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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 28, 2015 23:04:05 GMT -5
 X-Men #9 Lee/Kirby/Stone 'Enter: The Avengers' Plot: The X-Men are heading to Europe to meet up with the Professor... on the way, Cyclops blasts an iceberg.. no training montage! Once they arrive, the Professor tells them he's hunting Lucifer (who is just a guy in a mask, even though the cover makes him look like an alien), and tells them to stay put and wait. He's then captured, but escapes briefly and tries to shoot him.. telling us that Lucifer is the one responsible for his losing the use of his legs. Lucifer has a giant Kirby Bomb rigged with a dead man switch, though, so Xavier is stymied! Meanwhile, The Avengers arrive on the scene.. following Thor's hammer, which sensed.. something. Xavier tells the X-Men to stall them (without explaining anything), and we have a short, indecisive fight, which ends when the Avengers decide the X-Men can handle things and leave. Professor X then remembers his has psychic powers and uses them to do something to Lucifer's brain, then calls his team for back up.. he has Cyclops blast the fuse of the bomb while Lucifer is unconscious, then lets him go. The End! Rating 1/5.. Ugh! Totally nonsensical story where nothing happens, and somehow the art isn't even that good! -- I think the only scene I liked was the tourist.. this guy in a convertible pulls up to where the Avengers are standing around.. and you can SEE the X-Men standing in the background down the road. The Avengers harass him until he leaves. Then, he runs into the X-Men 'a few minutes later'.. so he must have been driving about 5 miles an hour. He tells the X-Men about the scary bad guys, and then flips out when Angel rips off his costume to scout. -- This is one of the worst random superguy fights I've scene.... there was no reason in the world Cyclops could have just told the Avengers there was a bomb with a dead man switch, but Professor X was handling it. Instead, the Prof. insists on pointless secrecy, and we get a fight. -- The fight itself was pretty phoned it.. with just a couple montage panels.. kinda a cool layout, but more for a poster than story telling. Also, they did the 'token girls clash' thing, and somehow had Angel trying to fight Thor (though when he tried to pick up the hammer it was pretty hilarious. -- This is back when the Avengers had rotating leaders, and as the leave the scene Iron Man gets mad at Thor because his time as leader is up.. in the field, 5 minutes after a major fight... smooth move, Tony. -- It's never clear why Lucifer has a giant bomb, or, more importantly, why the X-Men just let him leave. He goes on to get defeated by less and less powerful foes (first the X-Men, then Iron Man, later Falcon), until he sits in limbo for a while.. popping up here and there. -- No mention at all of Magneto and the Brotherhood.. they were missed. -- Didn't they retcon the loss of legs thing to involve Juggernaut? -- Most importantly, why the heck is Professor X using a gun? He used his powers on him eventually.. why didn't he start with that? There's no explanation, and it makes no sense whatsover... and he's willing to kill purely out of revenge  |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 30, 2015 10:37:45 GMT -5
Just a couple notes of interest:
-- According to SuperMegaMonkey's Marvel Chronolgy project, X-Men #9 is the first time we hear 'Avengers Assemble!'....assuming that's correct, that's kinda crazy that it's not in the Avengers book.
-- I won't be reviewing FF 35-36 and Annual #3, since they're just cameos... Scott and Prof. X have a 1 panel cameo in #35 (looking for Mutants), and the whole team appears at both Reed and Sue's Engagement party and their wedding. I found it interesting to note a couple things:
The Professor tries to deny his attachment to the X-Men, yet shows up wherever they are? Just one more sily Silver Age secret that doesn't make sense, I guess.
I found it odd and intriguing that it's Angel that's most prominent in the fight scenes at the wedding.. I guess because he can fly? Clearly, he's the least powerful by a wide stretch, so it seemed weird to me.. more about the visual, I guess.
Also, any opinions on tossing in the Untold Tales of Spidey issues the X-Men are in? #21 is essentially a X-Men team up that takes places somewhere around this time, and they probably appear in the annual that's one of those huge fight types.
