X-Men Part 11
The X-Men #20–23, 1966, by Roy Thomas and Werner Roth/Jay Gavin
We’re finally at the beginning of the Roy Thomas run. Roy will be the main writer for the X-Men until the book shifts into reprints with issue #67, so we’ve got a pretty long stint here (there’s an unfortunate break where Arnold Drake takes over, but we’ll get there soon enough). Sure, Stan Lee created the characters and started them on this journey, but Roy Thomas really defined the team in this era, for good and bad. And we’re going to start by looking at two different two-issue arcs.
Right off the bat, Roy decides to go back and tie up a loose end. Welcome back, Lucifer. I can’t say I’m thrilled to see you, but I do love having things resolved. They teased this story over a year earlier in issue #9, but the payoff isn’t exactly what I would call “worth the wait”. Sure, it’s great that it’s not a dangling plot thread anymore, but it’s not exactly edge-of-your-seat storytelling either. Regardless, we do finally get to see the tale of how Professor Xavier lost the use of his legs. When he is rendered completely paralyzed and unable to even speak by a mental attack from Lucifer, the Professor uses the time to telepathically tell Jean the story of how he first met this returning menace. It was years earlier, in a small village in Tibet that had been completely dominated by the mental control of Lucifer. Xavier visited out of curiosity, ended up leading an uprising, and ultimately had part of a stone ceiling collapse on him during his final confrontation with Lucifer. As I said, it’s not a super exciting story. But we do learn that Lucifer is an alien sent by someone he calls Supreme One, and he is preparing the Earth to be taken over. We also learn that his alien species apparently all wear masks that cover their entire head except the lower lip and mandatory facial hair. And we’re told that Xavier founded the X-Men partly to prepare for Lucifer’s eventual return (which seems highly unlikely with recent revelations in the modern Krakoa era).
Now, back in the present, Lucifer has set his final plans in motion. And he begins by manipulating Blob and Unus the Untouchable into teaming up and starting to rob banks dressed in X-Men uniforms. It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that these are actually villains because they’re both smoking cigarettes the entire time, and the only time it’s permissible to smoke as a hero in this era is if it’s a pipe and you’re doing some serious thinking. Regardless, with the X-Men being blamed for a series of crimes, they won’t have any time to investigate or interfere with his ultimate plan until it’s too late. It’s really a pretty great idea, unfortunately for Lucifer, Cyclops has just decided to quit the team and just happens to be aimlessly wandering through town when Blob and Unus strike again. Unable to ignore something so blatant, he quickly rejoins the team by donning the uniform that he brought with him (kinda makes you wonder how serious he was about quitting), and attacks them both.
Eventually, the other male members of the team show up and they’re able to force Blob and Unus to flee, despite a very mean old woman that keeps hitting Hank with her umbrella. But this attack was only a diversion, and now Lucifer begins his real plan by incapacitating the Professor. There’s an ongoing theme in these early issues of Professor Xavier using his incredible mental abilities to invent absolutely incredible machines at the drop of a hat. In this case, he telepathically communicates with Hank and Jean and has them build a bizarre glass helmet, very similar to a giant goldfish bowl, according to his design. This ridiculous looking contraption is able to shield his mind from the ongoing mental attacks Lucifer is launching at him. It’s never explained why the other members of the team don’t need to wear these helmets. I guess Charles is vulnerable because he was using his mental powers against Lucifer and thus opened himself up? It’s left unclear.
While the X-Men are busy with the construction of the fishbowl helmet, Lucifer has been getting everything in place to begin Dominus. After many, many panels of different people talking about Dominus with reverence or fear, but zero explanation of what it actually is, we finally learn that it is a giant machine that turns the inhabitants of the planet it is located on into mindless slaves. This has apparently been done to countless worlds over millions of years by the race from which Lucifer and the Supreme One come. And Earth is an inconsequential world that just happens to be a stepping stone in their path of galactic conquest. There’s just one highly convenient flaw in Dominus. It can only be operated by the giant robots that have been tangling with the X-Men throughout both of these issues. And while the machine itself is impervious to harm (and will actually destroy anything that tries to damage it), the robots are not. It seems like a design flaw that would have been corrected in the millions of years that the system has been in use, but our heroes are very lucky that it wasn’t.
With the destruction of the robots, Lucifer’s plans are foiled. The Supreme One shows up once more just to throw Lucifer and the useless Dominus machine into a “nameless dimension where neither time nor space exists.” Which, I’ve gotta say, is pretty severe punishment. I’m anxious to see if Lucifer, or his race, ever make another appearance. The way they are described in the explanation of the Dominus machine makes them seem like a pretty huge threat. You would think they would have shown up in some of the Marvel space books, if not in an X-related book. But it also wouldn’t surprise me if this is the last time they are even mentioned.
