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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 19, 2015 18:29:08 GMT -5
That could be. Just seemed a bit odd. Well that and the nude pics of Professor Xavier... Or those horrible ad pop ups! I knew tripod was bad, but wow. Is was fun reading your intro to the 'new' discussion board that was set up but never used, too  Glad we made out better here |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Mar 19, 2015 18:38:40 GMT -5
Is was fun reading your intro to the 'new' discussion board that was set up but never used, too Glad we made out better here I was a lot younger and understood a lot less about social media  |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Mar 19, 2015 19:03:19 GMT -5
Is was fun reading your intro to the 'new' discussion board that was set up but never used, too Glad we made out better here I was a lot younger and understood a lot less about social media During the Tripod era social media barely existed.  |
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Post by spoon on Mar 19, 2015 20:36:57 GMT -5
The Professor is very strict and formal here. Yes, in the early days (and actually for quite a long time afterward) Professor Xavier could be very brusque at times. In that way, I think Patrick Stewart portrayal of Xavier would be better if he acted a little more like Captain Picard. I think he got wimpier and milquetoast over time. The funny part is that Bobby is checking her out later in the issues with some of his teammates. And Scott (or Slim) isn't so coy about liking Jean. I think the way the fight played out was actually appropriate. Professor X called it a baptism of fire. They're just learning to be heroes, so the fight is going to be messy. I imagine the original X-Men as ranging in age from 16 (Bobby) to 19 (Hank) in #1. That way, others could also be high school age (17 or 18 or even 16, but older than Bobby). Of course, that last thought is contradicted by Bobby noting that the others are all a couple years older than him, but I'll pretend he didn't say that. Coincidentally, I was thinking earlier today about how much I love the name Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Calling them "gifted" is a sly wink to the readers. I hated it when the school was renamed the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Cars can definitely be adapted to be driven by people who can't use their legs. Lots of people in wheelchairs drive their own cars. I don't know how common that was in 60s, but as you noted, Prof. X is rich. I hope my comments aren't coming as too disagreeable, but I don't see this as inconsistent in the least. It should more effort to try to blast through a force field generated by one of the world's most powerful mutants than to shoot into the ground. And Cyclops optic blast has been noted several times NOT to be a heat blast, so it shouldn't burn anyone. There are a couple of inconsistency to note. Professor X says he was "born of parents who had worked on the first A-bomb project." That should mean that he's no older than his early twenties! John Byrne once said that remark seemed to anticipate the development of "Marvel Time". A couple of inconsistency are the result of subsequent retcons. Jean doesn't know about the X-Men; but she's later retconned into having known Professor for a few years. She was just pretending not to know. Also, in #1, Xavier claims he lost the use of his legs in a childhood. It later turns out to be an adult injury. I don't remember if the inconsistency is ignored or explained as a deception. This is going to be fun. I love the first three decades of X-Men and have those issues in one form or another. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 19, 2015 21:38:42 GMT -5
 X-Men #2 'No one can stop the Vanisher' by Lee/Kirby/Reinman We start with a montage of the Professor calling his students, and they race to comply.. Beast hops a train... Cyclops and Iceman hitch on an Ice Cream Truck, and Marvel Girl and Angel fly. Once there, we're treated to another training session in the Danger Room (named such for the first time). Meanwhile, the Vanisher is showing the world he's completely invincible... he can apparently teleport at will, thus no one can catch him. We see him ask the cops for directs to the bank. They accompany him as he robs it, but disappears before anyone can react. He then goes to Washington, and threatens to steal some top secret missile plans... and does so. Professor X calls the FBI, in the form of agent Duncan (who has a special headband for psychic communication), and a government chopper stops by and picks the X-Men up to take on the Vanisher. They lose, and badly.. the Vanisher teases them some before vanishing with the plans. The display gets the X-Men critized in the papers, and the Vanisher a veritable army of thugs. He demands 10 million dollars to not sell the plans to the communists. When he arrives at the capital with his thug army to collect, the X-Men are there. Professor X destroys his brain, so he forgets he's a mutant, then he meekly goes into custody. We get a few scenes of the team moping up the thugs... the end! Looking at this without taking the future into consideration, the Vanisher was a FAR more effective villain than Magneto, with a goal, a much better defined power, and more logical plan. That costume, though... wow. No cool magnetism effects, but Kirby swaps that over to Jean's power, so we still get some Kirby-ness. The main issue here, IMO, is that why the heck does Professor X need a strike force of teenagers if he can just zap the bad guys brains? And why is that allowed? Rating: 2/5 (good story, but points off for lack of internal