bunch of winged androids, or small variations of that kind of mutation? Or does the machine take into account the endless genetic combinations possible when mixing together everything that makes up two people? Obviously, none of these questions are answered. And thankfully we never see this machine again (as far as I know), so we don’t need to worry too much about it.

Issue #19 is notable for two reasons. The first is that this is the last issue for both Stan and Jack. Jack Kirby has only been doing layouts for the last several issues, but his presence was still clearly felt in almost every panel. The book will have a much different feel going forward, just in terms of the illustration. As for the writing, I want to make it perfectly clear how eternally grateful I am to Stan Lee for co-creating and writing these characters. We wouldn’t have anything without him. That being said, I’m very excited to start the Roy Thomas written run of this book. Stan’s narration is so dense and wordy, and his portrayal of women (and Jean in particular) is so regressive. Plus, the action in the book has so often relied on something entirely unrelated to our heroes to resolve everything (see the last issue for a reminder). I honestly don’t know if Roy Thomas does any better when it comes to writing women. But I am eager to get some stories where the actions of our heroes actually have some bearing on the resolution.

The second thing that we get with issue #19 is the introduction of Calvin Rankin, aka the Mimic, who will continue to show up, usually as an antagonist, for decades to come. In this issue, he’s mostly a misogynistic jerk, but his power, to “mimic” the abilities of those around him, is a lot of fun. Having someone that is able to use all the abilities of the X-Men at the same time really forces the team to work together, as there’s no way that one of them would be able to take the Mimic out on their own. We are also treated to Mimic using the Professor’s telepathic abilities in a way that only Stan Lee could have devised, to find a machine buried under a ton of rocks. Does the machine have a brain? No, so let’s just pretend that we don’t actually understand what telepathy is. One more reason I’m excited to start the Roy Thomas run: maybe he understands how telepathy and magnetism actually work.

It’s very interesting that Stan didn’t make Calvin Rankin into a mutant. Most of the villains up to this point have been other mutants, and we definitely still get the shouted slogans of anti-mutant hate speech from people that see Mimic, but the story instead steers away from that origin. Maybe Stan felt having the power be artificial opens up some other avenues for the story to go in. If Calvin isn’t a mutant mimic, then it’s not as shocking when he’s able to mimic the athletic and mental abilities of those regular humans around, as we see him do in a series of flashbacks. Or perhaps Stan and Jack were hoping to develop a villain that they could use in other books. If that was the case, it didn’t work. Calvin does continue to show up, but it’s almost always in an X-Book.

Regardless, Mimic is not a problem for long. The Professor again uses his telepathic abilities in two more bizarre, seemingly non-telepathic ways. First, he senses that the machine Mimic has spent most of the issue trying to locate will not actually amplify his power, but will instead take it away permanently. With this knowledge he has the X-Men allow Mimic to use the machine, thus defeating himself. And second, he causes the machine to malfunction and explode. As far as I know, this is the only example we have of the Professor using his mind to make machines explode, which is just fine with me.

We end the issue in perhaps the only way that we could end Stan Lee’s run on the book: with Professor Xavier wiping Mimic’s mind. It’s presented here as a merciful thing, as a way for Mimic to move on with his normal, civilian life. But it still feels wrong to me. Mimic had discovered who the X-Men were, so however he wants to sugarcoat it, this is Professor Xavier covering his own ass by violating the mind of another human being. He’s had a ton of practice doing just this over the last nineteen issues, and he’ll continue to perfect his particular method of dealing with inconveniences over the coming decades.