In which we meet the X-Men who fight for the good of mankind. The telepathic Professor Xavier, the gymnastic Beast, the cryogenic Iceman, the winged Angel, Cyclops with incredible force behind his eyes and Marvel Girl with the power of telekinesis. They battle against the master of magnetism, Magneto in a thrilling fight at Cape Citadel.
Cover Story
This, in all it's magnificence is the very first cover of Uncanny X-Men, then or course it was simply 'X-Men' but Marvel chose to retrospectively change the name, to make the issue numbering make much more sense.
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| Uncanny X-Men Issue 001 Cover artwork by Jack Kirby |
The classic red X-Men logo will be with us for sometime, albeit in a variety of colours. Along with a 'First Issue' splash and a billing as 'The Strangest Super-Heroes Of All!' the cover has a simple caption stating that the X-Men will face 'Earth's most powerful super villain'; it's a billing Magneto has been trying to live up to ever since.
The dynamic action-filled Marvel style is in evidence here with four of the X-Men attacking Magneto, although it is still referred to as the 'Fantastic Four Style' on the cover, Marvel Girl poses dynamically in the corner, not yet always at the centre of the action.
Iceman appears clad in snow, as he will for a few issues and he throws snowballs at Magneto's forcefield. Cyclops has his optic blast in operation, and Beast swings into action for a double-footed kick on a trapeze.
Angel hovers above and for some reason he carries a bazooka; it's an odd choice for a super hero team that, until the arrival of Bishop in the nineties, have very little to do with guns.
The background is stark white, it is our heroes which supply the colour in their yellow and blue costumes. A purple floor is added, presumably to give Iceman something to contrast again and Magneto is of course resplendent in purple and red. Apart from variations in size, our heroes all dress identically. This will continue for some time before the X-Men get more personalised costumes.
Overall it is easy to see what made people grab this new comic from the shelves in 1963, and although the path to success for X-Men certainly wasn't smooth, this cover most certainly played a part.
Synopsis
The X Men
The X-Men, Cyclops, Beast, Angel and Iceman are students at an exclusive Westchester School, they are affectionate and protective towards their headmaster Professor Charles Xavier.CreditsWritten by Stan LeeDrawn by Jack Kirby Inked by Paul Reinman Lettered by Sam Rosen |
The X-Men face a challenging training session where they demonstrate their various abilities.
Professor Xavier announces the arrival of a new student, Jean Grey. Scott, Hank and Warren scramble to be the object of Jean's affections, Bobby isn't interested and says he isn't a 'wolf'' like the others.
Jean rebuffs the clumsy advances of Hank to Bobby's amusement. Professor X explains to Jean that the X-Men exist to protect mankind from prospective evil mutants.
The Master of Magnetism
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| Sketch of Cyclops |
Magneto, irritated that the staff have yet to surrender the base causes a missile to launch and strike near a target vessel; still the staff of the base refuse to surrender.
Magneto enters the base in person, using his magnetic powers to trap the soldiers in forcefields and prevent them lifting their heavy metal guns. The base is now under Magneto's control
Good Versus Evil
First AppearancesProfessor Charles Xavier - Professor XScott 'Slim' Summers - Cyclops Henry 'Hank' McCoy - Beast Warren Worthington III - Angel Robert 'Bobby' Drake - Iceman Jean Grey - Marvel Girl Max Eisenhardt - Magneto |
Angel attracts the attention of the missiles while Iceman takes down three of them with his ice grenades. Beast catches the final one and Marvel Girl dumps it to the sea with her telekinesis. Magneto hurls metal junk at the X-Men but Cyclops is able to blast it away.
Magneto's final gambit is to throw a burning tank of fuel but Iceman throws up a shield of ice, and Cyclops uses the time to tunnel underground and surprise Magneto. Magneto flees. The military personnel thank the X-Men and Professor Xavier transports them home on the jet.