logic) Notes: -- While before and after this issue it's presumed the students live on the 'campus' of the school, we instead see them commuting here. Where the heck do they live, and with whom? On their own? That make SO little sense, especially since (Beast, at least) is coming from about an hour away. -- Still not much personality shown by anyone by Iceman. I guess Cyclops as leader, but someone has to do that. -- The Vanisher also refers to 'Homo Superior', so I guess that's just a common phrase, and not something Magneto made up . -- Training happens in the Danger Room this issue, it's first mention. There's not crazy holodeck tech, though, just a bunch of mechanical traps. -- Jean's power is referred to as 'teleportation' rather than telekinesis. It is SAID she can only lift what she could carry, but she easily puts 6 women on a roof of a building (though she feels tired afterwards), holds and lowers Beast, and hangs onto a giant ball in the Danger Room. Clearly, she's going to be as strong as the plot demands. Also, she can sense mutants. -- Cyclops again uses an amazingly intense blast to vaporize debris while somehow causing no collateral damage. I didn't really notice before, but it's implied the power comes from the visor, which is clearly not how it works later. -- So, Professor X can call up the FBI and get a government helicopter via mental chat, but they don't know he's a mutant? either that's the worst kept secret in history, or the government works of 1964 are really, really dumb. -- Some time (perhaps a month) has passed since issue 1, as the X-Men have a small amount of name recognition... either the military allow alot of coverage when a rogue terrorist nearly took over the missile stockpile (unlikely, especially in that time), or they've had some undocumented adventures.  |
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Mar 19, 2015 21:50:10 GMT -5
-- Some time (perhaps a month) has passed since issue 1, as the X-Men have a small amount of name recognition... either the military allow alot of coverage when a rogue terrorist nearly took over the missile stockpile (unlikely, especially in that time), or they've had some undocumented adventures. At this point Marvel was still operating in real time so there really were one month leaps between issues. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 19, 2015 21:52:13 GMT -5
Yeah, it's just kinda strange.. it so different from now. That would have been something if they kept that up.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 20, 2015 5:55:10 GMT -5
The Professor is very strict and formal here. Yes, in the early days (and actually for quite a long time afterward) Professor Xavier could be very brusque at times. It got him killed in the end, when he went to tell a Phoenix-crazed Cyclops "stand down, you little snot! Daddy's gonna spank you!" (I'm paraphrasing a little, but that was the gist of it). Prof. X was always a bit of a control freak, preparing the next generation of mutants to replace him but never letting them do so. |
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Post by Dizzy D on Mar 20, 2015 6:32:48 GMT -5
Yes, in the early days (and actually for quite a long time afterward) Professor Xavier could be very brusque at times. It got him killed in the end, when he went to tell a Phoenix-crazed Cyclops "stand down, you little snot! Daddy's gonna spank you!" (I'm paraphrasing a little, but that was the gist of it). Prof. X was always a bit of a control freak, preparing the next generation of mutants to replace him but never letting them do so. Maybe if those kids ever moved out of his basement. Till that time "My house, my rules." |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 20, 2015 7:29:41 GMT -5
Yeah, that's why I thought especially strange in the last issue when Beast was hopping on (literally, of course) the commuter rail in New Haven. This actually continues in the next appearance...  Tales of Suspense #49 by Lee/Ditko/Reinman 'The New Iron Man meet the Angel' Angel is flying in to school, when he sees Iron Man on the ground. He gets all excited, snd swoops down to meet him, when he sees Iron Man coming up to mean him. Apparently, he blundered into a weapons test at Stark Enterprises! The explosion goes off, bathing Angel in radiation, which makes him evil and more powerful He outflies Tony, and goes on to Westchester to quit the X-Men and find some evil mutants. The other X-Men try to stop him, but fail.. he takes out the whole team. So Professor X fixes his brain and all is well. The End Wait, that's what SHOULD have happened. Instead, the Professor demands Angel cut it out, and he flies off. Distraught that his life's work has failed. Professor X uses the super secret superhero radio to call the Avengers for help... they're all busy (including Hulk) accept for Iron Man. Tony does a quick repair job on the armor and goes after Angel, who eludes him again. There's a great scene wher Iron Man throws some magnets to shut a huge hangar door (because, Magnets!), and Angel just swerves a bit and uses the smaller door right next to it... classic! After a long chase, Iron Man runs out of juice, and plummets out of the sky. Seeing a hero falling to his doom snaps Angel back to normal, and he saves him. Feeling better, he goes back to the school. Professor X feels totally vindicated, and he promises Iron Man he owes him a favor. In a GREAT nod to continuity, Iron Man visits the X-Men in Avengers #3, where he asks to cash in that favor in finding the Hulk, but Prof. X is mad he interrupted a training session (Because, you know, they do those so rarely), and blows him off with a 'if I heard anything I'll let you know... back to work, X-Men!' There's