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Post by Farrar on Apr 30, 2015 11:08:57 GMT -5
... -- According to SuperMegaMonkey's Marvel Chronolgy project, X-Men #9 is the first time we hear 'Avengers Assemble!'....assuming that's correct, that's kinda crazy that it's not in the Avengers book. Actually the first utterance ("Avengers, assemble!") is in Avengers #10, which preceded X-Men #9 by a couple of months.  The second time it's used is in this X-Men issue. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 30, 2015 11:16:17 GMT -5
I thought that was kinda odd, but I also knew someone here would know for sure |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 9, 2015 22:43:04 GMT -5
X-Men: First Class #1
Parker/Cruz/Smith
'X-Men 101'
The X-Men fight a plant monster... then the go home...the Professor had thought it might be a mutant, but he was wrong. The thought patterns or whatever they track follows them home, and the fight a bunch of birds acting as a swarm... finally they figure out it's some crazy Lovecraftian monster that's home is being drilled for oil(or maybe something else... it's not clear. The Professor uses his jedi mind tricks to get them to stop so the monster can live peacefully. The End
Pretty basic.. but the cool part is the story is narrated by Bobby Drake, in the form of a letter home to his parents. The fights are interwoven with some class room scenes, where, rather than the Kirby Training Montage(TM), we see the X-Men actually in class doing classwork. There's a particularly cool scene where Angel gets frustrated and flies off (which they imply happens alot), but the Professor just continues to lecture, since he can. He talks about being a role model, and how Warren would have been worshipped, or burned, in the middle ages... very cool.
Bobby's comments about Jean... 'I wish she had a younger sister', are really great, too. Overall, the action bits were pretty blah, but great character moments that fit in just fine with the time they're supposed to be in.
Continuity:
So, clearly, there's no point in talking about the overall setting... the book isn't trying to be from the 60s, but rather in 'modern' times. Actually, I think it's a bit TOO modern.. Bobby mentions an X-Box (which came out in 2001)... thus implying that the Marvel Universe started just 6 years before this comic was written in 2007. Cerebro is very modern looking (in fact, is draw just like it is in the 90s cartoon).. that stuff I'm just going to pretty much gloss over, since it's just Marvel's sliding time.
I'd put the story sometime between X-Men 6 and 7.. Bobby isn't all frosty, (that change happens in issue 7), but he is sorta bumpy, so perhaps he's still working on the more streamlined form. Also, we see an alternate version of the Prof. telling Cyclops he's the leader (which Bobby overhears). In #7, that speech happens to the whole team, and Cyke acts surprised..one could call this a deliberate addition (perhaps a conversation that happened before), but I suspect it's just a mistake, or Parker taking something else from the 90s cartoon. It also felt like some time passed between 6 and 7.. so there certainly could have been some adventures in there.
There are two big goofs as far as accuracy goes, though. First, Cyclops has Ruby Quartz glasses throughout... those haven't been introduced yet... we're only had vague implications of Cyclops' lack of control, and we always see him in sunglasses, but not special ones. Secondly, Jean tries to telepathic talk to and/or influence the plant monster... WAY before she had any telepathy... at this point, she's just telekinetic. Also, Bobby says she's the most powerful.. .that certainly doesn't happen until far later, too. She is, in fact, shown her as WAY more powerful than in the original, but that's something of an X-Men tradition.. the gaff is really saying she's more powerful than Cyclops. I guess that's 3 goofs.
Rating: 4/5
Historical Accuracy: 2/5
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 13, 2015 22:12:44 GMT -5
 X-Men #10 'The Coming of Ka-Zar' Lee/Kirby/Stone Plot: The usual Training montage and romantic angst is interrupted by a news cast of a Sabertooth Tiger ramaging through an antarctic Expedition. The team, thinking a mutant might be involved, rush to tell Professor X about it. He's sure there's no mutant, since he didn't sense anything, but lets them go anyway since they have had any missions 'for several weeks' The go to Antarctica, find the secret passage to the Savage Land, and stroll on in. The dinosaurs don't give them any trouble, but 'swamp men' do... they have bolos with exploding vocanic gas in them, which apparently knocks one out instantly. Ka-Zar has to save them, but not before Jean gets captured. We do a brief fight before the team up, then it's off to save Jean. Angel gets caught scouting, but luckily Ka-Zar is the lord of this here jungle, and with a herd of Wooly Mammoths dispatches the bad guys and saves the day. The End! Kinda by the numbers... it sorta felt like a fill in, to be honest. Then there's making the X-Men 2nd fiddle to Ka-Zar in their own book...but I love me some Jungle Kirby, so B+ for this one (mostly on art) Notes: -- I suspect by 1965 Jerry Lewis was far from hip, and not someone teenagers would reference... another instance of Lee being a bit out of touch with his audience (though certainly not nearly to Teen Titans levels) -- Interesting that the Professor is so sure, when we see him (with Scott) scouring in person for a mutant in FF#35... also, that's clearly a mission, so either that happened RIGHT after X-Men 9, or (most likely) they just didn't think about it. -- Jean's powers continue to be wildly inconsistent... she tips over a dinosaur this time, with little struggle, just a 'oh, he's heavy' comment. -- Funny who Cyclops uses his power beam to untie Jean, instead of just untying her...whas that showing off the control of his power? Or just not thinking? Not very leader-like, either way. -- Loved Angel whining that Scott was happier to save Jean. -- Ka-Zar here is very different from later... he even does Tarzan-speak. -- The same with the Savage Land... it's underground here (ala the Lost World), rather than a freak island. -- Ka-Zar completely blocks the passageway so no one can return, but yet the next issue box teases his return 'in the months to come'. I wonder if Stan already had a plan at this point, or if he was just blowing smoke. |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 13, 2015 22:54:50 GMT -5
Notes: -- I suspect by 1965 Jerry Lewis was far from hip, and not someone teenagers would reference... another instance of Lee being a bit out of touch with his audience (though certainly not nearly to Teen Titans levels). The Nutty Professor, one of Jerry Lewis's biggest hits, was only two years old in 1965. His popularity was waning a bit by 1965, but I think 17- and 18-year-olds would remember movies like The Patsy and The Bellboy.
