STORY: "Do or Die, Baby" (20 pages)  The remaining X-Men storm the Sentinel base and free everyone.  The Sentinels are tricked into leaving Earth in a futile attempt to prevent further mutation by extinguishing the Sun.

What you need to know:
Chris Claremont gets his first credit on the book, for a plot assist - apparently he came up with the "extinguish the sun" idea.

Added to the captive list: Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, the Toad, the Blob, Mastermind and Unus.  Vanisher must get captured somewhere along the line as well, because he's there next issue when everyone gets released.

The Sentinels, being dumb as posts, end the story by flying off to try and get rid of the Sun.  Of course, even the Sentinels give up in the end, and they eventually return in Avengers #102.

When the X-Men try to enter the Sentinel base from the north, they're helped by a mysterious false alarm which sends the Sentinels in the other direction.  Nobody in this story seems to have a clue what caused it, and no explanation was ever given.  It's flagged up in the dialogue, so it was certainly an intentional plot point.  (Assuming it wasn't going to be a completely new character, the only logical choices were Magneto and the Changeling.  But Magneto's off in the Savage Land, as we find out in a couple of issues, while issue #65 makes the Changeling retroactively dead, by revealing him as the late Professor X.)

Robert Chalmers reveals all the backstory about how the medallion suppresses Larry's powers.  See issue #57 for the details.

Havok is back to panicking about his uncontrollable powers again.  He ends up bringing down a tunnel on top of him, which leads the X-Men to phone one of Professor X's old colleagues for help.  Next issue clarifies that they can't simply take him to a hospital because until Chalmers officially pulls the plug on the government's anti-mutant crusade, they're outlaws.

Unfortunately, the X-Men choose to call Karl Lykos, who makes his first appearance here and becomes long-running B-list villain Sauron next issue.  More of him later, though.

The story is reprinted in X-Men Visionaries: Neal Adams. An edited version appears in Giant-Size X-Men #2, and it's also been split into two halves and spread across X-Men Classics #1-2.

A more innocent time:
Oh, come on - it's called "Do or Die, Baby".

It's also a "dumb, over-literal robot" story, which very much plays to late-sixties ideas about artificial intelligence.  See Comments for more on this.

For some reason, almost every display screen in this story is showing op art designs.

Comments:
This is the sort of robots-gone-mad story that people don't really do any more, perhaps because it depends on the robots being a little bit over-literal and stupid, and no longer matches our ideas of how hi-tech computer minds might work.

The Sentinels may be logical, but they're evidently not all that bright.  Once they realise that Larry's a mutant, they stop taking his orders - but they keep obeying the orders he gave them when they thought he was human.  It doesn't seem to occur to them that those orders are tainted as well.  Nor does it occur to them that flying off to put out the sun is a complete waste of time.

These aren't flaws, as such.  On the contrary, the Sentinels are deliberately stupid.  That's the story.  They're starting from an insane premise, and however logically they go about it, they're still going to end up doing something mad.  And of course, it's also a heavy-handed cautionary tale about Larry realising that the people he hates are actually just like him.  It's not what you'd call subtle, and the treatment of the Sentinels in particular is very much a product of the times.  But on its own terms, it's an undoubted success - and the art is spectacular.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Cyclops, the Beast, Marvel Girl I, the Angel and Iceman (the latter two behind the scenes)

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Havok
Lorna Dane and the Banshee (both behind the scenes)

VILLAINS
Larry Trask and Robert Chalmers
Karl Lykos (later Sauron; first appearance; last in flashback in issue #60)
Mesmero and the Living Pharaoh (both behind the scenes)
The Blob, Mastermind I and Unus (all last in issue #39)
The Toad (last in Amazing Spider-Man #71)
The Vanisher (behind the scenes; last in flashback in Thunderbolts #55)

GUEST APPEARANCES
Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (both last in Amazing Spider-Man #71)

OTHER CHARACTER
Mr Tindall (Lykos's patient; first appearance)

Written: 5 May 2005

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