Uncanny X-Men 015

December 1965

In which the X-Men must face the Sentinels in their secret base, Xavier must take an enormous risk and Beast risks giving away the secret location of the school.

Cover Story

Uncanny X-Men 015 Cover
Jack Kirby, Dick Ayres and Sam Rosen

The drama! The intrigue! The lightning shaped scar on Xavier's forehead, he's secretly Potter isnt he? The suspense! Am I getting this across, this is an action packed cover full of things to comment on; so I'll get started!

First things first, we're yellow and red over blue in this issue and it's the perfect combination; especially working with the X-Men's uniforms and the simplified red colour on the Sentinels. There;s also just the one caption tucked into the bottom left where it isn't in the way - it's not like this cover needs any more hype.

Cyclops is front and center attacking one Sentinel while being grabbed by another; his pose has an exceptional sense of movement to it and he really looks like he is fighting for his life. It is useful then that Angel is coming to the rescue aiming one of his much used flying punches at Cyclops' abductor.

Iceman struggles to maintain an ice shield as a further Sentinel tries to break through and Jean, well actually she is doing slightly less than Beast, and he is laying unconcious on a stretcher. Still at this point the artists haven't worked out what to do with Marvel Girl in action scenes.

Professor Xavier appears in a bubble of green squiggles representing psychic mutants is not one of this teams strong points however his pained expression is brilliant and gives the whole cover a sense of excitement.

It's not the greatest of covers, and I really wish they would draw Jean doing something, anything, but It does a great job of putting across the action packed nature of the issue.

Prisoners of the Mysterious Master Mold!

Breaking Into The Base

Credits Written by Saan Lee Layouts by Jack Kirby Illustrated by Jay Gavin Inked by Dick Ayres Lettered by Artie Simek n.b Jay Gavin is a pseudonym of Werner Roth

We rejoin the X-Men as the ground around them moves and reforms under the force of the Sentinel's nature activation weapons.

The X-Men forge a plan to enter the base using a giant ice glider and a blast from Cyclops' optic blast. Unfortunately it goes wrong and Angel is forced to fly to the rescue of a plummeting Beast and Iceman.

He is too late however, as metal tentacles emerge from the base and capture Iceman and Beast, Angel is lucky to get away.

Inside the base Iceman and Beast are locked in a transparent box and given sleeping gas. Meanwhile Bolivar Trask is dragged away by the Sentinels to face Master Mold. Master Mold demands Trask create more Sentinels for his army.

Rescuing the Iceman

As an unconscious Beast is carried to Master Mold by the Sentinels, Xavier uses a a mental bolt to take down the external weapons on the base, allowing Angel, Cyclops and Marvel Girl to attack. Master Mold forces Trask to use a psychic probe on Beast; Trask is broken to discover the X-Men were on the side of humanity all along.

Uncanny X-Men 15 P11.1

Inside the base the X-Men play prisoner to avoid raising suspicion from the Sentinel guard, while Beast recalls how he discovered his powers avoiding being hit by a car.

The X-Men are led by Iceman's prison and break cover to attack their guard and free Iceman. Meanwhile Beast recalls using his abilities to beat other students and school sports, before accidentally breaking cover in celebration. Xavier saw the resultant news story and recognised a fellow mutant, offering Hank's parents the chance to sent him to the school for training.

Xavier's Endeavour

Uncanny X-Men 015 P17.2

With the location of the school at risk, Xavier has to act. He sends his astral form to disable Beast's mind temporarily; however Master Mold senses Xavier's presence and attacks with a micro-electric attack, Xavier is forced to retreat.

First Appearances Norton McCoy Edna McCoy

The X-Men battle the Sentinels but despite a valiant effort the Sentinels are victorious and all five of the X-Men are captured.

Trask is terrified that Master Mold plans an army of thousands of Sentinels to guard, and subjugate mankind.

Yes, that's it, it's a three part story and they left us on a cliff-hanger with all five of the X-Men captured - how will they get out of this one!

Mutant Evolution

Mutant	Power Evolution
Professor Xavier	Xavier can use a blast of mental energy to affect robotic brains of Sentinels, and to essentially shut down Hank's brain - he manages this while in his astral form.

 

Viewer Feedback

If there is one thing the early X-Men team knew how to do, it was cave into viewer demand. More Brotherhood we cried, and they were in every issue, less Brotherhood we added, and they were disposed of neatly. Apart from Mastermind, who is a statue somewhere.

It all gets a bit more intriguing when we look in detail at some of the letters in past and present issues, and the effects the feedback is having.

Take the covers for example, we noted in issue 14 and again here in 15, that there were very few captions. Its something the readers had bee complaining about for a while - not the number of captions, but the self-adulation and excessive hype that filled them. With the cover clutter reduced X-Men feels like a much more mature book.

The viewers were also clamouring for origin stories of our masterful mutants; they got the first in the Juggernaut storyline and a second one follows here telling the tale of the Beast.

Not only this, but they loved having an issue that was largely story based, followed by an all action issue, and of course we are now on an all action issue having just had a heavily story based one.

Recently the readers have been demanding the return of Magneto and his Brotherhood; but there is no chance of that happening. Yes, I know it was over 50 years ago and he still isn't gone, but let's pretend we're in the 1960's and we are waiting for the next issue!

Advertisement Corner

It seems like forever since I have critiqued the very specialised line of merchandise read: tat that is for sale in the X-Men comics. This time I thought I'd take a look at the model soldiers on offer after the main features of the book.

Uncanny X-Men 015
Advertisement for Toy Soldiers

204 pieces of finest quality moulded plastic, no mention at all of colour so it's safe to say we aren't buying what is in the picture, indeed it says specifically that it is an imaginary scene. Indeed a bit of research throws up a later advert featuring the actual soldiers, which are solid coloured plasting, either red or blue depending on if you are playing home or away. Reverse the colours if you are American obviously.

The soldiers themselves are all over e-bay and depending on how many you want, work out at around 50c each, so around $100 to get the whole set that originally cost $2.

However, suppose you just want a bag of 200 toy soldiers that werent made in the 1960's? A 200 piece set will swt you back £10 from Smyths and when we put that $1.98 through the inflation and conversion machine we get a price for those 204 soldiers of £11.48.

So in an X-Mentionables first it's actually cheaper to buy your toy soldiers in 2016, than to go back in time and buy them in 1965.