Uncanny X-Men 007 - The Return of The Blob

September 1964

In which the Blob regains his memories and joins the Brotherhood, Cyclops is appointed leader of the X-Men and Professor Xavier leaves on his own mission and a climactic battle leaves a conflicted Blob with a big decision to make.

Cover Story

Uncanny X-Men 007 Cover
Jack Kirby, Chic Stone and Art Simek

This issue's cover is classic early X-Men, The logo is yellow on a field of red with captions in green, red and dark blue, all with white text. Blob has star billing with the Brotherhood relegated to a small caption at the bottom. The  third caption teases a new leader for the -Men.

The composition is stunning, The X-Men do battle against Blob, throwing everything they can at the villain. It's true that none of their attacks are making contact, and Beast appears to be auditioning to be a Tiller Girl, but the sharp, dynamic way the X-Men are rendered, coupled with the massive amount of action in the cover really sets up the epic battle to come.

We view the X-Men through a window through which the Brotherhood also view. Mastermind covers his face with his had, whether through worry or disagreement is hard to tell. Scarlet which faces out towards the reader her eyes tracing a path towards Quicksilver. Just like the last issue it's clear that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are still very much a draw.

The Brotherhood are rendered in a much more human style than we may be used to, particularly Mastermind, it would be interesting to see Toad's face in this style, but alas he is facing away from us. He is in navy blue this week, inside the book he remains in blue and gold. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver on the other hand are finally in their own colours while Mastermind wears teal - how many of those overcoats does he have anyway.

The Return of The Blob

A New Leader

Credits Written by Stan Lee Drawn by Jack Kirby Inked by Chic Stone Lettered by Art Simek

The X-Men celebrate their graduation and Xavier announces he will be appointing a new leader while he is away.

Uncanny X-Men 7, p6

Mastermind tries to woo Scarlet Witch with illusions, Scarlet Witch is disgusted and when Magneto hears Mastermind planning to usurp him he is furious, Magneto is clear that he does not need loyalty, only fear.

Professor Xavier introduces Scott to Cerebro and appoints Scott team leader. The other X-Men are unsurprised that Scott has been appointed, Scott is uncomfortable in this role, but sits long into the night monitoring Cerebro's output.

Magneto tracks down Blob to the carnival and plans to recruit him, but Blob wants none of it. After a battle between the Brotherhood and the carnival army, the mental block in Blobs mind is broken and he remembers the X-Men, consequently he joins the Brotherhood.

Beware, The Blob!

Cerebro alerts Scott to Blob's memories returning, Scott assembles the X-Men. The X-Men take the X-Copter to Blob's location, Magneto destroys it but Iceman makes an ice slide to get them safely to the ground

The X-Men battle the Blob but cannot defeat them, Magneto sends missiles after them to destroy them. The X-Men evade the missiles as the rest of the Brotherhood join the battle. With the X-Men corralled into one position Magneto launches the missiles directly at them, but Blob is still also with them.

The other Brotherhood members are disgusted that Magneto would sacrifice one of their own. The X-men hide behind Blob, who easily survive the blast.

The Brotherhood flee in the Magna-Car and the X-Men offer Blob a place on the team, Blob however decides to declare himself impartial, The X-Men start on the long journey home.

Mutant Evolution

Mutant	Power Evolution
Blob	Blob can withstand three high powered missiles colliding with him at once.

 

Statistics Center

Here are the statistics for issue 7 of Uncanny X-Men, and it isn't hard to see who the stars are. This is in stark comparison to the previous issue that featured a very similar cast. This issue focusses far more on the core X-Men team than any of the Brotherhood issues.

The early scenes with Mastermind and Scarlet Witch help increase their panel count, but Blob is clearly the key draw in terms of the evil mutants. Indeed in both his issues he has had a huge amount of panels. Interesting this weeks letters page is more restricted to general praise, apart from one letter calling the Brotherhood 'corny' apart from Mastermind. A sign of things to come one imagines.

Something else is going on here though, take a look at the overall panel count for the issue, just 132 over 23 pages of content. (or 131 over 22 if you prefer not to include the covers. That gives us a panel to page ratio of about 5.7, the last 23 page issue was issue 6, and that had a ratio of 6.7. Essentially a whole extra panel every page.

The other thing to note about this story, is that is missing a whole act, usually we have an opening act that shows the X-Men at home and introduces a villain, a middle act where the villain introduces a threat, and a final act with a climatic battle, in this issue we go from introduction to battle with nothing between. It's not the greatest issue, and that's clear from the numbers. 

X-Changes

Illustration of The Blob
David Cooper

We have a couple of changes to the world of the X-Men to note in this issue. Firstly Cyclops is appointed leader of the X-Men while Professor Xavier leaves the school to pursue his own goals, ones which will become the subject of a future story. While Xavier will return to his role Cyclops will eventually become the field commander of the X-Men.

We should also note that, for however brief a period Blob was a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, it remains to be seen whether he will stick to his assertion that he has no place in the battle for mutant supremacy.