X-Men Part 4

The X-Men #4–5, 1964, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

These two issues are a lot of fun, and that’s almost entirely due to the villains. This is the grand return of Magneto, but this time he’s not alone. Since we last saw him in issue #1, the master of magnetism has been very busy both establishing his “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” and building a new base of operations inside an asteroid orbiting the Earth (that he very cleverly calls “Asteroid M”). His new Brotherhood is made up of four other mutants:

1. Toad: Possibly the most stereotypical henchman of all time, Toad couples his mutant ability to leap and bounce around with an Igor-like speech pattern. He throws as many “Yes master!”s into the conversation as he possibly can.
2. Mastermind: With his mutant power to create absolutely life-like illusions in the minds of his victims, Mastermind is every bit as creepy and gross as you would worry someone like that would be.
3. The Scarlet Witch: Wanda Maximoff has the power to use “Hex Magic”, which seems to mean causing everything to go wrong for someone that is hit with one of Hex Bolts. This could mean they suddenly lose their balance, the car they’re driving suddenly goes out of control, or the weapon they’re holding suddenly explodes. Whatever the result, it’s always bad and always surprising.
4. Quicksilver: Pietro Maximoff is the twin brother of the Scarlet Witch, and is able to move at immense speeds. He’s always frustrated and seems unable to slow down his movements or the rate at which his temper rises.

It’s a very interesting mix of characters. Some of that is due to the powers that Stan Lee assigns to each of them, and the story possibilities that consequently come out of those, but it’s mostly due to the personalities that he gives each of them. Toad is a sycophant that believes Magneto can do no wrong. Mastermind seems to at least superficially believe in the cause, but is mostly tagging along to see what power he can seize for himself. Wanda and Pietro are only there because Magneto saved Wanda’s life when she was being attacked by an angry anti-mutant mob and she feels a sense of debt because of that. But the obligation she feels doesn’t stop her from appearing to be fairly horrified by almost everything he does. Quicksilver is only sticking around because his sister is, and his outright disdain for Magneto and the other Brotherhood members is palpable.

In addition, the designs for Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are incredible. They’re very different, but fit together perfectly, just like the twins themselves. Pietro in bright green, and Wanda in bright red with pink accents. Neither has much in the way of decorations or flourishes. There’s a single lightning bolt across the green for Pietro, while Wanda has a red cape and headdress to match her suit. Kirby always had a great sense for simple and memorable costume design, and these are two of my favorites.

With the additional power these four acolytes give him, Magneto is able to take over a small country in Europe. When everything is said and done, his grand plan seems to be using a nuclear weapon to destroy both the entire country and the X-Men at the same time. His disregard for the lives of the common humans living in the country is both disgusting to Pietro, and questionable to any reader that is familiar with the backstory later given to Magneto by later writers. Any holocaust survivor that is this comfortable with genocide is hard to take seriously. Luckily for Stan Lee, that part of his story hadn’t been written yet, so we’re able to take Magento at face value, as an almost comically evil villain.

The Brotherhood is also a great help to the reader. Additional villains means the fights will have to change. The X-Men won’t be able to do the same things they did when they first faced Magneto. And it turns out that it’s just as much fun to watch the bad guys combine their powers as it is to watch the good guys partner up and do things they never could have accomplished on their own. For their part, the X-Men have brought Professor X along with them this time. Perhaps they, like us, have noticed that two of the three fights they’ve had so far were decided by the Professor simply blasting the villain in the brain. But, in one more assist to the reader, the Brotherhood are able to injure the Professor enough that in issue #5 he’s both unable to help the team or accompany them as they pursue Magneto and his followers to his orbiting base (which ends up being another incredible Kirby design).

The lead up to the fight on Asteroid M is fairly bonkers. The Brotherhood disguise Toad as a college athlete and have him compete in a televised track meet, knowing that the human audience will react in anger as he uses his powers to win every event, and knowing that the combination of all these things will draw the X-Men out. The plan works perfectly, until Magneto attacks and everything falls apart. In the confusion, he abducts Angel and leaves Toad behind to whatever fate may have in store for him. Luckily for the X-Men, Toad’s true superpower (that of being the most dependent henchman imaginable) kicks into gear and he wanders around in an almost fugue state until reaching a rocket that can take him back to Asteroid M, a rocket that’s conveniently large enough for the remaining X-Men to board as well.

The fight that follows is very fun. Magneto uses a “magnetic intensifier” so that he can control every piece of metal in the base, which results in sheets of metal wrapping around heads and random metal arms coming out of the walls to grab people. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch make their first attempt at standing up to Magneto’s murder attempts. And we get to see what a “dart grenade” does. We also get the first example of Bobby using his ice powers in a truly remarkable way, by making a huge tunnel to link two collapsing sections of the base. But the most important part of all of this, is the Professor is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t destroy anyone’s brain, and he doesn’t even contact the team telepathically to tell them what to do. This is the first time we get to see the X-Men actually being the superheroes that we’ve been told they are. And it’s pretty great.

This is all only slightly hurt by the reveal at the end that the Professor was only faking his injury to test the X-Men. He could have told them what to do at any time, and was actually listening in to their thoughts the whole time. Does this make some of the more deadly moments in the issue feel really weird? Absolutely. Is this one more piece of evidence (only five issues in!) that the Professor is a bad person? 100%.

There’s a couple of other things in here that are worth mentioning. Issue #5 opens with a great gag where Scott is accidentally locked in the Danger Room with no one at the controls and the programs set for Beast. He makes it through by the skin of his teeth, and stumbles back into the hallway, still wearing his best suit, in time to wave goodbye to Jean’s parents.

This is contrasted with an earlier Danger Room sequence where we get to see all of the X-Men risking their very lives during their training sessions, only to then watch Jean’s test: slowly lifting a cake out of a box with her telekinesis. This kind of thing won’t really be better until Claremont takes over in 1975, but I’m ready for it to be slightly less on the nose with Roy Thomas taking over the writing duties fairly soon.

And finally, we get the first hints here that Hank sees his mutant status as a curse. We witness an internal monologue where he mourns the fact that his “gift” is one that allows him to be a superhero. He would much rather be a student and a scientist, learning and studying the world around him. This contrast between the brilliant mind that Hank would have had even had he been born human and the incredible physical abilities that he has due to his nature as a mutant is one that will heavily define the character over the decades to come. And in this particular moment, we get the impression that he truly wishes he was human.

Overall, these are a fun couple of issues. I really enjoy the Brotherhood as a group, both in terms of how they interact with each other and in the ways that they force the X-Men to fight in new and interesting ways. They’re all interesting characters in their own right (Toad is a little harder to appreciate, but his absolute submission to the alpha in the group is pretty fascinating in and of itself), and the visual appeal to them is very strong. After a rough couple of issues, things are starting to turn around (at least temporarily).