STORY: "Divided We Fall" (20 pages)  Count Nefaria's henchmen abduct the X-Men.  Nefaria announces his intention to steal Washington DC (yes, all of it), and tells the X-Men that they will be collecting the ransom.

What you need to know:
Roy Thomas starts to turn his attention to the soap opera subplots.  We're reminded again of the Scott/Jean/Warren triangle, as Jean insists on dragging Scott along for dinner with them, much to Warren's irritation and Scott's embarrassment.

Xavier is angsting about his inability to walk.  (Oddly enough, Xavier's angst is actually heading somewhere - but we'll come back to that shortly.)

A more innocent time:
Xavier angsts about his wheelchair: "They can walk in the sunshine, feel the wind striking their faces, while I am confined to this wheelchair - a hopeless cripple!"  He does realise that the chair can go outside, right?

Once again, teenagers Bobby and Hank go to Greenwich Village in suits.  Warren, Jean and Scott are similarly overdressed, but at least they have the excuse that they're going to an uptown restaurant.  (Although that's no excuse for Scott's bow tie.)

Hank is still confused by these strange modern hairstyles, and apparently can't tell the difference between Vera and a man in a suit with vaguely similar hair.  If I was Vera, I think I'd be offended.

The caption on the cover says: "Gangway!  Here comes a startling stampede of yesteryear's most sensational super-villains!"  Yes, it's only 1966, and Marvel already has a "yesteryear."

Comments:
This is a story which has been pointed to as an example of what happens when you let fans write comics.  They dredge up six largely unrelated villains, shove them together in a somewhat arbitrary team, and send them to fight the X-Men.  The list of villains in this issue is truly bizarre - Count Nefaria?  The Porcupine?  Even by the standards of the X-Men's mid-Silver Age period, they're slumming it with these guys.

The token aspect that makes this an X-Men story is that Nefaria's plan hinges on the public not trusting the X-Men.  But really, it's an excuse to have the X-Men fight a bunch of minor villains.  Competent enough for what it is, but nothing particularly memorable.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl I

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Vera Cantor and Zelda (both between issues #19 and #27)

VILLAINS
Count Nefaria (last in flashback in Iron Man vol 1 #8)
The Nefaria Family of the Maggia (last in Avengers vol 1 #13)
The Eel I, the Scarecrow I, the Unicorn I (all last in Fantastic Four Annual #3), the Plantman and the Porcupine (both last in Strange Tales vol 1 #121)

Written: 22 September 2004

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