FIRST STORY: "City of Mutants" (15 pages)  Mesmero activates Lorna's powers, and proclaims her Magneto's heir.  She sides with the X-Men, but then the supposedly-dead Magneto appears.

What you need to know:
The Silver Age logo is finally abandoned, in favour of the classic tilted X-Men logo which remained in use for decades and continued to inspire later versions of the logo.  It's a Jim Steranko design, and a very good one too.

Lorna's powers are activated and she becomes an ally of the X-Men.  (She doesn't get the codename Polaris until 1976.)

Magneto turns up alive and well, which is rendered meaningless when he's revealed to be a robot in issue #58.

This story was finally brought back into print in 2002 as part of the Marvel Visionaries: Jim Steranko trade paperback.  That book is also out of print now, but it's not too hard to find a copy.  The catch is that, in a typically bizarre publishing decision, it only reprints issues #50-51 - the middle two chapters of a four part storyline.  Granted, Steranko didn't draw the other two issues, but it's still an odd thing to reprint in isolation.

A more innocent time:
Great line: "To complete the disguise, wear a slight funereal smile as we leave, my friends.  There are no unsmiling undertakers!"

A man from Berkeley writes in to complain about the negative portrayal of hippies in issue #47.  He's a nice law-abiding hippy with his own business, and feels that Marvel is underrating the hippy community's contribution to experimental music and poster art. 

Comments:
The story itself is pretty straightforward, and full of horribly melodramatic dialogue.  ("I can feel his aura of unspeakable evil!")  But nobody reads issue #50 for the story.  They read it because it's got fill-in art by Jim Steranko, who was on the cutting edge at the time, and still looks great today. 

This is far from his most memorable work - after all, it's a fill-in issue.  But in contrast to everything that came before, it's an obvious break point where the book moves away from the Marvel house style.  Steranko's page layouts and stylised backgrounds have a design sense unlike anything we've seen up till now, and some of the splash pages in this issue are fabulous, notably the double-page spread of Mesmero arriving back at his mutant city.

Of course, if you're really into Jim Steranko comics, this isn't going to be your first port of call; he's done much more influential stuff than this.  But it's a breath of fresh air at this point in the X-Men's history.

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

SUPPORTING CHARACTER
Lorna Dane

VILLAINS
Mesmero and the Demi-Men
Starr Saxon (behind the scenes)

SECOND STORY: "This Boy, this Bombshell" (5 pages)  Hank joins the college football team and helps stop some thieves.  His antics attract the attention of the villainous El Conquistador, who plans to use him to conquer the world.

What you need to know:
Hank's unnamed girlfriend from this story was later named as Jennifer Nyles.  A Beast story based around her appears in Marvel Comics Presents #85-92.

El Conquistador and his sidekick Chico debut in the final panel.  They're the main villains for this arc, and not surprisingly, they were never seen again afterwards.

A partial reprint of this story is incorporated into Amazing Adventures vol 2 #17, but the full thing has never been reprinted.

A more innocent time:
The villains who try to rob the box office at Hank's football match are wearing three-piece suits, hats, and masks.  They're like Kirby bystanders who could only afford one costume item and made do.

Comments:
It's Hank beating up some no-name villains.  Perfectly okay for what it is.

FEATURE CHARACTER
Hank McCoy (this story interweaves with Uncanny Origins #6, his origin flashback in issue #15, his childhood flashbacks in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10, and several flashbacks in his story in Marvel Comics Presents #86; see his back story page for a full break down)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Norton McCoy and Edna McCoy (both last in flashback in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10; during this story, they also appear in Uncanny Origins #6, the Beast's origin flashback in issue #15, his childhood flashbacks in X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #10, and flashbacks in the Beast story in Marvel Comics Presents #86; see the Beast's back story page for details of how those flashbacks interrelate)

VILLAINS
El Conquistador (real name unrevealed) and Chico (his sidekick; first appearance for both)

OTHER CHARACTERS
Bob McCoy (no further appearances)
Jennifer Nyles (first appearance; Hank's girlfriend; she is not named until the Beast story in Marvel Comics Presents #85; appears between pages in flashback in the Beast story in Marvel Comics Presents #86; next behind the scenes in flashback in the Beast story in Marvel Comics Presents #85)

Written: 3 January 2005

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