also a cool back up about the Sneepers, little green men that watch Earth develop, start to get scared of humans, then laugh it off when it seems clear we'll just destroy ourselves... no intergalactic threat here! LOL! Rating: 2/5 for the main story (Ditko saves it from being a 1), 4/5 for the awesome back up. Notes: -- There's a great text box on the first page that says 'the X-Men appear courtesy of their editor'... I assume he's mocking DC and their many buy outs and mergers. -- I love that there's a super-secret superhero radio frequency! Tony Stark got that up and running really quick! Seems odd there wasn't a panel of Reed or Johnny saying the FF were busy, too, though. Maybe Reed was still mad Tony been him to the punch on the radio. -- Timeline wise, it seems most Marvel Silver age experts place this story just before X-Men 3 (which came out the same month). The fact that Hulk is listed as an Avenger would imply it happened either DURING or just after Avengers #1 (so, earlier).. more like between X-Men #1 and #2... since clearly Professor X wouldn't have the super-secret Superhero radio frequency if it was before X-Men #1. The thought seems to be it's later, and the Hulk thing is either an error, or Ditko just wanted to draw the Hulk. -- Speaking of Ditko, I forgot how Anime his Iron Man is... totally different from anyone else, IMO. He also draws Tony to look much more like Howard Hughes than others do.  |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Mar 20, 2015 9:40:17 GMT -5
X-Men #2 'No one can stop the Vanisher' by Lee/Kirby/Reinman We start with a montage of the Professor calling his students, and they race to comply.. Beast hops a train... Cyclops and Iceman hitch on an Ice Cream Truck, and Marvel Girl and Angel fly. Once there, we're treated to another training session in the Danger Room (named such for the first time). Meanwhile, the Vanisher is showing the world he's completely invincible... he can apparently teleport at will, thus no one can catch him. We see him ask the cops for directs to the bank. They accompany him as he robs it, but disappears before anyone can react. He then goes to Washington, and threatens to steal some top secret missile plans... and does so. Professor X calls the FBI, in the form of agent Duncan (who has a special headband for psychic communication), and a government chopper stops by and picks the X-Men up to take on the Vanisher. They lose, and badly.. the Vanisher teases them some before vanishing with the plans. The display gets the X-Men critized in the papers, and the Vanisher a veritable army of thugs. He demands 10 million dollars to not sell the plans to the communists. When he arrives at the capital with his thug army to collect, the X-Men are there. Professor X destroys his brain, so he forgets he's a mutant, then he meekly goes into custody. We get a few scenes of the team moping up the thugs... the end! Looking at this without taking the future into consideration, the Vanisher was a FAR more effective villain than Magneto, with a goal, a much better defined power, and more logical plan. That costume, though... wow. No cool magnetism effects, but Kirby swaps that over to Jean's power, so we still get some Kirby-ness. The main issue here, IMO, is that why the heck does Professor X need a strike force of teenagers if he can just zap the bad guys brains? And why is that allowed? Rating: 2/5 (good story, but points off for lack of internal logic) Notes: -- While before and after this issue it's presumed the students live on the 'campus' of the school, we instead see them commuting here. Where the heck do they live, and with whom? On their own? That make SO little sense, especially since (Beast, at least) is coming from about an hour away. -- Still not much personality shown by anyone by Iceman. I guess Cyclops as leader, but someone has to do that. -- The Vanisher also refers to 'Homo Superior', so I guess that's just a common phrase, and not something Magneto made up . -- Training happens in the Danger Room this issue, it's first mention. There's not crazy holodeck tech, though, just a bunch of mechanical traps. -- Jean's power is referred to as 'teleportation' rather than telekinesis. It is SAID she can only lift what she could carry, but she easily puts 6 women on a roof of a building (though she feels tired afterwards), holds and lowers Beast, and hangs onto a giant ball in the Danger Room. Clearly, she's going to be as strong as the plot demands. Also, she can sense mutants. -- Cyclops again uses an amazingly intense blast to vaporize debris while somehow causing no collateral damage. I didn't really notice before, but it's implied the power comes from the visor, which is clearly not how it works later. -- So, Professor X can call up the FBI and get a government helicopter via mental chat, but they don't know he's a mutant? either that's the worst kept secret in history, or the government works of 1964 are really, really dumb. -- Some time (perhaps a month) has passed since issue 1, as the X-Men have a small amount of name recognition... either the military allow alot of coverage when a rogue terrorist nearly took over the missile stockpile (unlikely, especially in that time), or they've had some undocumented adventures. Speaking of the Vanisher, I just picked up a copy of Bizarre Adventures #27 last weekend which featured the Vanisher and Nightcrawler in another dimension. Cerebro registers half a mutant (don't know why it would even have a setting for that) and the X-Men rush to find half of the Vanisher stuck in mid-teleport after his appearance in the Champions. Nightcrawler doesn't listen when told not to touch him and their combined teleport powers go wacky. Fun story.
