STORY: "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" (23 pages)  Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants conquer the tiny republic of Santo Marco.  The X-Men save the day, and Brotherhood member Quicksilver stops Magneto from blowing up the country with a nuke.

What you need to know:
It's the debut of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Magneto's henchmen and the X-Men's opposite numbers.

The Brotherhood includes two hugely important characters - Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch.  Both of them are played fairly sympathetically.  The angle is that Magneto saved them from a rampaging mob of superstitious European villagers, so they're repaying a debt.  Quicksilver, in particular, turns on Magneto at the end and surreptitiously stops him from destroying Santo Marco.

The mob scene is shown briefly in flashback, giving the first part of what turned out to be very complicated origins for Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.  Both characters were turned into heroes fairly quickly, and went on to long careers as regular characters in Avengers.  Much later, in issue #125, Chris Claremont revealed that Magneto was actually their real father (after an earlier storyline had tried to make them the children of a golden age hero, the Whizzer).  None of that, of course, was in contemplation at this point.

At this stage, Quicksilver's clearly established as a speedster.  The Scarlet Witch's powers are much more vaguely defined; we're told that when she points at something, it "causes a disaster to occur."  Since "disaster" apparently includes "spilling your drink", that has to be interpreted somewhat broadly.

The other two members of the Brotherhood are Mastermind and the Toad, both of whom have appeared regularly over the years as somewhat second-tier villains.  The Toad is a perennial henchman, and the name is pretty much self-explanatory.  Mastermind casts mental illusions; he goes on to be fairly significant in the Dark Phoenix Saga, and then drifted rather aimlessly before being killed off in Uncanny X-Men Annual #17.

Xavier and Magneto have a telepathic conversation for the first time.  Of course, it's decades before Claremont gave them a long history together, but fortunately nothing here really contradicts it.

Xavier claims to have lost his powers as a result of the battle with the Brotherhood.  Next issue, it turns out that he's lying in order to make them go into battle on their own.  Xavier was strangely keen on this sort of thing in the early days.

A more innocent time:
Well, there's a group of villains called The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.  That's about as Silver Age as you can get.  To be fair, though, they don't actually call themselves by that name.  It's just the title of the story.  The name first appears in an actual story in Strange Tales vol 1 #120, where it was a newspaper headline - so perhaps that's where Magneto got the name.  Some later writers have tried to explain it as ironic.

Santo Marco, a South American republic, is inhabited entirely by white Europeans.

Magneto's nuclear bomb has got an old-style fuse.

Comments:
This one features the debut of two very major characters indeed, and so it's guaranteed to be remembered for that alone.  It's also a fun little introduction to the Brotherhood, the X-Men's opposite numbers, who quickly set about squabbling in typical Silver Age Marvel fashion.  Putting Wanda and Pietro on the other team makes them more than just a bunch of raving lunatics (though the other three aren't exactly complex, let's be honest), and Lee and Kirby have plenty of fun with Mastermind's powers.

For some reason Santo Marco always reminds me of Switzerland.  It couldn't be much less hispanic if it tried.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, the Angel, the Beast and Marvel Girl I (all last in Thor Corps #3)

VILLAIN
Magneto (last in issue #1; also in flashback between flashbacks in Avengers vol 1 #47)
The Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff; a mutant with "hex" powers; first appearance; last in X-Men vol 2 #-1; also in flashback between flashbacks in Avengers vol 1 #47)
Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff; a mutant speedster; first appearance; last in X-Men vol 2 #-1; also behind the scenes in flashback between flashbacks in Avengers vol 1 #47)
Mastermind I (Jason Wyngarde; a mutant illusionist; first appearance)
The Toad (Mortimer Toynbee; a mutant with leaping powers; first appearance; last in X-Men Forever #4)
All five teamed as the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

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