STORY: "The Torch is Passed" (15 pages)  After Professor X's funeral, the remaining X-Men attack Magneto's island base - and get themselves captured.

What you need to know:
This storyline picks up from Avengers vol 1 #47-49 (December 1967 to February 1968).  In those issues, Magneto and the Toad finally escaped the Stranger's prison planet and returned to earth.  Magneto then kidnapped Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to try and recruit them back into his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.  Naturally enough they wanted nothing to do with it, so Magneto announces a brand new plan to set up his mid-Atlantic island base as a refuge for mutants to escape persecution.  At this point, Quicksilver starts to become interested. 

Magneto then drags them all off to the UN, where he demands a separate nation for mutants, and a fight breaks out.  Thanks to Magneto's manipulation, the Scarlet Witch is grazed by a bullet, which is apparently some sort of dreadful, monumental injury.  Quicksilver becomes increasingly convinced that the separate nation is a good idea, and he and the Scarlet Witch return with Magneto to his headquarters, partly so that Magneto can try and heal her injuries.  Got all that?  Good.  Now, let's move on to this issue...

A "pre-recorded message" from Professor X reveals that Marvel Girl has now got telepathic powers.  For continuity purposes, this is presumably the real one, trying to cover up now that the whole Changeling thing has gone horribly wrong.  (Later stories - primarily Bizarre Adventures #27 - also establish that Jean always had telepathy, but Xavier had shut it down until now, because she couldn't control it.  All he's done is to remove the blocks.)

The X-Men hold a funeral for "Professor X" - and nobody else shows up.  To be fair, we're told that Fred Duncan couldn't come because it would have exposed his connections with the X-Men, and the Banshee couldn't be contacted because he was off on a mission.  Otherwise, apparently, Professor X has no mates.

Quicksilver turns up at the funeral, hangs around a bit, and runs away with the X-Men try to talk to him.

The reunited Brotherhood is a bit useless.  Quicksilver isn't sure he wants to be there, the Scarlet Witch is wandering around in a daze, and the Toad... is the Toad.  Magneto would probably be better off without them, to be honest.  This time round, his big plan is to use a machine to control everyone's minds, and conquer the world.

At time of writing (December 2004), Silver Age reprints only run up as far as issue #42.  And that's if you're prepared to shell out for the Marvel Masterworks editions.   Many thanks to Ann Nichols for providing copies of the out-of-print Silver Age stories, without which there would be a big gap in the index at this point.  This story was reprinted in issue #91 (December 1974), but it hasn't been seen since then.

A more innocent time:
For some reason, the X-Men turn up to Xavier's funeral wearing their costumes under raincoats.  Luckily, it's raining, so they don't look as stupid as they otherwise might have.

Before there was the Internet, there was the letters page, in which you could enjoy reader comments on stories from four months earlier.  This issue, Charles Bewersdorf of Phoenix, Arizona is outraged by the new costumes from issue #39: "I thought Marvel stood for superior artwork and stories aimed at a mature reader.  If one is incapable of perceiving each X-Man's individuality unless each wears a totally different costume, one is not mature enough for a quality mag."

Comments:
Issues #43-45 are effectively a crossover with Avengers, although it only becomes explicit with issue #45 when the Avengers actually show up.  Of course, this tie-in with a more popular title was another attempt to boost sales.  But at least it was a fairly organic match - Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were both members of the Avengers, providing both titles with a link to Magneto.

Moreover, both books were written by Roy Thomas.  Except Thomas left X-Men during this story, in what looks suspiciously like a last-minute decision - new writer Gary Friedrich takes over in midstream, scripting issue #44 over Thomas' plot.

Nonetheless, issues #43-45 are a pretty good arc - the Brotherhood have some entertaining inter-team feuding, and there's a fun if silly fight scene with the X-Men (who get captured when they're hit by a battering ram, complete with giant ram's head).  But it's Quicksilver's role that really makes the story, and raises it above the norm. 

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (on videotape; last in flashback in X-Men: The Hidden Years #8; next behind the scenes in issue #59)
Cyclops, the Angel, the Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl I

GUEST STARS
Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (both last in Avengers vol 1 #49)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
The Changeling (his corpse is behind the scenes at the funeral; possibly next in Excalibur: The Possession)
The Banshee (behind the scenes between issues #39 and #58)
Fred Duncan (behind the scenes between issues #2 and #46)

VILLAINS
Magneto and the Toad (both last in Avengers vol 1 #49)

OTHER CHARACTERS
Reverend Brown (first and only appearance)

FEATURE: "Call Him Cyclops" (5 pages)  A guide to Cyclops' powers.

What you need to know:
Strictly speaking, this feature actually does establish two things.  First, Cyclops' optic beam is solar-powered.  This is almost totally irrelevant to Cyclops, but by analogy, it ended up being a plot point for his brother Havok in some early stories.

Secondly, it finally explains why Cyclops no longer operates his visor manually every time he fires an optic beam - there are controls in his gloves.  (These days, the official line is that the visor is controlled mentally, but that would have been way too sci-fi in 1968.)

This feature was reprinted in Giant-Size X-Men #1.  It also appears in some of the later commemorative reprints of that issue, which is probably the easiest place to find it.  It also appears as a back-up strip in 1980's Amazing Adventures vol 3 #6.

Comments:
More entertaining than it really ought to be, considering that it's five pages about a guy whose only power is to fire an energy beam.  If you like mock-detailed exposition on this sort of subject, then it's quite good fun.

Written: 4 December 2004

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