#superfluous atomic weaponry: 2->3

[hautsreadsmarvel]

“The Fantastic Four” (1961, issue 4)

At the end of the previous volume, the Torch ran off because he was fed up with the Thing shitting on him. 

Spelling it thru is certainly a choice, and one I’ve decided to stick with for the remainder of this blog. Flashback panels having a wavy border to distinguish them is a nice touch. And is that… a primordial ad for the Hulk? I wonder what that could be?

There it is on the next page! What could they be talking about!?

Trans pride flag!Sue Storm forgets to relax her invisibility while searching for Johnny, causing another ghost scare. Starting to enjoy how this is just a consistent thing she does. The best pranksters succeed without even trying, truly.

So everybody knows this guy is the Torch, by the way. And he flames on in front of people he knows, so he knows they know. "Save this for future reference."

The Hulk - I mean the Thing - can have a little angst, as a treat. This one feels a little forced though.

I’m given to understand that Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner predates the Marvel Comics label, having been published in the 40s back when they were called Timely Comics. It’s funny to see Johnny read one of their own comics approximately twenty feet away from a guy who is totally not Namor, no way, jeez what even was on the cover of this issue ha ha

Wow, would you lookit that, that’d be Namor right on cue! Wait. Wait a gods-damned second. He can’t be.

He can’t be! But he is--! Are… are D&D elves aesthetically inspired by Namor? Or is that just a shared old-style idea of “inhuman beauty”, the high pronounced eyebrows and sharp, lengthy cheekbones? Or is it just that picture of Mialee in the Player’s Handbook that incidentally looks similar? Probably a mix of options 2 and 3. Namor turns out to be tough as nails, and elves in the earlier editions of D&D, well they certainly ain’t.

Meanwhile I really like this. Tons of people who still have no idea about capes, and so think they’re a hoax or fiction that’s been put in the wrong section of the library.

Sue does not know her own brother’s voice - you heard it here first. Johnny demonstrates for the first time his ability to reflexively “flame off” parts of his body that come into contact with others; we already saw him do a partial transformation when doing welding.

Namor meanwhile realizes that his undersea kingdom was demolished by an atomic weapons test (!!!!!!!) and he decides to defeat the surface world in retaliation. Also he’s kinda hunky : )

He unleashes “Giganto”, a mega-sized mix of whale and primate, to terrorize New York and it wrecks thru buildings once it makes landfall. Kind of surprised to see so much mass demolition this early into the comics. Anyways the Thing just requisitions a nuke (something the F4 can do, I guess), plunges into the beast, sets it off inside and makes it out safe. Namor beats all of them physically, but is obviously vanquished at the end. There is a notable moment in that fight, though, where when Namor spots Sue for the first time, he declaims that should she marry him, his feud w the surface world would be over. Gross!

This isn’t a bad issue. Namor’s fun cameo and promise to return set up a wider world, and he’s less one-dimensional than any of the villains so far. The Thing and Torch continue to provide the only real character of the quartet, though. The other two need to step up at some point.

[hautsreadsmarvel]

The very first issue of the uncanny X-Men! (1963)

Much like the first F4 issue or the first Spider-Man issue, I want to give this its own spotlight.

After a strong start and several issues’ worth of straight fire from Spider-Man, I was ready for the first X-Men issue to also knock my socks off.

That... did not happen.

We’ll start w the cover. Despite keeping a running track of cover scenes that don’t happen, I don’t actually mind when that occurs; I'm just thrown off by...

Is that foot guy supposed to be Beast? (I do know at least the X-Men that appear in the movies). He wasn’t always furry!?

Why is Iceman’s go-to attack slinging snowballs? Are they filled w rocks or something?

Magneto is deflecting eyebeams and snowballs, implying that his magnetism obeys the unspoken rule of the Marvelverse that magnetism is basically just telekinesis* (tho Jean’s power is described in this very issue as “telekinesis” and is therefore different).

Is, is Iceman, sorry is he pole dancing? What is he supposed to be depicted as doing in that panel?

Ok, I have some criticisms, but I’d like to start with the things I did like in this issue. The X-Men training sequence at the start is pretty cool; I’m always a sucker for people training and investigating their powers. Also, apparently the X-Men need to train to receive Xavier’s thoughts; this possibly indicates that increasing the baseline clarity of his own projective telepathy is something Xavier himself could train, but it also makes for a fun little detail in “psychic physics”. The way Angel says “Mistakes are for homo sapiens, sir…” is real cute. And all the X-Men get their chances to show off.

As for the criticisms, Iceman and Beast are nigh-identical to Torch and Thing, respectively, in terms of temperament and even power classifications/roles. A big hulking tough guy who engages in fake-angry banter w a younger elemental kinetic w tangentially-related extra asspull powers who’s itching for action.

Magneto is just villainous for villain reasons, and seeks to take over the Earth by demolishing military bases (and forcibly causing total nuclear disarmament, hooray)! Also his magnetokinesis is just TK, it can repulse human limbs and interact w/ Cyclops’ eyebeam.

“Democracy’s silent sentinels” oh you mean the fucking apocalypse device that, on use, renders not just a specific stretch of the human planet uninhabitable but also slightly increases the global cancer rate? Say, when you put it that way, this democracy thing doesn’t sound all that great! (Is this the most intense military glazing in Marvel comics? No, that still belongs to Iron Man. However, this sounds fucking ridiculous like do you hear yourself??)

Iceman pulls a power out of his ass, in that he can throw heat-seeking snowballs

And then there’s the Jean introduction segment. Xavier introduces her as /a most attractive young lady!/ and then everyone except Iceman has this reaction multiple times thru-out the comic:

Say, I heard something about Iceman coming out as gay like a decade ago. It’s interesting to see a potential seed for that planted here. Also, Slim Summers!? I’m glad it gets changed to Scott… yeesh.

*Blarg*. Thank you Bobby, coming in clutch with the “kys” - waitafuckingsecond he literally IS just the Torch personality in different hardware.

Thankfully, unlike Sue, Jean doesn’t take this crap lying down. However I would still like to read less such frivolous, pointless page count-bloating sexism in the future.

Neither a complaint nor a praise, but it is interesting that while Professor X introduces the idea that the mundanes would be fearful of mutants, the military men whose base the X-Men rescue do not fear or loathe the X-Men at any point, even when they don’t know who they are or get inconvenienced by their various mutant powers.

Overall, this issue wasn’t bad, but like I said at the top I was kind of expecting it to be higher-quality.

* It makes a teensy bit of sense from a writer’s perspective. Magnetism is an irl and easy-to-demonstrate example of objects acting on each other w/o touching, so if you need a “sciency” word for your pulp mag to describe telekinesis but don’t want the “psychic” or “spiritual” baggage of that word, then magnetism works. Of course, these days psychics and tk are staples of soft science-fiction, but maybe even as late as the 60s that wasn’t the case?