Before moving on, I did want to quickly talk about the scene where we learn that the Dominus machine will destroy anything that tries to damage it. The Professor learns of this critical design flaw using some very serious mental probing. It’s not mentioned if he’s probing Lucifer’s mind or the machine itself, but I guess this is another possible example of him using his rarely mentioned talent for reading the thoughts of brainless machines. He then tells the X-Men to not attack the machine, but focus on the robots. Angel, Beast, and Iceman all think that the command is a trick by Lucifer, and Angel even tries to attack the machine. He’s stopped by an optic blast from Cyclops, following the Professor’s orders without question. In this case, that was the correct decision, but it’s also the beginning of a long, hard road that Scott will be on for decades to come. And there are many times in the future when it would be better for everyone if Scott wasn’t such a loyal soldier.
From there we move on to issues #22–23, and a rather forgettable outing with an Iron Man villain known as Count Nefaria. The count has assembled a who’s who of other forgettable early Iron Man villains and uses them to capture the X-Men one at a time. The X-Men are always weaker when they’re split up, but this is honestly pretty disappointing. They should be able to hold their own against bad guys like The Porcupine.
Once our heroes have been captured, Count Nefaria puts his master plan into action. He activates his new invention, which encases all of Washington D.C. in a giant, clear, impenetrable bubble (and before you ask, no, there’s no explanation for how this works). He then attempts to blackmail the X-Men into joining his criminal organization, the Maggia, by telling the world that they are responsible for the bubble. This actually gives us a pretty interesting window to look at the continuing development of the whole “hated and feared” angle of the X-Men, because despite our heroes being pretty famous at this point, and never having shown any abilities remotely close to what’s happening, the general public immediately believes the lie. This is further developed later in the story when Nefaria’s non-mutant supervillain lieutenants tell an angry mob that they’re mutants while destroying everything around them, just to further inflame tensions and stir everything up a little bit more.
In a now familiar strategy, the Count is ultimately defeated by Professor X swooping in to save his students. However, it’s a little different in this case. These issues give us the first example of something that will become a bit of a theme with Charles Xavier. He despises his own disability. He feels that it weakens him, makes him less of a man and a human being. And he will do almost anything to get rid of it. It’s an interesting attitude for this man to have, a man who frequently comes into contact with mutants that have “gifts” that make them at least appear very different. I think it’s the same attitude that will cause the membership of the X-Men over the years to be almost entirely made up of mutants that can pass for regular humans. We will meet many mutants in the coming decades that look different, and sometimes even monstrous, and you would think that these are the mutants that need someone like Charles to welcome them into his home the most. But that almost never happens. Instead, these mutants are left to Magneto (or the Morlocks, as we’ll see later). Charles has an image in his mind of what the perfect mutant looks like. And it looks very upper class American, for the most part. And sadly, it also doesn’t have any visible disabilities, as evidenced by the self-hatred we see here.
In this issue, Charles uses his newest invention, an electrical set of leg braces that allow him to walk. He enters the Count’s headquarters, destroys his machine, and tricks Nefaria into fleeing without the money he had used the X-Men to steal. So, once again, the X-Men are unable to save the day, and need the Professor to rescue them. It’s an ending I’m getting very tired of, and one that I had hoped we would be free of with Stan Lee no longer writing. But this is still the beginning for Roy Thomas. He’s still getting the hang of things and I’m hopeful this was just an instance of him staying the course and we’ll start to explore some new areas soon.
Issue #23 ends with Jean getting a letter from her parents telling her that they’re pulling her out of Xavier’s School. This is a different kind of “To Be Continued” moment than we’re used to. Usually it’s something to do with the action in the story, this is more of a soap opera ending, and that’s important. Part of the X-Men’s ongoing appeal are the soap opera aspects of the storylines, but that wasn’t something Stan Lee emphasized. Sure, you had the occasional thought bubble from Scott, Jean, or Warren wondering if they would ever get to date their attractive classmate. But this is actual drama. Jean is leaving the school. How will she ever end up with Scott if she’s not his classmate? Does this mean Warren finally has a chance, since he’s rich and has his own car, while Scott would have to take the bus to meet Jean anywhere? Roy Thomas may not have the action part down, but he’s starting the drama right out of the gate. And I am here for it.
