I’m reading every X-Men comic. This was a mistake. This will continue to be a mistake. But when have mistakes ever stopped me? Come hang out for some reviews of mid-tier 60s comics!

X-Men #41 - February 1968 3/10

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This is a weird one. The X-Men are on a train that’s suddenly attacked by a weird lookin’ hulkin’ guy. They fight him but he easily shrugs off all their attacks, because that’s always how this comic works, the X-Men just get the shit kicked out of them constantly. They name this guy and he happily takes that as his new name.

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He is “Grotesk the sub-human”, a prince of some ancient civilization that lived in caves below the surface. Everyone he loves died and he got mutated by I THINK atomic blasts from above? And now he wants revenge. Honestly, I’m on this guy’s side??

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Actually he apparently wants nukes so he can blow up the Earth entirely. I dunno, that feels like going a LITTLE far. The X-Men show up again to stop him, aaaaand to be continued

We’re still doing really short issues causae we have the mini stories in the back. This one has Jack o’Diamonds, who met Scott and went “Hey you’re my minion now”, demanding Scott murder Xavier. Scott’s like “what the fuck? No?” so Jack goes and pushes himself into some radiation machine which turns him into pure diamond, and he calls himself The Living Diamond. This guy’s got like three names!

X-Men #42 - March 1968 3/10

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This is such a funny cover. Anyways WOAH, SENSATIONALISM, PROFESSOR X IS GONNA DIE FOR THE FIRST TIME FOR REAL HE’S REALLY GONNA DIE HE’S GONNA DIE OMG HE’S GONNA DIE WOW

Anyways Xavier is being kinda weird. Scott and Beast are fighting Grotesk and getting his ass kicked and Xavier is refusing to let the rest of them go help. Jean is siding with him, everyone else is like “what the hell???”

Scott and Beast, of course, get beat up by Grotesk, who just… leaves.

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Everyone wants to confront Xavier for being a dickhead, and Jean is holding them back. Did I mention the weird costume change btw? I dunno if I like it much. but then Xavier is like “actually no please help me” because he’s being murdered by Grotesk for some reason. Xavier led him there to try and lay a trap but uh, told no one about this.

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They manage to defeat Grotesk, or really Xavier does, (actually the machine he’s trying to steal blows up and kills him) and then he admits that he was actually dying of a completely different disease, but set this all up to stop Grotesk. And then he just, dies.

Or so he claims. You already did this in like, issue 4, can I really trust you??

More backstory, Living Diamond is attacking Xavier now, and Scott sides with him cause he’s not a raging murderer made out of actual diamonds.

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They use a radiation machine to make him EVEN MORE diamond, but he’s already pure diamond, so he just fucking explodes. Scott just killed a man. Scott then joins Xavier as his first X-Man and gets his outfit and visor.

X-Men #43 - April 1968 3.5/10

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Another incredible Magneto face.

Magnetos back I guess. Apparently this happened in some other comics, maybe Avengers?

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Quicksilver attends Xavier’s funeral, and everyone is bothered by it, because they hate him again. Apaprently Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch denounced humanity and joined with Magneto again? Man, they just… cannot make good decisions. He runs away.

Xavier left them a VHS tape with his last will, and it’s basically “yo, Magneto is back, take him out”.

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….Man the incest vibes are REAL rough with these two. Anyways Scarlet Witch seems to be sick, her powers are gone, and Pietro WANTED to get Xavier to cure her, but now he’s dead, soooo. He calls Xavier “our only friend”, which is fucking wild, they were never on the same side or even really interracted. Anyways Magneto is claiming to create a device to cure Wanda but obviously he won’t, but they gotta stick around just incase.

Magneto steals a boat, and the X-Men show up aaaand get their asses kicked. To be continued???

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Our bonus this issue is about Scott. Again. It’s about his powers, and goes into more depth. Apparently they are solar powered (I cannot WAIT for the punch dimension). It explains how he uses his visor without touching it (button in his glove), etc etc. It’s alright.

X-Men #44 - May 1968 4/10

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Angel centric issue this time.

The X-Men are captured by Magneto, who continues to not kill anyone cause that’d be mean. Angel manages to break out and has to flee and look for help. Quicksilver, who can fly I guess, chases after but fails to catch him in time, somehow.

