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Uncanny X-Men, Part 25: The Proteus Saga and My First Comics!

Uncanny X-Men, Part 25: The Proteus Saga and My First Comics!

Welcome to the 25th installment of my reread of The Uncanny X-Men from 1963’s issue #1. We’re now in 1979 and this post will cover issues #125-#128. This is a really memorable run for me for a few of reasons.

First of all, it’s an amazing 4-issue story with huge stakes and high drama, and an example of the Claremont-Byrne team entering their creative peak.

Second, in these 4 issues, some really messed up stuff starts to be revealed about the psychological manipulation of Phoenix that puts the whole series and Marvel history on a collision course with the Dark Phoenix Saga.

Third, issue #128 was one of the first four comics my mom gave me after she came back from a trip, and I remember reading it with a sense of wonder and confusion as I learned by myself how to read comics. I very shortly ended up trading parts of my fledgeling collection to a friend in return first for issue #125, and then finally issues #126 and #127 (and #137!). So my inexperience with the form as well as the non-linear way in which I absorbed the story are indelible parts of my view of what later became known as the Proteus saga.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 17 – 1976: Sentinels in Space and the Rise of Phoenix!

Uncanny X-Men, Part 17 – 1976: Sentinels in Space and the Rise of Phoenix!

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Welcome to part 17 of my quixotic reread of the Uncanny X-Men, beginning in 1963. I’m seeing how far I can go. Issues #97 to #101 are special for me because they loom large in my personal experience of collecting the backstory. This post covers a special period for X-Men and Marvel history too.

The introduction of Phoenix as the new incarnation of original x-man Jean Grey was a gigantic development, with impacts on the Marvel Universe that continue to play out in comics in 2020. An argument could be made that the creation of Phoenix was as significant an event as the creation of characters like Wolverine or the Silver Surfer. Each character opened up new kinds of stories to be told in the Marvel Universe.

Issue #97 (February, 1976) was created by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum with Sam Grainger on inks, whom I personally find too rough to catch the finesse of Cockrum’s pencils. The issue opens with alien space ships and a huge space opera battle.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 16: Enter Wein, Claremont and Cockrum in 1975

Uncanny X-Men, Part 16: Enter Wein, Claremont and Cockrum in 1975

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Welcome to the 16th installment of my reread of the X-Men, starting from issue #1 in 1963!

Today’s post is kind of a big deal, because Giant-Size X-Men #1 is the launch pad for the modern X-Men. This of course leads to the gigantic sales success in the early 90s, the cartoons, the movies and everything. In essence, after a five-year absence of new X-Men stories, Giant-Size X-Men #1 adds to the X-pantheon three previously-created, but little-known mutants (Sunfire, Wolverine and Banshee) and four brand new ones (Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus and Thunderbird).

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 12: X-Men Guest Appearances in 1971-1972 and Hank gets Furry!

Uncanny X-Men, Part 12: X-Men Guest Appearances in 1971-1972 and Hank gets Furry!

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We’re back in the Bronze Age, baby! We left the original X-Men in John’s Byrne’s X-Men: The Hidden Years and in this 12th installment in my reread of all the X-Men, we’re now into the guest appearances our merry mutants made in the dark period between 1970 and 1975 when they weren’t being published regularly.

I want to go over The Amazing Spider-Man #92 (guest-starring Iceman), The Incredible Hulk #150 (guest-starring Havok and Polaris), Marvel-Team-Up #4 (featuring Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel and Professor X), Amazing Adventures #9-10 (starring the Inhumans against Magneto), and finally Amazing Adventures #11, the most significant issue discussed today, because of permanent character changes to Hank McCoy.

I slagged a bit on The Hidden Years in my last post because it was a comic of the year 2000 with a 1980s writerly sensibility. We’re diving back 20 years now, where the action was more slap-dash and energetic, the dialogue more over the top, and the social-political positions both surprisingly advanced and backwards for the time.

