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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 8, 2016 12:24:02 GMT -5
I read X-Men #22 this morning. Definitely a step in the right direction after #20 and #21!
Count Nefaria has recruited a bunch of super-villains from other comics - Plant-Man, the Scarecrow, the Porcupine, the Eel and the Unicorn - and he sends them to capture the X-Men.
Count Nefaria had appeared in the Avengers and Tales of Suspense at this point, but I don't like either of his earlier appearances too much. So X-Men #22 isn't just a step in the right direction for the X-Men, its also an improvement for Nefaria.
I've read this one before. I had a copy in the 1970s that I got for a dollar. I traded it away years and years ago so I haven't read it in decades. But I've never read the conclusion! I'll get to it. Soon.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 8, 2016 15:32:54 GMT -5
I was never a huge fan of the Maggia.. they always seemed kinda generic in Iron Man, but I've never read the X-men story, so we'll see how it goes
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 10, 2016 22:47:39 GMT -5
X-Men #22 'Divided We Fall' I really like the cover! Plot: We get a good 'ole danger room session to start, where the Professor has built a giant robot named Colosso, since they've fought a lot of robots lately (love it!). He looks straight off a 60s Doctor Who set to me. The team is stymied at first, then Cyclops figures out it's weakness and they work together to take him down... which, of course, was the lesson. The Professor then decides it's vacation time again (Since they got called back last time) and off they go... Bobby and Hank to see Zelda and Vera, and Warren and Jean on a date that Jean asks Scott along for (Awkward!). Meanwhile, the Professor tries to get in on the angst and broods about not being able to go outside and walk around. We get some bits on the X-Men in civvies on the town (including a great scene where Hank mistakes a GUY for Vera.. right in front of her). Scott leaves dinner and is ready for some heavy brooding when he sees Jean fly by... then gets ambushed. The pattern continues as Nefaria's minions take out the team one by one, the taken them back to... wherever the Maggia are based (it doesn't say where, but it implies overseas). They're thrown in the dungeon while Nefaria gets his guys to report, and we get the usual supervillain team-up tension. Nefaria then goes to his captives and asks the X-Men to join him... Beast speaks for the team and refuses, but he promises they will no matter what, the reveals he plans to steal 'The Captail of the United States', and the X-Men will collect the ransom.. to be continued! Much better issue than last time, even if it's not great for showing off the team when they get punked by a collection of villains that lost to other heroes.. I guess the whole teamwork thing is the key. Notes: -- Plenty more brooding from Cyclops about how he can't tell Jean he loves her, and from Jean about why Scott won't notice her. Can't blame her, really.. during the training with Colloso, he again says 'good girl!' when she does her part, like she was a trained puppy. Stick with Warren, girl, at least he's rich! -- The dates were great.. from Warren reluctantly inviting Scott (at Jean's request) to Scott protesting (only a little) that he should pay for his own. I'm starting to feel bad for Vera and Zelda, they get no respect! -- One weird thing.. they talk about going to see Thunderball or Goldfinger.. both Bond movies that probably shouldn't have still been in theaters in 1966.. did they run alot of older stuff back then pre-VHS? Or is Roy just getting a Bond shout out in? -- Another baseball reference.. this one dissing the Mets... one onlooker comments they're 'only down 5 runs'.. Warren a few panels later changing into Angel in a parking lot comments the attendant wasn't paying attention because the Mets were only down 6 runs. That was in fact pretty accurate.. the Mets were pretty terrible in 1966. -- If you need the scorecard... it's Plant-Man def. Marvel Girl... Scarecrow def. Angel.... Porcupine def. Beast, and Eel and Unicorn def. Cyclops and Iceman in the tag team main event. . The last was the only real fight.. the others really just got punked. -- I would have liked a little explanation as to why simple chains can keep the X-Men locked up. Yes, they had a torturous looking helmet on Cyclops, but Marvel Girl and Iceman for sure, and probably Beast, all should have been able to escape easily. -- Love the villain team shot, even if the scene where they all stand that way to report what they did and such is super corny:
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 11, 2016 10:37:39 GMT -5
One weird thing.. they talk about going to see Thunderball or Goldfinger.. both Bond movies that probably shouldn't have still been in theaters in 1966.. did they run alot of older stuff back then pre-VHS? Or is Roy just getting a Bond shout out in? I can't vouch for these two Bond films specifically still being in theaters in 1966. But the Bond films were immensely popular! And I remember that in the early and the mid-1970s, theaters would sometimes show a popular movie that was a few years old if none of the new releases were filling the seats. It may be a Roy Thomas fantasy that you could chose between Goldfinger and Thunderball (and Thunderball opened late in 1965, so it could have played all through the spring and maybe even into the summer) if you were running around in Manhattan in 1966. But it seems like a plausible fantasy. Especially remembering how popular the Bond films were! I don't remember the 1960s (I was 6 in 1970) but I certainly remember what a big deal it was in the early 1970s when a new Roger Moore Bond film opened! And Goldfinger on TV was almost as big a deal as The Wolfman!