Angel goes off into the ocean and into a storm, as an island forms out of the ocean. He explores the ocean and finds some red flying guy who attacks Angel

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This guy is Red Raven. They fight for a page before Raven goes “wait, why am I doing this I don’t want to hurt you” and stops. He explains he just wants to stop people from finding this island. Years ago, his people lived here, and they were going to invade the planet and conquer the Humans, but he was like “that’s rude >:(“ and gasses them all and puts them in cryo tubes. Now he must keep watch, as they will awake every 20 years as the island rises above the surface. Angel is like “hey isn’t it kinda bad to betray all your people?” “Maybe you’re right… ah, no, you’re not, bye” and then Raven kicks Angel out and the island sinks. The end.

This feels like a filler episode but it wasn’t… bad?

We get Bobby Backstory this time! Bobby is out with his girlfriend when those Roving Gangs Of Bullies that always exist in comics like this attack him and try to assault her. He freezes them, and then everyone is like “Holy shit, someone to be racist towards!” and hate him for ANOTHER reason now. Also his girlfriend says he’s a freak and runs away.

A mob comes and drags him away for using powers on someone, and not actually hurting them. Oh… no? Really they just want to be bigots. The comic is going harder into this now. Gosh, when did the X-Men get woke- oh wait. Anyways, Xavier and Scott read the news and go to save him, to be continued

X-Men #45 - June 1968 4.5/10

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Angel continues to try and go get help, specifically the Avengers, as Cyclops manages to burst out of his jail. He finds Jean who’s unconscious and is like “welp she’s useless”, wandering around as he bumbles into, first Toad and secondly Quicksilver. Quicksilver is a weirdly complicated character for this era, as a villain who has no actual interest in doing evil things, and is like “hey we don’t gotta fight” but Cyclops punches at him anyway cause fuck you, Quicksilver!

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Quicksilver thinks all mutants should be allied together to fight against the Homosapien menace. Man, THIS is where all that came from??? This is wild, this is Magneto’s whole fucking thing in the X-Men media I’ve actually seen. In this, Magneto couldn’t care less, he just wants to rule over other people. It’s actually really interesting the path this concept takes. It goes from being the character trait of a sympathetic anti-villain to the character trait of a straight up villain (Magneto) to the character trait of a sympathetic anti-villain (Magneto, again, but written better).

Anyways Cyclops knocks out Quicksilver and is worried he actually hurt him, wheeen the Avenger show up, see Cyclops beating up their friend, and turn on him. Ohhh boy, MORE OF MY FAVORITE, FORCED REASONS FOR HEROES TO FIGHT…. and it’s not even in the next X-Men issue!!! Weird. It’s actually in Avengers #53.

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In the backstory, Cyclops comes to break Bobby out of jail, but he’s like “No, I trust the system to give me a fair trial” as the hicks outside his jail cell go “ohhh boy, can’t wait to do a good ol’ fashioned lynchin’!”

Cyclops tries to FORCE him to leave, which just makes shit look worse. Now they’re like “oh I guess now we’re JUSTIFIED in killing them”. Bobby beats up Cyclops as the mob turns on both of them.

Avengers #53 - June 1968 2.5/10

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We’re doin’ this again. The Avengers see their friend being attacked by Cyclops, ignore the fact that Quicksilver literally denounced Humanity openly and is working with a villain very obviously, we need a reason to fight so we fight.

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Cyclops thinks they might be… robots?? Okay, sure. We’re got Hawkeye, Goliath, Wasp, and the recently introduced Black Panther. They all gang up on Cyclops, who somehow holds them off even though he gets his ass kicked by villains of the week all the time and he JUST fought Quicksilver AND broke out of his bindings. Dude should be spent.

Angel shows back up and they start to split off. Meanwhile Megneto and his cronies watch happily, cause this is perfectly fine. Eventually of course they realize that this is all bullshit and fight Magneto instead. Toad betrays Magneto, sick of his bullshit, and sets the base to explode as he, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver dip. Once again, Magneto is defeated by his own Assholish behavior.

Magneto is blown up and seemingly dies. Quicksilver and Wanda don’t even talk to the Avengers ONCE in this. What the fuck?