The Amazing Spider-Man #92 is a quick single-issue story with pencils by Gil Kane, inks by John Romita Sr, and writing by Stan Lee. The webslinger finds Gwen Stacey and Sam Bullit, a secret criminal boss running for New York D.A. against Foggy Nelson.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 11: Storm, the FF and Phoenix in John Byrne’s The Hidden Years

Uncanny X-Men, Part 11: Storm, the FF and Phoenix in John Byrne’s The Hidden Years

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Welcome to my 11th installment of my epic rereading of the X-Men, starting in 1963. I say that like it’s a big thing I’ve done, but to put things in perspective, I’ve done 10 posts before this and I haven’t even gotten to Giant-Sized X-Men #1 yet! Partly for that reason and partly because there are some swings and some misses in X-Men: The Hidden Years, and I really want to get back to the Bronze Age appearances of the X-Men.

Let me start with some of the negatives with X-Men: The Hidden Years. I don’t start here to scare anyone off. I think the things that don’t work are generalized problems with this series and are also certainly not fatal. X-Men: The Hidden Years was in fact selling well and was only cancelled at 22 issues because Marvel saw it had too many X-Men books at the same time and needed to cut one.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 9: Filling in the Corners of the Original X-Men with Savage Hulk #1-4

Uncanny X-Men, Part 9: Filling in the Corners of the Original X-Men with Savage Hulk #1-4

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Welcome to the 9th episode of my reread of the vast X-Men story that began in 1963. The X-Men series stopped putting out original stories in early 1970, due primarily to low sales; it was a reprint magazine from issues #67–93, cover dated December 1970 to April 1975, until the beginning of the Claremont and Cockrum run in issue #94.

I’m going to go through their early Bronze Age appearances in coming blog posts, but for story continuity purposes, I’m also reading issues created in contemporary times but fitting into that 5-year dead period, like I covered for the original X-Men in X-Men: First Class.

So this time I read the 2014 series Savage Hulk, by writer/penciller Alan Davis, inker Mark Farmer and colorist Matt Hollingsworth. 

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Uncanny X-Men Part 8, Issues 59-66: The Savage Land and the End of the Silver Age X-Men

Uncanny X-Men Part 8, Issues 59-66: The Savage Land and the End of the Silver Age X-Men

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This is a gigantic milestone! This is the 8th episode in my reread of the X-Men run. It covers from #59, the height of the Roy Thomas-Neal Adams run, to #66, the end of original X-Men stories, which hit the stands on March 10th, 1970. The end of the X-Men’s ongoing stories coincides with the end of the Silver Age and the beginning of the Bronze.

The Silver Age X-Men, as a distinctly 1960s phenomenon reached their peak with some of the Arnold Drake stories with some interesting experimentation under Steranko’s art. The arrival of Neal Adams feels much more like it belongs in the Bronze Age. Both the art and the story complexity (under Roy Thomas) feels like it’s breaking creative ground that the best of the 1970s will follow.

The merry mutants’ uneven momentum had carried them for 7 years, but even a spectacular finish couldn’t save the series from its failure to come into focus. We’re going to talk today about that end.

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Uncanny X-Men: Part 7, Issues #54-58 – Havok and Neal Adams

Uncanny X-Men: Part 7, Issues #54-58 – Havok and Neal Adams

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I was super-tempted to pause my blogging about my X-Men reread to complain about my reread of another classic, but I opted for the high road and am glad I did, because this was a fun post to think through. And, for those of you still with me, we’re almost at the end of the original X-Men! So pull up a chair for the 7th installment of my reread of the X-Men.

In this post, I want to look at issues #54-58 (March, 1969 – July, 1969), a run that contains two major Silver Age milestones. The first is the introduction of Alex Summer, the mutant brother of Scott Summers. Alex will eventually join the X-Men as their 7th member. The second is equally exciting – the beginning of Neal Adams’ brief but spectacular run. The team-up of Roy Thomas and Neal Adams marks the beginning of the zenith of the original team, outshining the Kirby-Lee issues and sitting comfortably at the same table as many of the great Claremont-Byrne stories.

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