FIRST STORY: "The End of the X-Men" (15 pages)  One of Xavier's machines temporarily brings the Juggernaut back to Earth, and the X-Men hold him off until he disappears.  With Professor X dead, the FBI order the X-Men to split up.

What you need to know:
FBI agent Fred Duncan orders the X-Men to split up, giving some very ropey justifications.  They "make far too easy a target for the ever-growing population of evil mutants" and they "can be much more effective if you spread yourselves out across the country."  Mmm.  Nonsense, of course, but that was the planned new direction for the book, so that's what happens.  At least some of the X-Men have the decency to argue that the whole thing's a bad idea.

The Juggernaut was last seen in Defenders #10 when he ended up being dumped in the Crimson Cosmos.  Quite why Xavier's built a machine to bring him back isn't entirely clear, but presumably he was planning to try and rescue him and turn him back into Cain Marko.

Of course, on arriving back on earth, the Juggernaut promptly sets off to kill Professor X, refusing to accept that he's already dead.  Eventually the machine notices that he's out of control, and sends him straight back again.

For some reason, the Juggernaut is firing "globules of sheer energy" in this issue.  It's never mentioned again.  If you want to be charitable, it's something to do with him being in the Crimson Cosmos, and it wore off quickly.  To be fair, at least the X-Men recognise it as something new.

Scott, being Scott, completely fails to offer emotional support to Jean when the team disband.  She starts wondering whether he really cares.

Xavier leaves his estate as a charitable trust and appoints Scott and the other X-Men to run it.

This story has never been reprinted.  Or, to be slightly more accurate, it's never been reprinted in the USA; some of these late-sixties stories may well have turned up in foreign reprints somewhere along the line.  For practical purposes, though, I'm confining myself to Marvel's own reprint books here.  Finding back issues of foreign reprints is virtually impossible anyway.

A more innocent time:
From the "Who says continuity was better in the good old days?" department - Fred Duncan turns up, an editorial footnote reminds us that he was in the back-up strip in issue #39, and they still get his name wrong.  For some reason, he's now called Amos.

On the "Bullpen Bulletins" page, Stan Lee answers criticisms that Marvel is publishing too many titles.  There were 20 that month, of which two were reprint books.  Today, Marvel publishes more than that in X-books alone.

The letters page embarks on a remarkably nitpicky argument about the terminology in issue #43's back-up feature on Cyclops' powers, as the editors defend themselves against Ms Carol Baldwin from the Oceanography Department of the University of Washington.  "We didn't say 'like photosynthesis', we said 'not unlike photosynthesis'!"

Comments:
Yes, well.  We're really getting into the backwaters of X-Men history here - the next few issues are a false start on a new direction, and have understandably been swept under the carpet.  This issue nominally exists to justify the new status quo, but really it's just an irrelevant fight with the Juggernaut followed by Fred Duncan giving some orders at the end of the issue.  And the Juggernaut story is a bit lame - Xavier just happens to have built a machine that brings the Juggernaut to earth on a timer, and he left it switched on when he was terminally ill?  Is he stupid or something?

However, there's a reasonably good bit where the Juggernaut finally realises that Xavier actually is dead, and can't work out what to do next - he ends up flying into a rage because he's been cheated of his revenge, but it would have been an interesting direction to explore.  There's also a very good scene with Xavier's will being read (by Foggy Nelson, naturally, because everyone in the Marvel Universe uses Nelson & Murdock as their lawyers).  Poor old Xavier left his entire estate in trust to the X-Men - he really doesn't have anyone else, and he wasn't all that close to them either...

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Cyclops and Marvel Girl I (both last in Avengers vol 1 #53; both next in issue #48)
The Angel (last in Avengers vol 1 #53; next in his stories in Ka-Zar vol 1 #2-3, then in his story in Marvel Tales #30, then in issue #49)
The Beast (last in Avengers vol 1 #53; next in flashback in Avengers vol 1 #209)
Iceman (last in Avengers vol 1 #53)

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Fred Duncan (last behind the scenes in issue #43; next in the Angel story in Ka-Zar vol 1 #2)

VILLAIN
The Juggernaut (last in Defenders vol 1 #10; next in Dr Strange vol 1 #182)

GUEST APPEARANCE
Foggy Nelson (between Daredevil vol 1 #41-42)

SECOND STORY: "And Then There Were Two" (5 pages)  Xavier saves Scott and Bobby from a lynch mob, and Bobby joins the school.

What you need to know:
Xavier wipes everyone's memory of the story, and also erases Bobby's parents' memories of his powers.  He was very keen on this sort of thing in his earlier years.

The story was reprinted as a back-up strip in Amazing Adventures vol 3 #9 back in 1980, but otherwise it's been out of print since then.

Comments:
Bit of a non-story, really.  They escape the anti-mutant lynch mob and they all go home.  Technically it fulfils the requirements of being an origin story, but you'd be hard pressed to identify the point, if indeed it has one.  In fairness, the lynch mob was a much fresher (and perhaps more topical) concept at this point.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X (last in the "Origins of the X-Men" story in issue #44), Cyclops and Bobby Drake (all next in the "Origins of the X-Men" story in issue #55)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
William Drake and Madeline Drake (both last in the "Origins of the X-Men" story in issue #44; both next in Defenders vol 1 #127)

Written: 3 January 2005

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