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Post by rberman on Jun 4, 2018 13:05:36 GMT -5
X-Men #40 Thomas/Heck/Tuska 'Mark of the Monster' Bobby freezes him, and they are off on the chase.. the find a boat Frankstein gets on (Xavier says 'just as a suspected' but no reason of why he wants to get on a boat is given.. maybe heading back to the old country?) After convincing the boatmen they are good guys, the find Frank in the hold, and the fight again, and lose again. This time after they lose Bobby freezes him, and the Professor tries to keep in in place with 'mental bolts' Frank fights so hard (he doesn't want to be frozen again), he overexerts himself and blows up. - So the big scary monster is stowing away on a cargo ship.. why leave New York? Why not fly? Why not get the ship owners off and just sink it? So much nonsense. Thomas was probably recapitulating the story of the original novel Frankenstein, in which the monster gets on a boat and ends up at the North Pole. Here is the literal Cliff's Notes version of Chapter 24: Note that "Frankenstein" is his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, while his creation is "the creature" or "the monster." Does the comic book give Frankenstein as if it were the name of the monster? That's a rookie error. I also wonder whether the "Captain America frozen in ice" plot was derived from the novel Frankenstein.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 4, 2018 15:24:48 GMT -5
God, how do you make the X-men vs. Frankenstein soooo bad? This was where this title slipped from "not very good but often kinda interesting" to "legit awful" in my brain. When does Neal Adams get here?
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 4, 2018 21:03:11 GMT -5
Thomas was probably recapitulating the story of the original novel Frankenstein, in which the monster gets on a boat and ends up at the North Pole. Here is the literal Cliff's Notes version of Chapter 24: Note that "Frankenstein" is his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, while his creation is "the creature" or "the monster." Does the comic book give Frankenstein as if it were the name of the monster? That's a rookie error. I also wonder whether the "Captain America frozen in ice" plot was derived from the novel Frankenstein.The comic never actually refers to him as Frankenstein.. just 'the Monster', or once 'Frankenstein's monster'... I did so just for simplicity. If Thomas was mimicking the end of the book, he did it poorly.. he did reference that ending as the reason he was found in the arctic in the first place. If we are supposed to think he was chasing Dr. Frankenstein, then that implies he didn't know how much time had passed, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the story, but maybe. I haven't read most of these before (I think I stopped at Factor Three), but I suspect you're right, that the worst is yet to come.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 22, 2018 10:53:39 GMT -5
X-Men #41 Thomas/Heck/Tuska Plot: Grotesk the Sub Human, prince of a destroyed underground kingdom, is mad, and he blames the surface world. He ends up near the subway, where Hank and Bobby are coming home from a date with Zelda and Vera. They fight, and run him off. Back at the mansion, the Professor is being very stern during Danger Room training, and the team is wondering why he's so grumpy. (Foreshadowing!!). He gets even madder when Hank and Bobby come home and rush in to tell him about Grotesk, only to get scolded about entering the Danger Room in civilian clothes. He leaves with Jean to leave the boys wondering what's going on. Meanwhile, a researcher at the university is showing off a device to cause earthquakes (just little ones). Somehow they are very excited by this...not sure what practical use that has. As they discuss how if it fell into the wrong hands someone could try to destroy the Earth, Grotesk notices the tremors and thinks they're attacking him, and goes off to find the machine so he can try to destroy the surface world. The X-Men investigate, and find his lair... the fight is on.. next issue. Notes: - I wonder if Roy Thomas was hoping to make Grotesk a big villian.. he gets an origin story (complete with Kirby-eque art).. but they clearly couldn't decide what to call him. He was 'Grotesk' in the next issue both last time. 'The Sub-Human' on the cover, and 'Grotesk the Sub-Human' in the story... he has a real name (Gro-tor or somethin') -The buildup for the big Professor X plot is starting in earnest. Funnily enough, there's no big surprise.. the next issue box says 'The Death of Professor X'. Gee, isn't that a spoiler? Or maybe it's a trick? Were kids back then really gullible? - I do wonder about the logic of having a big monster bad guy after a big monster bad guy. -Grotesk definitely seems like he'd have been a great foil in a Conan book... make his origin 'magic' instead of 'radiation' and voila! In the back up... Scott decides not to kill Professor X (shocker!). The bad guy still completes his plan to use radiation to turn himself into living diamond.. to be continued! Man, this is one painful group of stories.. I see now why the book got cancelled
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Post by rberman on Jun 22, 2018 10:58:20 GMT -5
X-Men #41 Thomas/Heck/Tuska 1) I don't know how "sudden" the Professor's interest in Jean is. She is his student! Maybe this is intended just to show Scott's insecurity. Rather than to actually continue the "Xavier secretly loves Jean" thread that should have died many issues ago. 2) Right after Xavier reminds everyone that he can read thoughts, Scott has these jealous thoughts about Xavier. Must be tough living with a telepath! 3) Hank looks about 40 years old in this panel on the right. What is a "trice"? Is that three minutes? 4) Even Xavier calls him a "sub-human." Poor guy!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 22, 2018 13:04:58 GMT -5
I guess the interest isn't sudden, but separating her from everyone else is.. in the past, that only happened when things were too dangerous for a girl (even though Jean is the strongest member of the team most days).