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 11, 2016 10:41:04 GMT -5
And thanks for that info about the Mets! I wondered about that when I was reading but I kept forgetting to check it except when I wasn't near a computer.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 11, 2016 12:01:57 GMT -5
And thanks for that info about the Mets! I wondered about that when I was reading but I kept forgetting to check it except when I wasn't near a computer. The Mets started their existence in 1962.. when each league expanded from 8 teams to 10... they were absolutely atrocious..going 40-120 in their first season... scoring the least and giving up the most runs per game. Things hadn't gotten much better by 1966.... but the end of 1966.. they managed to finish out of last for the first time in their history, going 66-95... all the way up to 'bad'. In 1966.. they actually had a really good July, and were only 8 games under .500 (47-55) at the end of the month before teams in the pennant race beat up on them in the stretch run. That's why the team in 1969 was called the 'Miracle Mets'.. after never winning more than 70 games in a season, they when 100-62 and won the NL East (1969 was the NEXT expansion, which brought each league up to 12 teams, and split them into 2 divisions) on their way to shocking the Orioles in the World Series.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2016 7:33:01 GMT -5
wildfire2099X-Men 22You've definitely need a scorecard to keep track what is going on here and the motley band of super-villains that the X-Men fought was a bunch of silly names and I was amused of how they captured them. What you've written here is right on the money and I may add one more thing ... I do like the cover and I've borrowed that comic book from a friend expecting to be a good story - but it was one of the weirdest stories that I ever read. Loved the robot scene at the beginning of the book and went a 180 on me - going from one direction to the next. Your write up is spot-on ... Thanks for reviewing this crazy story ...
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 12, 2016 12:04:37 GMT -5
The Bond films were cycled as double features, especially when a new one came out; so, it's entirely plausible;. You can find trailers for the double bills on Youtube.
What people today forget; or, are unaware of, is that films could have much longer lives in theaters, before home video. Star Wars was in theaters for over a year. They used to advertise films as "held over," due to popularity. You also had secondary circuits for films, after they played the big theaters. Cities like New York had so many theaters that you could see a brand new film, an older but recent film, and an old classic all on the same day, at different theaters.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 12, 2016 12:46:06 GMT -5
That makes sense... it's just a bit before my time, so I wasn't really sure what the deal was. When I was a kid in the 80s, home video was just starting up and people were proclaiming the doom of movie theaters... kinda funny to think about today how the movie theaters remain, but the home video rentals are on life support thanks to the (totally unanticipated at the time) steaming media services.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 12, 2016 13:19:22 GMT -5
I read X-Men #23 the day after I read #22 but I forgot to come over here and say anything about it.
I don't really think Nefaria's plan makes that much sense, but there isn't really anything in #23 that makes me roll my eyes and say "That's stupid!" the way #20 and #21 do.
Crazy Silver Age bananashenanigans!
Something I forgot to mention about #20 is a footnote to a statement by Iceman. Bobby goes to Central Park to investigate a mutant sighting he heard about on the radio. And he says something about how he thought it might have something to do with Unus and the Blob, who are still on the loose. The footnote reminds us that Unus and the Blob were last seen on the roof of a speeding subway train in #20.
I'm glad SOMEBODY remembered that! It's one of the things that bugs me a little about some of the haphazard writing and plotting in this period. The Blob and Unus are a couple of characters I like a lot from this period, and the search for the Blob and Unus just makes sense as a plot (or at least a subplot) in the aftermath of the Lucifer two-parter. I think that would have been a great story! Unus and the Blob, on the run, desperate, and quite possibly feeling a bit persecuted (from their perspective) by the X-Men.
Instead, that whole plot thread gets mentioned once by Bobby and the Blob and Unus just wander away into the aether, from where they are eventually recruited during the Factor Three storyline. (If I'm remembering correctly.)
