X-Men in 1970
The linework on the machines that Neal Adams drew. The sudden drama between the X-Men: Polaris and Havok on one side, and pretty much everyone else on the other. The nearly incomprehensible galactic villainy. Goddamn this run has gotten good.
The original five (six, counting Xavier) were a respectable, or even good team. The individual members could all fit into any X-Men permutation and add some interesting element. With Polaris and Havok, though, this group ceases to be paint by numbers and suddenly rivals the All-New, All-Different team. Yes, this is a controversial opinion, but it is what it is. There’s suddenly internal tension where there was once only ennui. They certainly don’t hate each other, but it finally feels like they can be bothered to form individual opinions.
The run ends this year, and on a couple of self contained stories. Personally, I feel that the quality bar for episodic stories has to be higher than serials, because their beginning, middle, and end is so compact within a single book. A serial can periodically falter, because there are so many middles, allowing more leeway. Well, these relatively contained single episodes work. There’s enough tension here to carry the narrative and give the reader a feeling of subtext and movement, especially with the Z’nox in issue 65.
Ah yes, Professor Xavier also returns. In a preview to future convoluted continuity explanations, before Xavier died, he met up with a dying Changeling, and traded places with him. Sooo… Xavier was hiding out the entire time in preparation for the Z’nox, the biggest threat in history. Interesting that Xavier couldn’t have secretly aided the comatose Havok, after he fell to the Sentinels. Oh well, whatever. Xavier has always had a tendency toward malicious incompetence muddled in his genius.
The final issue is respectably illustrated by Sal Buscema, but it seems positively humble compared to what came before during the Adams issues. And so ends the initial run for the X-Men. The series ran reprints from late 1970 through 1975.
The series started respectably with the classic Lee-Kirby team, devolved into utter dreck for about three years, and then came roaring back near the end. One of my big unknown questions is this: what would X-Men look like today if the Thomas-Adams run had caught on and kept the series going? There’d be no All New, All Different team, that’s for sure. But Havok and Polaris had substantially revitalized this team. Would X-Men be a huge franchise today, or would it be just another marginally respectable team book? Who knows.