I think a 'trice' is an old time version of 'just a sec' or 'in a jiffy'.. I've seen it in other stuff before... usually spoke by Victorian era servants.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 22, 2018 22:19:33 GMT -5
The only other appearance of Grotesk I've read is in the early Ms. Marvel.
Coming up the first '60s back-issue of X-Men I ever bought, and was I ever confused by it!
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 22, 2018 22:55:07 GMT -5
Man, this is one painful group of stories.. I see now why the book got cancelled Tooooooooooold you!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 23, 2018 7:22:56 GMT -5
The only other appearance of Grotesk I've read is in the early Ms. Marvel. Coming up the first '60s back-issue of X-Men I ever bought, and was I ever confused by it! According to comic vine he turns up now and then..something about lava men and he turns black.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 23, 2018 12:53:58 GMT -5
God, how do you make the X-men vs. Frankenstein soooo bad? This was where this title slipped from "not very good but often kinda interesting" to "legit awful" in my brain. When does Neal Adams get here? I had them all and they were pretty stodgy with a very few respite issues (#30 and #34 had quality art, #28 had Banshee, #35 guest-starred Spider-Man, #39 had new costumes, then there were a bunch of solo adventure issues and an Avengers cross-over), about like the average early John Forte Legion Of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics most of the time though. Jim Steranko briefly perks things up before Adams.
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 23, 2018 14:15:20 GMT -5
An interesting outside-the-story subplot in these last few issues is that this is part of the Marvel apprenticeship of George Tuska. He was a longtime pro, one of the mainstays of Lev Gleason's comics that were killed by the Comics Code, and at the time he started working for Marvel he was also drawing the Buck Rogers newspaper strip. George did a lot of inking, finishing, and pencilling from others' layouts before he actually drew much on his own at Marvel. He inked Kirby on Captain America, Heck here in X-Men, John Buscema in Avengers, Marie Severin, Gene Colan, even Larry Lieber. It must have worked; George's art sold a lot of Marvel comics in the next decade.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 16, 2018 22:53:51 GMT -5
X-Men #42 "If I Die..." Thomas/Heck/Tuska Plot: Angel and Iceman return back to the mansion, only to get stonewalled by Jean and the Professor when trying to get them to go back and help Cyclops and Beast fight Grotesk.. Angel is mad, but before we find out just how mad, it switches back to the fight. Beast and Cyke take turns fighting the Subhuman (I guess he's officially calling himself Grotesk the Sub-Human.. talk about low self esteem!), and both fail pretty handily. Luckily for them, Grotesk feels the earthquake machine go off again, so he goes off in search of it, leaving the X-Men to reunite at the mansion. Jean actually physically (well, telekenetically) restrains the team when they demand to talk to the Professor, until she gets a mental signal from him to take them to him. We find out that Xavier was the lab tech at the vibration machine in disguise, setting up the final battle with Grotesk... Jean leads the team there, and the final battle ensues. Grotesk is clearly winning, and has the machine set to 'destroy the Earth'. The boys try to hold him off while Jean and the Professor think at it to slow down the vibrations. They are succeeding, but Grotesk catches on and goes on a rampage, luckily he destroy the machine and makes it explode in his face, seemingly killing both him and Professor X (who was too close, apparently). Angel picks up the body to bring it home.. the end? Notes: - No one seems to have had time to question how all this went down.. it makes very little sense on the surface if you don't know what happens in the future. Perhaps having the death scene, and actually advertising it ahead of time, was meant to distract? - Very telling that Jean holds off the others with ease. Granted it wasn't a fight, but still. We also get another story where the X-Men are completely unable to defeat their adversary. Their batting average has to be below the Mendoza line. I wonder how much impact that had on the falling