Beautiful Mutants 1966

X-Men #19 (April) Lo! Now Shall Appear the Mimic.

Stan Lee, Werner Roth, Dick Ayers.

This is a satisfyingly weird issue, a one-off story with a cover which leaves you in no doubt as to whether or not you need to read it, which you do. The Mimic isn't actually a mutant, having gained his powers through the traditional science experiment gone wrong - which might almost be ironic humour on the part of Stan and the gang. The Mimic has the ability to mimic the powers of other superheroes, hence the name, and is shown on the cover as a living composite of all five X-Men, or at least the four with physically manifest powers. I suppose they could also have given him knockers in acknowledgement of Marvel Girl but boobs aren't actually a superpower, contrary to the publicity. This one is an early example of an X-Men comic making use of its own mythology, which is interesting.

Beautiful Mutants 1965

X-Men #12 (July) The Origin of Professor X.

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Vince Colletta.

The introduction of the Juggernaut is more or less a shaggy dog story, much like the Big Murphy joke which did the rounds when I was at school. We spend two whole issues hinting at how terrible will be the power of the Juggernaut whence he doth show up, and this one mostly explains who he is (Professor X's shitty older step-brother) as everyone fortifies the school with barriers and booby traps. This entails Cyclops blasting holes in the floor. Blasting holes in the floor seemed to be Cyclops' answer to everything in 1965, although I'm not sure whether that's better or worse than Iceman having taken to getting about by means of fancy ice-slides which will presumably leave a terrible mess when they thaw.

This was Jack Kirby's final issue. He's credited with layouts in the next five, but his involvement isn't obvious and I gather if he was present, it was mainly to show Werner Roth the ropes, so to speak. Anyway, the first twelve issues of X-Men weren't his best, but even overworked Jack Kirby cutting corners and phoning it in remains elegant and occasionally startling. He gave the book its look, as ever leading where others would be obliged to follow. Also, regarding just how much of their collaborative work was written by Stan, or else was written by Jack as he built stories from whatever Stan had scribbled on the back of a napkin - it's difficult to miss that X-Men becomes significantly less wordy from the next issue onwards.

Beautiful Mutants 1964

Fantastic Four #28 (July) We Have to Fight the X-Men.

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Chic Stone.

The Puppet Master sets up shop inside the brain of Professor X, who then duly points the kids in the general direction of the title while giving them a meaningful look; suggesting that the younger Xavier's powers were not nearly so well developed as that time he made every sentient being in the cosmos believe they were trapped in an episode of Happy Days, whichever issue that was*. This is possibly the first issue in which Jean switches the traditional X-balaclava helmet for a mask, allowing her beautiful bright red tresses to sway seductively to and fro like unto those seen in a shampoo commercial on television. The tale opens with the Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic reading a newspaper report about how everyone thinks the X-Men are amazing, so if you're not following their adventures, readers, you must be an arsehole. Sue Storm mentions in passing those foes thus far defeated by the X-Men, including the Space Phantom, so either that occurred off screen, so to speak, or I've missed an issue. Anyway, once the Fantastic Four have realised that they don't have to fight the X-Men after all, the true culprits are revealed, the day is saved, and Professor X gets his brain back.

*: Keep looking. I'm sure you'll find it eventually.

Beautiful Mutants: 1963

X-Men #2 (November) No One Can Stop the Vanisher.

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Paul Reinman.

The guys take on the Vanisher, a villain who became something of a comedy turn in later years but here manages a degree of menace through appearing in a story which is itself of relatively light tone. It probably also helps that Kirby gave him a resemblance to my former upstairs neighbour, George, who was fucking awful. There's still no sign of the mutant hysteria we keep hearing about, although some guy reading a newspaper describes the X-Men as over-rated phonies, which would probably count as anti-mutant hatred these days. The cover image of the Vanisher on the White House lawn still gives me a bit of a chill. The high point of this issue (and possibly the twentieth century) is, for me, Cyclops and Iceman catching a lift to school in an ice-cream truck. There isn't enough room for everyone up front so Iceman travels in the refrigerated compartment and, naturally, helps himself.

