Uncanny X-Men 008 - The Uncanny Threat of Unus The Untouchable

November 1964

In which the X-Men go from five, to four and the Brotherhood have another crack at being six, as Unus The Untouchable tries to join Magneto's band of evil mutants.

Cover Story

Let us start with the classic X-Men logo, as we always do. Its dark blue over red this week, which is a new combination on me, but one that works quite well on the white back drop. It's not the strongest, but it does add a sense of drama to the cover.

Uncanny X-Men Issue 8
Jack Kirby, Chic Stone and Sam Rosen

Just two captions this week, one heralding our title character and a second promoting him as
'unstoppable', considering he is just our villain of the week either this is hyperbole or our mighty mutants are doomed.

Unus is rather small and unimposing on our cover, but this is through necessity since his power is being used to throw the X-Men far into the foreground. Unus is unfortunately so small that its hard to pick out much detail other than as an imposing, muscular purple and red blob, however the power he is displaying more than makes up for that.

Our heroes are a mixed bunch, Beast is drawn brilliantly with a real look of astonished fear and a genuinely dynamic feel to his limbs. Marvel Girl is in her classing running away pose - which is impressive for flying through the air. Angel looks every inch the hero and his wings in particular are rendered really well here. Iceman has finally stopped being a snowman, amazing, and now has facial expressions - he looks perturbed to be flying away from Unus.

Then there is Cyclops, who genuinely looks like Unus just pinched him on the bottom. Never before has Cyclops looked quite so camp, not even James Marsden in his leather get-up achieved these levels of ridiculousness. Considering Cyclops even trys throwing a punch in this episode, one can only wonder why they chose that pose.

Overall though it's a great cover, dramatic and bold. The white background is perhaps a little too stark for the action included, but that's a minor nitpick of a great piece of artwork. 

The Uncanny Threat of Unus The Untouchable

And Then There Were Four

Credits Written by Stan Lee Drawn by Jack Kirby Inked by Chic Stone Lettered by Sam Rosen

The X-Men adjust to training under the guidance of Scott Summers. He gives the other X-Men the afternoon off and Hank and Bobby head out together.

Hank and Bobby spot a child stuck on a roof and in need of help. Beast rescues him but the crowd turn nasty and attack him and Iceman. Beast and Iceman flee and return to the school.

Back at the school Beast resigns from the X-Men and leaves the school, Cyclops contacts Xavier, who maintains that Beast will not join the Brotherhood, and Cyclops should not take any action.

Beast Versus Unus, Round One!

Illustration of Unus
by David Cooper

Beast becomes a professional wrestler and ends up in the ring against Unus the Untouchable. Unus wins the fight easily, but Beast notices Mastermind in the crowd and realises Unus is being recruited to the Brotherhood. Backstage Mastermind meets with Unus and informs him that he can join the Brotherhood only if he can defeat one of the X-Men.

Unus robs a bank to get the attention of the X-Men, and it works. They battle Unus but reach an impasse as they cannot touch him. When Unus grabs Angel he flies high up and deposits Unus on a high building to buy them all some time. 

Beast's Gone Rougue

Back at the school the X-Men find Beast working on weapon to help defeat Unus, he announces it will augment Unus's power.The X-Men are stunned and think beast has joined the evil mutants. Beast flees with the weapon to confront Unus.

First Appearances Unus The Untouchable

Beast uses his weapon on Unus much to the consternation of the X-Men. Unus discovers that with his newly augmented powers he cannot touch anything at all. Iceman, who has been sent to keep watch calls the X-Men and asks them to come see what is going on.

Unus has been unable to eat since his power was augmented, Beast agrees to reverse the process if Unus abandons his life of crime; he agrees and returns to wrestling. Beast returns to the X-Men once more.

Mutant Evolution

Mutant	Power Evolution
Unus The Untouchable	Unus has the ability to become untouchable at will, in particular he is impervious to impacts which would cause him harm.
Iceman	Iceman has learned to sheath his body in ice rather than snow, in doing so he becomes less visible to the human eye.

 

Noone Broods Like Scott Summers

Cheerful, happy-go-lucky teenagers with amazing powers, who thoroughly enjoy fighting for Xavier's cause, that's the X-Men, four of them anyway. Scott Summers however has a much darker character, indeed there is one thing Scott does more than any character in X-Men, he broods.

He broods about his powers and the enormous damage they can cause, he broods about being in love with Jean Grey and how he cant possibly act on his feelings. He broods about the X-Men, and whether their cause is just and in this issue, he broods about his new found responsibility as leader of the X-Men, happy-go-lucky he most definitely isn't.

It wasn't always like this, Cyclops was as happy as any other the other characters up until episode three, That's the one with the love heptagon if you are following along, and for the first of many, many times Scott broods about his love for Jean. Since that fateful first brood he has been managing about 1.6 broods an issue - and it's only going to get worse.

Pin -Up Parlour - Hank McCoy

Pin-Up of Beast
Uncanny X-Men 008

In the shortest issue yet we at least have a pin-up of the acrobatic Hank McCoy to fill out the page count. It's a typically dynamic pose with Hank, in his X-Men uniform standing high above the city. I say standing, but perhaps balancing would be a better word as he stands on but one finger, on a wire string between high buildings.

In his other hand Hank juggles a variety of balls and other objects. Hank's huge hands and feet are rendered rather well and the overall impression is one of human plus, rather than inhuman. He has a broad smile, revelling in his abilities as Beast often does, and it makes a nice contrast to the darker emotional Beast of this issue.

A nice touch is the signature, the pin-up is signed 'indubitably yours, giving a little of Hank's legendary intellect to the highly physical pose. By this point in the series Beast is the second most commonly occurring character appearing in well over a quarter of all panels, so it's great to see him front and center in a Beast themed issue and a Beast pin-up. 

What's In A Name

Uncanny X-Men Issue 008 P7

So if issue eight of Uncanny X-Men is famous for anything, it's famous for being the issue where Stan forgot everyone's names, or quite possibly Sam Rosen on lettering forgot. We have not one, but two instances of name-related continuity errors in this issue.

In the first issue it's a caption error on page seven, of all times it's when Beast is saying his final goodbye to the X-Men. Thankfully it wasn't forever as poor old Scott Summers was mislabeled Sommers, This is a minor spelling error compared to today's other misnomer malady.

Uncanny X-Men Issue 008 P19

On page nineteen of the story Scott is explaining his plan to Angel, or is that Iceman in a panel where neither appear. It looks like he could be addressing half the sentence to Warren and the other half to Bobby, until we find out in a couple of panels that Bobby is in fact across town spying on Unus. So for the record, the one with the wings is Warren!

Our beloved writers do an amazing job of rendering our marvelous mutants, so we can forgive them just the occasional slip of the pen I'm sure!