Mutant Evolution
| Mutant | Power Evolution |
| Professor X | Professor X is able to read other's thoughts with ease, and communicate psychically with receptive individuals. |
| Cyclops | Cyclops emits a red beam of force from his eyes. He is shown to control the strength of the blast through his visor. His blast is able to knock Beast into the wall and leave a significant dent, and shatter Iceman's ice defences. Cyclops's power beam is enough to overwhelm the forcefield of an unprepared Magneto. |
| Marvel Girl | Jean is able to slide a chair out of Beast's hands across the floor with her telekinesis. She has the mental control to select a book from a shelf, bring it to her, flick through the pages and return it to the shelf while maintaining a conversation. She is also able to levitate Beast into the air and spin him around before dropping him. |
| Angel | Angel has wings, and is able to fly at high speed and with astounding aerial agility. |
| Beast | Beast is able to leap and grip a taut wire with his feet, and swing around at high speed. He can wall jump with precision and can balance on a single finger, on an unstable pole. |
| Iceman | Iceman can sheath his body in snow, he can create ice around a persons limb by holding them, and create structures from ice at high speed and hurl them with accuracy. |
| Magneto | Magneto is able to manipulate metal objects as large as a tank, or with fine enough control to spell out words in the sky with metallic dust. |
Characterisation
Many of the character traits introduced in this first issue would be developed over the coming months, however some aspects of the characters would be almost rewritten by the time the series became established.
What is probably an error on page eleven sets up a interesting storyline that wont be resolved for about fifty years. When the male X-Men crowd around the window to see the arrival of Marvel Girl, We see one of the men leave them with the disdainful quote 'A girl... big deal! I'm not a wolf like you guys!" The line is attributed to Iceman; a wonderful premonition of Iceman's outing as gay 60 years or so later. Unfortunately, the line is of course Cyclops' and it instead sets up the brilliantly awkward love story between Scott and Jean.
Iceman and Cyclops may keep their characters, despite the misattribution, but Henry McCoy is set to undergo a complete transformation in the coming issues. Here he is presented as boorish and unintelligent, clumsily chasing the affections of Jean Grey.
Jean displays many of the traits she will come to be known for, such as her self-determination and courage. However her disinterest in men will not last very long and indeed will become the focus of many storylines in the future.
Magneto already has his trademark arrogance and anger, although it will be many issues before we discover from where they stem, while Xavier will undergo many transformations here he is strict, but nurturing to his students. Interestingly he also carries a flame for Jean Grey in these early issues.
The Name Game
It is perhaps a well known bit of trivia that Scott Summer's real first name wont be introduced until issue three, and instead we learn his nickname 'Slim', one which doesn't make much of an appearance in these early issues.
It's page 11 where we are introduced to the real names of most of the X-Men, however we are introduced to Henry McCoy as Hank and Robert Drake as Bobby. While Warren Worthington III gets his name in full, despite occasionally being called Warry in the comics. Henry and Robert wont get their full names for some time, and Jean occasionally manages to be Jeannie.
Professor Xavier also has to wait several issues to gain his first name of Charles.
Data Centre
In data centre I want to dig down into the numbers of the X-Men comics and see who is getting the most panel time and who is getting left out, and through this try and draw some conclusions about what is going on behind the scenes for our X-Men team.
First a note on what counts as an appearance in a panel. Any time the character appears in a panel counts as an appearance as long as they can either be recognised, or it can be deduced reasonably that it is them. Someone's speech counts as an appearance, as long as it is not in caption and again as long as it can be reasonably attributed to just one character. Finally if someone's power is visibly used in a panel, that counts, but not the lasting effects of a use of ones power. As an example, when Iceman makes a wall of ice, that only counts once, no matter how long the wall is present.
So here is our data for Uncanny X-Men Issue One. It might at first glance look like Marvel Girl is being marginalised, but since she doesn't appear until page 11, she is doing well to catch up so quickly.
That being said Magneto doesn't appear until three pages later and easily overtakes Marvel Girl. However Marvel Girl is part of a team while Magneto works alone in this issue.
There are 23 pages of content in this issue, including the front cover, compared to 36 pages overall, of the rest most are advertisements, but there is also a promotion for Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. These proportions will change even within the first few issues, and certainly as we go into the future.
First a note on what counts as an appearance in a panel. Any time the character appears in a panel counts as an appearance as long as they can either be recognised, or it can be deduced reasonably that it is them. Someone's speech counts as an appearance, as long as it is not in caption and again as long as it can be reasonably attributed to just one character. Finally if someone's power is visibly used in a panel, that counts, but not the lasting effects of a use of ones power. As an example, when Iceman makes a wall of ice, that only counts once, no matter how long the wall is present.
So here is our data for Uncanny X-Men Issue One. It might at first glance look like Marvel Girl is being marginalised, but since she doesn't appear until page 11, she is doing well to catch up so quickly.
That being said Magneto doesn't appear until three pages later and easily overtakes Marvel Girl. However Marvel Girl is part of a team while Magneto works alone in this issue.
There are 23 pages of content in this issue, including the front cover, compared to 36 pages overall, of the rest most are advertisements, but there is also a promotion for Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. These proportions will change even within the first few issues, and certainly as we go into the future.
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