The X-Book

Having recently spunked away fourteen months of my life reading X-Men comics, I've inevitably ended up writing about it. It would have been twelve months but I miscalculated how long it would take to work my way through 1,654 comic books. I started with X-Men #1 from 1963 and kept going until I reached September, 1991, the point at which it all went down the toilet so far as I'm concerned and coinciding with the end of the Chris Claremont era. As older readers may have discerned from the numbers, this wasn't just X-Men #1 through to #280, but also the associated books - New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur, all the solo titles, issues of Defenders and Avengers featuring the Beast, Champions, Dazzler and anything else to feature an X-person even if it's just Cyclops stood in the background of one panel whining about something. The book is, in part, an analysis of all that went wrong, but also of what made X-Men great in the first place. It was written mainly for fun, specifically my fun, and therefore should not be mistaken for a droning treatise on post-gender tropes in the Spongebob Squarepants movie or collector bullshit about which issues you "need" with lists of who appeared where. I'm sure there's enough of that shite already out there and nobody could possibly need another one. It therefore has very little in common with, off the top of my head, The New Mutants (2016) in which Ramzi Fawaz explains how the Hulk is an important non-binary character because Bruce Banner often has a bit of a cry when he's finished rampaging through the latest city, because crying is something that ladies do and is therefore counter-patriarchal or summink*.

If you're familiar with my Pamphlets of Destiny blog or the associated books, then you'll probably have some idea of what to expect. However, because this one is over 241,000 words and should therefore be considered a magnum opus (at least in quantitative terms) I'm going to post a series of twenty-nine daily trailers here on this blog, one write-up taken from each year covered in the book leading up to the launch, as we publishing bigwigs call it. The excerpts should give you some idea as to whether you'll want to read the thing which, being unofficial and full of swearing, isn't going to get any promotion beyond this.

See you tomorrow, possibly.

*: God how I wish I were making this up.

Sea of Tails

In the event of anyone having missed the memo, I recently published my wife's book, Sea of Tails, and before anyone's nostrils take to flaring, I published it because 1) I believe it's a good book, and 2) she's my wife and that's just how it works. We both spend a lot of time involved in cat rescue of one sort or another, although Bess has arguably been at it since childhood; so this is autobiography with particular emphasis on cats, published as a fundraiser for whatever cat charity we happen to be involved with each time Lulu sends out the wonga. Given that many of the cat charities we've dealt with have either come and gone, or else constitute just some altruistic persons who don't even have a formal title, much less a handy logo I could stick on the cover, you'll just have to take my word for it that we're not pocketing the money for ourselves or secretly putting it towards a yacht we've had our eye on.

Anyway, she wrote it about a year ago along with a second volume which I'll be sorting out when I get the time. I've spent a good few months editing it and sharpening it up, where needed. I also painted the cover and have drawn fifteen illustrations for the interior. My wife tells her story well in the warm tones of hearth and home without an excess of sugar, and I think it's a great book, which is why I published it. Thankfully everyone who has read it thus far seems to agree, and annoyingly* it's already outsold my own writing without promotion beyond the usual social media stuff.

Please buy one by following this link and help the kitty-cats.

*: Well, not that annoyingly.

D-Generation

I've written something for D-Generation magazine, the first issue of which will be out fairly soon with a free CD of music from underground legends the Apostles, Rapoon, Val Denham, and We Be Echo, also Retirement Community which is myself and therefore substantially less legendary. I'm sure you can work out the names of other contributors from the above and appreciate why I'm honoured to be included. As should be obvious, it's a physical magazine and you can order your copy here, here, or here; or from Timeless if you live in France. I understand it should also be stocked by Cold Spring in the UK, Tesco Organisation in Germany, and Soleilmoon in the US, but you may have to nose around on their respective sites. It's probably going to sell out fast so buy now while stocks last.

No. There isn't an electronic version. If you weren't able to work out that much from the above, then it probably ain't for you, twinkle toes.