I should add that the Factor Three storyline is one of my favorites from the first series of the X-Men. Maybe it's partly a sentimental attachment because - aside from seeing X-Men #1 in "The Son of Origins of Marvel Comics" - my first exposure to the 1960s X-Men was through the 1970s reprints, of which I had four or five of them, including a few of the Factor Three issues. I didn't read them all until a year or so ago when I got The Essential X-Men from the library. I vaguely remember that the ending was a little disappointing.
I need to get that from the library again.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 13, 2016 16:07:56 GMT -5
I thought about that a little too, but they ARE criminals, and it's not like the regular cops could do anything about them. I just figured they got away, dumped the fake X-Men unis, and Unus went back to making money wrestling until Factor Three. It's not like Spidey or the Avengers would just randomly decide to hunt them down if they didn't commit another crime in the mean time.
I think that Bobby having it in his mind totally made sense, but the fact is they haven't really had a chance to try to find them since then. Now, you want to say that Professor should have sent the team out hunting for them instead of having them fight his pet giant robot and then go on vaca (as in #22), I can totally see that.
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Post by Mormel on Dec 13, 2016 17:34:51 GMT -5
I also love Blob and Unus. They were the original X-Men villain bromance, before Black Tom and Juggernaut.
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Post by tingramretro on Dec 14, 2016 4:19:19 GMT -5
I also love Blob and Unus. They were the original X-Men villain bromance, before Black Tom and Juggernaut. Sadly, that seems to have been forgotten in recent years, even though Unus is inexplicably alive again.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 14, 2016 8:08:22 GMT -5
Yeah, I think in today's Marvel, when I writer says, 'hey, you know who I used to love, Unus? Whatever happened to him?'
Bendis: Who Cares? Old timers love continuity! Bring'em back!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 23, 2016 12:27:16 GMT -5
X-Men #23 'To Save a City' Thomas/Roth/Ayers With the X-Men in his dungeon, Nefaria puts his plan in motion.... he drops a force field over Washington DC, and demands 100 million dollars to lift it, or everyone will die from lack of oxygen in 3 hours. His 'frame up' is that somehow he has holograms of the X-Men deliver the ultimatum! Back at the ranch, the X-Men finally escape when Jean is able to open Cyclops' visor with her powers and he frees everyone. Prof. X telepathcially tells them to co operate with Nefaria, and he goes to help the government 'consult' how to handle the evil mutants. The real X-Men go and collect the ransom, and get harassed by the citizens as they leave. Nefaria's henchmen are on hand to 'help'. though of course they plan to double cross Nefaria and take the money... Unicorn is the provisional leader, and of course he plans to double-double cross the others. The 3 hours runs out, and everyone is fine, so the militart attacks to get the money back. The tanks end up being an illusion too, but they distract Unicorn enough for the X-Men to get away. Meanwhile, Prof. X is seemingly to be rather useless to the military, but is really hatching a plan of his own... Back in Maggia HQ, Jean gives Nefaria the money, but while the exchange is happening Prof X sneaks in and shuts it all down.. he apparently watched Nefaria do it in his astral form, then used his spiffy new leg braces and Jedi mind tricks to get in. Nefaria, money in hand, is annoyed, but leaves, only to find the case was really an illusion, so the X-Men win. After their victory, the Professor pulls a letter out of his coat for Jean... she reads it and says she must quit the X-Men! To be continued! Kinda a hot mess of an issue, but entertaining in the goofy silver age sorta way. Notes: -- The bad guys look really weak here.. makes the government seem like a bunch of idiots. Why not call the Avengers or Reed Richards? -- The X-Men look kinda bad too... Jean couldn't pick the locks of the chains in the dungeon (which were apparently invisible, as they were never shown), and never tried the simplest, easier thing... ripping the chain out of the wall, or snapping the chains. -- Very cool to see the Professor walking around, but one does wonder why he was moping about his legs if he could whip up such a thing. -- I'm not sure what Roy Thomas and/or Stan Lee think 'illusion' means but what they show is essentially hard light holograms that have weight and substance... that's pretty heavy for long distance Jedi mind tricks, or whatever. It's never made clear how Nefaria does it, just that he does. That's made even more silly when he falls for the same trick. Marvel Science! -- The issue's cover proclaims 'Action Lovers, this one's for you', but there's really not that much action at all. I wonder if it was originally supposed to be another fight between the X-Men and the villains initially? -- Poor Angel gets bumped from his spot flying over the lo go a title bubble. -- Professor X is the epitome of the Marvel Silver Age hero here.. respected by the government and Military, able to whip up gadgets at need, always 2 steps ahead of the bad guys, and able to understand any science they come up with. And, of course, he's wearing his smoking jacket and has his pipe in hand at the end of the adventure.
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