sales. - On the powers front, 2 different time we see Cyclops using his eye beams as rockets, once to enhance a jump, andonce to attempt to slow Angel's momentum. I'm pretty sure that's not how lasers work. I feel like Roy might have seen those panels were Cyke blasts someone and they go flying back with dramatic license and he said 'hey, he should USE that'. At no point before this as there been any indication that the eye beams exert any sort of physical force or recoil. Heck, if they did, why is he always leaning into the blasts, instead of bracing himself? - Also this issue, Angel somehow acquires two 'solar orbs' which he uses to blast Grotesk with to blind him... pretty handy, I wonder why they were one time use? - Grotesk is really, really dumb. I guess the idea is he was trying to 'fix' the machine and failed? The panels show him ripping a big engine looking thing off and putting it someplace else... not exactly good trouble shooting. - I guess this one is a bit better than the last couple, but it's still pretty weak. And the back up... 'The end.... or the Beginning?' Thomas/Roth/Trimpe Plot: The Living Diamond has Scott and the Professor trapped.. so Xavier uses himself as bait and has Scott turn on a vibration machine of some sort. The Diamond gets more and more stiff as he comes to pummel Xavier, all the while with the Professor asking him to stand down so he can help him. Just before he's ready to turn Xavier into pulp, he shatters due to the vibrations. Scott has angst, and the Professor promises he won't be alone if he'll just come with him. They go back to the mansion, and Xavier gives him the sales pitch, and his visor. Cyclops is born! Notes: -The fact that Cyclops was the 1st X-Men has since been retconned.. and actually, didn't it say early on that Jean was first (Pretty sure that's the story now). Anyway, that's one of those stories that I feel like it changes every 5 years. - It's not clear what the Professor's motives were here.. was he hoping Diamond guy would join, and then he stumbled about Scott? Or did he want both, and decided to destroy him when he was uncooperative? He sure seemed on the evil end of things here, even if he did kill a bad guy.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jul 17, 2018 18:08:03 GMT -5
Maybe this was the first death in comics that made death in comics a joke? Some changeling character? And Jean and Xavier put the others through thinking Xavier had died? Jean Grey only being copied by the Phoenix entity made a lot more sense to me and made something that felt partly ugly (corrupted 'turned' evil Jean) into something made good. This one was just a mess. Maybe because they killed the Doom Patrol off around the same time and the two comics were somehow spiritually linked?
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 17, 2018 19:04:17 GMT -5
I hadn't really thought about it that way, but maybe. Had the Red Skull come back from the dead yet at this point? The X-Men already had Magneto seemingly go out to space forever and come back besides this story.
I was kinda feeling like with the advance hype and such we're meant to think it was fishy.. otherwise, why reveal it ahead? There was no direct market (or even much of a secondary market) at the time.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jul 17, 2018 21:08:10 GMT -5
The Magneto comeback was super messed up, they said it was a robot ultimately (with Mesmero as a henchman as Toad was off with the real Magneto) from #17-18 after the Stranger had taken him away in #11. I think the Red Skull came back around Tales Of Suspense #65 if you mean from the golden age. Villains kind of don't count as they are always being seemingly killed, dropped in volcanoes and buried under mountains but explaining how they escaped at the next appearance. The Black Cat seemed to die at the end of early Spider-Man appearances and then be crossing his path yet again after a few issues.
One thing I remember vividly about X-Men #42, the first back-issue I'd ever bought of anything outside a 25cent used box... the Frank Zappa "B-Toom! Freak Out" record ad!
I took it as meant to have been a 'real' death and that maybe reader reaction over time led to them figuring out how to bring Xavier back, didn't know how much use he could be or how unique until he was gone being another possibility.
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