Also, according to Wikipedia, Vanisher's real name is Telford Porter. "Tel Porter" as a name for a teleporter? Someone was being far too cute.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 20, 2015 10:42:26 GMT -5
That's awesome! I had no idea what his real name was!
They really made him a boring character later, but I think that might be more a function of power creep (the MU caught up and surpassed him) than anything else.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Mar 20, 2015 10:59:49 GMT -5
What I never understood was why did he dress like a snake?
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Post by MDG on Mar 20, 2015 12:04:13 GMT -5
The guy with the glasses and beard on the far right looks out of place--like it's Kirby drawing a cameo by a real person.
Also, according to Wikipedia, Vanisher's real name is Telford Porter. "Tel Porter" as a name for a teleporter? Someone was being far too cute.
Very much like what DC was doing at the time--James Jesse, T.O. Morrow, Roy G Bivolo. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 20, 2015 12:24:42 GMT -5
I missed this post in posted the next review, sorry, Spoon! Yes, in the early days (and actually for quite a long time afterward) Professor Xavier could be very brusque at times. In that way, I think Patrick Stewart portrayal of Xavier would be better if he acted a little more like Captain Picard. I think he got wimpier and milquetoast over time. Funny, I always though of Picard as a milquetoast, as you say. I think they were never able to find a consistent portrayal for Xavier... I think as time went on it was clear the team was more interesting without him. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing when exactly it's clear she's Cyclops' girl. I remember in Bendis' All-New, I thought it was odd how strongly he had Beast feel about Jean, but clearly we see that here (and in the 2nd issues as well)... so he was right one with something, anyway. What I didn't like is that Magneto had no reason to retreat. I guess one could say he was surprised at the resistance and wanted to re-group, but he wasn't losing in any way, just not winning as fast as he thought. There was no indication that he should be in a hurry.. in fact, after he flees, the general or whatever comments that the X-Men didn't even use up their 15 minutes he gave them. Most people are 17 when they graduate high school... I was (though I turned 18 just after), as was my wife. I know rules have changed NOW, so that kids start slightly older, so finishing up just after you turn 18 is common, it wasn't in the 60s... if anything, it was the opposite. I think what you imagine is what Stan imagined, he just didn't really realize what those ages mean. Besides, it's not like seniors (or even juniors) in high school would take kindly to being 'youngsters' anyway. See, I like the newer name better... it makes MUCH more sense for the age group portrayed. Funnily enough, the X-men actually attending the school seem to be getting younger now, so that the old name might be more appropriate. That's true... I was thinking that wasn't likely in the 60s, but I guess in a world with Iron Man and Reed Richards, hand controlled gas and brakes isn't too much of a stretch. I think that intense a light would burn stuff without heat.. it more the closeness that bothers me. You could certainly read it more that Magneto's force field was just that powerful... I just didn't. We can disagree on that. And feel free to disagree.. that's the point of such threads, to discuss! As long as people are nice (which you always are), it's all good I didn't catch that about Xavier's age. I suppose just because he parents worked on the A-Bomb project doesn't mean he wasn't born yet.. maybe he was a teenager and sitting in the house listening to the radio while his parents meddled with the fundamental forces of the universe in the basement. I'm sure in the future they just drop that... Magneto is the only one who's origin is really closely tied to that era. Or, heck, maybe he IS in his early 20s.. just because he's bald doesn't mean he's old. Radiation makes your hair fall out, after all. (I'm just being devil's advocate) I know at one point the Professor lost his legs when Cain Marko turned into the Juggernaut, but that may have been a cartoon tie in type comic that doesn't 'count' Great comments, Spoon... glad the thread is sparking so much interest! |
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Glad we made out better here 
