X-Men in 1967
Through a cruel (to the reader) twist of writing, Mimic begins this year as a member of the X-Men, while Banshee enters as a villain. Mimic ends his insufferably obnoxious tenure on the team taking down the Super Adaptoid (who has the Avengers’ powers), but losing his own powers in the process. So long! Farewell!
X-Men, by this point, represents the morass of Marvel’s superhero output. I really don’t get it, though. The concept is superb and we have decades to show that it can be executed well. Roy Thomas (the regular author by this point) eventually did a killer job on DC’s All-Star Squadron, and he held down the Avengers for the better part of a decade. Some exemplary art by Werner Roth too. Great static shots. So what’s not connecting here? It may be that publisher Martin Goodman saw X-Men as a Fantastic Four ripoff (intentionally, to maximize sales on a concept), and that Fantastic Four was always a higher tier.
Tom Brevoort (Marvel editor) wrote about this era last year, theorizing that Thomas’ heart just wasn’t in this book, as Avengers was more his wheelhouse. Not knowing what to do with the overarching X-Men mythos, he creates a shadowy cabal named Factor Three, but likely was just winging it as he went along.
For my part, I just think it doesn’t yet feel like components of a larger story. Like, there’s this newer social element, where each character is paired off with love interests but, with the exceptions of Candy Sothern and the Cyclops-Jean angle, it’s all paper-thin. It all just placidly meanders from one formulated crisis to another, like a daily trip to the office.
