X-Men Sucked in the 1960s
When I learned that it is possible to read every X-Men comic ever made*, I had a bright idea. I was going to read each comic starting from the very beginning. It was going to be epic, it was going to be awesome, it was going to be the nerdiest thing I could possibly do. And then I read Uncanny X-Men #1.
And that shit was bad.
And I don't mean "bad" as in "it's from the Silver Age so it has to be cool." I mean those comics are some of the worst crap I have ever read. Ever. I ended up reading half of the first issue before skimming the rest of it. I then skimmed though the next twenty issues before jumping ship and skipping directly to John Byrne's X-Men: The Hidden Years, which was just barely readable.
And so I present to you, just in case you are even considering reading these monstrosities, six reasons the X-Men sucked in the 1960s.
1) If a character appeared in a panel, they get a line. Apparently, these old comics were created in an idiotic process where the writer would plot the story, the artist would then translate that story into panels and then the writer would stick in the dialogue. No doubt this is why Stan Lee was able to tack a word balloon to every character in every panel. See for yourself:
About 80% of the dialogue in these issues is completely useless. But maybe this was really nuanced character development and I was too distracted by Stan Lee's threat to narc on me to Professor X to notice.
2) People talk waaay too much. When it came to the word bubbles, Stan Lee was all about the quantity over quality. Someone needed to get that guy a copy of Elements of Style. Omit needless words, mothafucka!
Lee's characters were such jabberboxes that in one panel in Uncanny X-Men #1, Magneto is almost totally obscured by a word balloon.
3) Overt sexism. Don't give me the "it was a different era" bullcrap. The treatment of Jean was absolutely ridiculous! Take a look at this panel, shortly after she was introduced to the rest of the team.
What a slut.
Later, the guys are seen peeping on Jean as she changes into her uniform. I love how Beast tries to pin the blame on Jean. She was just asking for it. Pervy douchbag.
And what do you think happens when the Juggernaut pwns most of the X-Men. Jean dresses up in a nurse uniform, of course!
Note the excellent use of Reason 1 in this panel.
4) "Natch." The worst slang ever. Stan Lee must have used it like as a basic unit of grammar. It's everywhere in these comics. It means "naturally." It always sounds wrong.
5) Magneto was psychic. The first time I saw Magneto project his astral form, I keep waiting for it to be explained away, because it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But that never happened, and for all I know Magneto still has psychic abilities. Even John Byrne's train wreck The Hidden Years features Magneto's mind powers. Maybe they got wipped away when Magneto was turned into an infant. Yeah, that happened too.
6) These kids were boring! Or maybe they were just obnoxious. I can't really tell. Even in the 20+ issues I skimmed through, they never evolved past their most basic character traits. In one scene when Prof X mentally calls the X-Men together, we are shown what the kids like to do in their free time, and basically learn all there is about their personalities.
Beast is doing homework, so he's a nerd. Jean is doing aerobics, so she's a self-obsessed object of desire. Angel is listening to the radio because he's totally unremarkable in every way. And Iceman is drinking a huge milk shake because he's such a goofball. Off panel, Cyclops is snorting coke off a hooker's ass.
Now what you know why these stories sucked, lets see how many you can spot in this single splash page from Uncanny X-Men #6.
Let's see... Jean makes dinner for all the men, each character gets their own line, Beast is still a nerd and Iceman is covering his pie with snow like a complete idiot. Why would he put snow on a pie??? I haven't eaten snow since I was 8 years old.
But, if there is one thing that the old school X-Men had going for them, it was Cerebro v1.o.
So awesome.
*I would go into details on how this is possible, but I don't want to incur Joe Quesada's wrath.
3 comments:
nice. thats some funny stuff. especially reason 1. i guess they wanted you to get the most reading time for your money.
Great comments, had me in stitches! I'm trying to make my way through these issues as well but I think that they are at least bearable. To be honest I'm just trying to work up to the Neal Adams issues because I read some of the reprints in X-men Classics and they were quite impressive. However there are some more points that need to be made about these original issues; 1) Magneto is plain nuts and as you point out for some reason he is the second most powerful telepaph in the world! I suppose they explained his craziness by the whole 'he became an infant and therefore his actions before this are not really his own' rubbish (as in Uncanny X-men 200 and issue 3 of X-men) and you could extend this to the removal of his telepaphic powers. 2) Xavier smokes a pipe ALL the time, the cocky old fool. But he never does later on in the series and gets all sanctimonious when Wolverine smokes in his mansion. 3) Xavier keeps pretenting to lose his powers or to die to test his students, putting these rookie heroes in serious danger each time. The guy is a first class w****r! 4) In issue 2 his thought bubble reveals the fact that he's in love with Jean! The dirty old man, she's supposed to be what 15-18 in these comics? 5) If Magneto and Xavier were such close friends and Uncanny X-men -1 shows that they were aware that they would be opposing each other why does Magneto and his goons waste so much time looking for the X-men when they could simply knock on Xaviers' door? Xavier's a wolrd renowed genetics expert, yet his old bud Maggie can't even find out where he lives when everyone else in the world knows this information. 6) Maybe its an American thing but why is Cyclops 'Slim' Summers in issue 1 and then Scott for the rest of it? If Slim is his nickname why does no-one ever call him by it ever again?
And at the start of these issues the X-men are heroes in the public eye, and they have a crazy superiority complex about being homo sapiens superior. I can stand most of these problems but its the dirty old man Xavier who's doing my nut in, honestly forget Patrick Stewart, Jimmy Saville would have been perfect to play this wierd old fool!
Ironically, while this seems to be about Stan Lee, Roy Thomas wrote Most of the stories beginning with issue number 20 i n the 1960s
The X-Men were very successful under Stan Lee and was quickly converted to a monthly. Not only were many characters introduced that became iconic, Prof X, Magneto, The Stranger, the Sentinels, Stan Lee also introduce the concept of mutant discrimination A concert that is used even today.
The X-Men did last 66 issues of new stories but was also very popular in reprints. Of course the concept really took off in the mid-1970s. Any popular Comics had similar or less or runs in the X-Men. Tomb of Dracula lasted 70 issues, but Man- Thing, Werewolf By Night, which were popular enough to have a giant size series in their beginning didn’t last half as long.
Stan Lee didn’t just present the characters as they did at DC, he developed them. He gave them a personality that was different than others in the same series. This is new with the time and looking back this author doesn’t like that. He keeps comparing the original X men in their original time to stories written decades later, when they didn’t have a Comics code. Don’t forget that even slang was monitored by the code. There were certain words you can use in certain that you couldn’t. Marvel Girl was a product of her time. Sadly, most women which treated like this in Comics, but Stan Lee let those characters grow and his attitude changed radically in just a couple of years. The invisible girl became the invisible woman and was given more powers. This author chooses to ignore the customs of that time when you can’t.
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