STORY: "Enter, the Avengers" (20 pages)  Professor X defeats his arch-enemy Lucifer, while the X-Men prevent the Avengers from interfering.

What you need to know:
We get the first information on Professor X's origin - he lost the use of his legs in battle with Lucifer.  Xavier promises to tell the whole story "someday."  In fact, he duly does so in issue #20.

Scott and Jean are still pining for one another.

Lucifer makes his debut, and doesn't exactly give much away.  He's "waited for years to begin [his] attack on humanity."  And that's about it.  His big plan is that he's got a bomb which will cause a major disaster if his heart stops.  Nice defensive plan.  It's rather unclear, however, what he was trying to achieve beyond that.

The Avengers become the first really major guest stars in the title.  (Namor didn't have his own book at the time, so he doesn't really count.  He was more of an anti-hero attached to the Fantastic Four supporting cast.)  In traditional fashion, there is a misunderstanding and an inconclusive fight.

A more innocent time:
Needing to travel from New York to the Balkans, the X-Men have sized up their options and decided that cruise liner would be a suitable and efficient way of getting there.

Stan Lee can't make up his mind which country he's setting he story in.  The story claims to be set in both the Balkans (matching the previous issue) and Bavaria (in West Germany).

In a memorably awful sequence, Scott points out to Marvel Girl that she's running towards a hole.  Indeed she is.  It's about one foot square.  Nonetheless, "there's not enough time to side step", and Jean bravely resorts to covering it with a nearby log.  Rather than, say, just jumping over it.

Iceman accuses Thor of being "square."

Having defeated Lucifer, the X-Men simply let him go.  Why?  Because "we X-Men are pledged never to cause injury to a human being."  Er... come again?  And if he was planning to blow up the world, wouldn't that at least justify handing him over to the police?

Comments:
Even taking a charitable approach to the different standards of the Silver Age, let's be blunt - this one's rubbish.  Lucifer doesn't have a plan, merely a defence device.  (And he says he spent ten years building it, too.)  He gets captured... and then they just let him go.  And worst of all, he's just a generic villain.

Lucifer ought to be a major figure in X-Men mythology, because he's the villain who originally put Professor X in a wheelchair.  In reality, he's hardly ever mentioned.  Partly that's because Xavier has now been in and out of his wheelchair like a paraplegic yoyo, and it no longer really matters how he lost the use of his legs the first time around.  But mainly, it reflects the fact that Lucifer's an uninspired creation.  Even when he gets some sort of origin story (vangaurd force for an alien invasion) in issue #20, it's still pretty generic.

And he has nothing whatsoever to do with the X-Men.  He's just a villain that Xavier happened to stumble upon.  It could have been anyone, really.  He's a desperately weak link in the mythos, as his marginalisation suggests.

FEATURE CHARACTERS
Professor X, Cyclops, Iceman, the Angel, the Beast and Marvel Girl I (the latter five last in Untold Tales of Spider-Man '97; Professor X and Cyclops both next in Fantastic Four vol 1 #35, then all in Fantastic Four vol 1 #36)

GUEST STARS
The Avengers: Captain America I (next in the second story in Tales of Suspense #60), Iron Man I (next in Tales of Suspense #61), Thor (next in Avengers vol 1 #11), Giant-Man I and the Wasp (the latter two both next in Tales to Astonish #63; all five last in Avengers vol 1 #10)

VILLAIN
Lucifer I (first appearance; an alien invader from planet Quistalium; between the flashback and main story in issue #20)

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