MARVEL MASTERWORKS: X-MEN #1-10

An optic blast from the teenage mutants' past

By Tony Whitt     May 05, 2002

It's only when we read a collection like MASTER MASTERWORKS: X-MEN that we realize just how far the X-Men have really come ? and how little Stan Lee's writing has really changed between 1963 and his latest work for DC. But even with all their faults, these first ten issues contain the seeds that would later spring into the best-selling series in comic history. After it got cancelled first, of course.

You probably already know the premise, but just in case you've been in suspended animation for the last forty years, I'll tell you anyway: Charles Xavier (whose first name we don't know yet), otherwise known as Professor X, runs a training school for other mutants like himself. He calls his students the X-Men, short for "ex-tra power" (no, I'm serious). Into the male-dominated class consisting of Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, and Iceman comes Jean Grey, a young woman whose telekinetic powers are already immensely powerful. But she and the boys still need to be trained to use their special abilities, and Professor X must shape this group into a team to protect regular homo sapiens from other homo superiors, such as Magneto, who would destroy humanity.

The most striking thing about these early stories is how quickly the differences between homo sapiens and homo superior is established, most notably in Professor X himself. Resembling nothing so much as a bald statue in a wheelchair, Xavier seems to have no human traits at all: he barks mental commands at his students, he has no sense of humor, and he avoids speaking aloud whenever possible. Only when he finally confronts Lucifer, the man who stole the use of his legs, does he seem to have any sort of human motivation. When he pretends to lose his powers for a few issues and the X-Men care for him, you find yourself wondering exactly what he's done to deserve such love and affection. (Equally baffling is the revelation of his own "love and affection" for one of his students in the third issue, a plot twist that thankfully never shows up again.)

And if the "X" in Professor X stands for anything, it must stand for deus ex machina. Lee writes himself into a few corners in these early stories, and it's only by using Xavier's almost god-like abilities that he's able to get the kids out of trouble. When the teenage mutants find themselves unable to defeat the ridiculously costumed Vanisher in the second issue, for instance, it's Xavier who steps in (so to speak) and induces amnesia in the man's mind. Luckily, Lee makes the X-Men self-sufficient quickly enough that Xavier becomes less of a crutch (sorry, force of habit) by the end of this volume.

It's also hard to imagine the X-Men ever defeating Magneto if he had remained as powerful as he is in this initial run. Not only can he manipulate magnetic energies, he can detect the presence of other mutants (just like Xavier), he can astrally project (just like Xavier - though why either of them should be able to do this is anyone's guess), and he can probe the minds of others (just like Xavier). In every way he's more than a match for Xavier and his band, and the only thing that seems to thwart his plans seems to be the ambivalence of some of his Brotherhood of so-called "Evil Mutants," such as later heroes Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, or the stupidity of the others, such as the Toad and Mastermind.

Even this early on, we get faint glimmerings of the elements which will make this series world-famous later. We see the beginnings of the now-troubled romance between Scott Summers and Jean, the former's ongoing difficulty with his confidence and total lack of personality, and the introduction of Cerebro. But most importantly, the hatred of homo sapiens for the mutants is introduced early on, providing a subtext for the series which would criticize racism, homophobia, religious intolerance, and just about every other form of hatred a majority population can inflict upon the Other in their midst. It's no wonder the series achieved a cult following among adolescents even in its own time.

Just be warned that there's a lot to sift through for those nuggets. For one thing, you have to get past the "crazy" contemporary lingo, as well as the fact that Hank McCoy doesn't act "against type" as Lee claims in the introduction until the third issue - at which point, of course, the ten-dollar words start piling up as Lee tries to prove that having a large vocabulary denotes intelligence. Then there's the silliness of every single male in the Xavier Mansion having a crush of Jean. The Avengers' appearance in the ninth issue is probably the worst bit of silliness, however, as they battle the teenage mutants until they get the heads-up from Xavier - at which point they simply up and leave! And Ka-Zar fans will no doubt be disappointed by the character's first appearance and that of the Savage Land in the tenth issue - Ka-Zar at this point is little more than a Tarzan clone, complete with broken English and references to himself in the third person. I'd mention Charles and Magneto's little stroll on the astral plane to contact Prince Namor, but you get the idea.

But when you have Jack Kirby's artwork to look at, things can't ever be that bad. There's not much I can add to all that's been written on Kirby's work, apart from the fact that it looks better when Chic Stone inks it. Anyone who thinks of inkers as glorified tracers has only to compare issues #6-10 with issues #1-5 in this volume - the difference between Kirby inked by the equally talented Paul Reinman and Kirby inked by Stone is like night and day. The format of the MARVEL MASTERWORKS books simply makes it all look that much better - none of these issues ever looked this good before, even in 1964, so it's an experience well worth the cost. If only they could come down on that price a bit...