The Day the Clown Cried wasn't until 1970. (It trips me out that Harriet Andersson was his co-star in that.)
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2015 23:13:55 GMT -5
Notes: -- I suspect by 1965 Jerry Lewis was far from hip, and not someone teenagers would reference... another instance of Lee being a bit out of touch with his audience (though certainly not nearly to Teen Titans levels). The Nutty Professor, one of Jerry Lewis's biggest hits, was only two years old in 1965. His popularity was waning a bit by 1965, but I think 17- and 18-year-olds would remember movies like The Patsy and The Bellboy.
The Day the Clown Cried wasn't until 1970. (It trips me out that Harriet Andersson was his co-star in that.)
I just loved the Nutty Professor - it's a laugh riot of a film of him back in 1963. I was 4 years old when this movie came out and I watch it for the 1st time when I was 11 years old with my older brothers and we all had fun watching this movie. Jerry Lewis and Stella Stevens were great. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 14, 2015 7:15:05 GMT -5
OK, I guess I stand corrected . I really only know Jerry Lewis from the MDA telethons... I've never seen him in a movie... before my time  |
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Post by Cei-U! on May 14, 2015 7:43:31 GMT -5
Remember, too, that DC's Jerry Lewis comic was still going strong at the time X-Men #9 was published (and, in fact, outlived the original run of X-Men by over a year).
Cei-U!
I summon the niiiice laaaaaadeeeeeeee!
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 14, 2015 12:55:16 GMT -5
Wow, I knew that a Jerry Lewis comic existed, but I had no idea it had run for so long!
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Post by Farrar on May 14, 2015 14:12:03 GMT -5
Yeah, that series lasted so long even the mod Wonder Woman (whose adventures you've discussed not too long ago in another thread) made an appearance   |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 14, 2015 23:26:53 GMT -5
Yeah, that series lasted so long even the mod Wonder Woman (whose adventures you've discussed not too long ago in another thread) made an appearance This should have been posted in the Silver Age or Bronze Age cover contest! Geez Louise! Look at that cover! I don't know what's more dumbfounding - the giant safety pin or Diana's footwear! (Why isn't he saying "HEY LADEE!" |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 15, 2015 4:51:10 GMT -5
Hey, wait a second, if he crossed over with Wonder Woman, does that mean there's a DC earth where Jerry Lewis.. a hero or whatever he is in that book?
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Post by Cei-U! on May 15, 2015 7:51:49 GMT -5
Hey, wait a second, if he crossed over with Wonder Woman, does that mean there's a DC earth where Jerry Lewis.. a hero or whatever he is in that book? The comic book Jerry lives on Earth-12, the same world inhabited by the Inferior Five, Angel and the Ape, Bob Hope, Binky and other non-funny animal humor characters(though that was only established years later). He isn't a hero there (or a professional comedian, for that matter) but he does interact with them occasionally. The Earth-12 Superman, Batman, Robin and Flash all appear in issues of Adventures of Jerry Lewis. Wonder Woman was the last DC super-hero to guest star. Cei-U! I summon the amusing alternate Earth! |
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The second time it's used is in this X-Men issue. 
