When I learned that it is possible to read every X-Men comic ever made*, I had a bright idea. I was going to read each comic starting from the very beginning. It was going to be epic, it was going to be awesome, it was going to be the nerdiest thing I could possibly do. And then I read Uncanny X-Men #1.
And that shit was bad.
And I don’t mean “bad” as in “it’s from the Silver Age so it has to be cool.” I mean those comics are some of the worst crap I have ever read. Ever. I ended up reading half of the first issue before skimming the rest of it. I then skimmed though the next twenty issues before jumping ship and skipping directly to John Byrne’s X-Men: The Hidden Years, which was just barely readable.
And so I present to you, just in case you are even considering reading these monstrosities, six reasons the X-Men sucked in the 1960s.
1) If a character appeared in a panel, they get a line. Apparently, these old comics were created in an idiotic process where the writer would plot the story, the artist would then translate that story into panels and then the writer would stick in the dialogue. No doubt this is why Stan Lee was able to tack a word balloon to every character in every panel. See for yourself:
About 80% of the dialogue in these issues is completely useless. But maybe this was really nuanced character development and I was too distracted by Stan Lee’s threat to narc on me to Professor X to notice.
2) People talk waaay too much. When it came to the word bubbles, Stan Lee was all about the quantity over quality. Someone needed to get that guy a copy of Elements of Style. Omit needless words, mothafucka!
Lee’s characters were such jabberboxes that in one panel in Uncanny X-Men #1, Magneto is almost totally obscured by a word balloon.
3) Overt sexism. Don’t give me the “it was a different era” bullcrap. The treatment of Jean was absolutely ridiculous! Take a look at this panel, shortly after she was introduced to the rest of the team.
What a slut.
Later, the guys are seen peeping on Jean as she changes into her uniform. I love how Beast tries to pin the blame on Jean. She was just asking for it. Pervy douchbag.
And what do you think happens when the Juggernaut pwns most of the X-Men. Jean dresses up in a nurse uniform, of course!
Note the excellent use of Reason 1 in this panel.
4) “Natch.” The worst slang ever. Stan Lee must have used it like as a basic unit of grammar. It’s everywhere in these comics. It means “naturally.” It always sounds wrong.
5) Magneto was psychic. The first time I saw Magneto project his astral form, I keep waiting for it to be explained away, because it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But that never happened, and for all I know Magneto still has psychic abilities. Even John Byrne’s train wreck The Hidden Years features Magneto’s mind powers. Maybe they got wipped away when Magneto was turned into an infant. Yeah, that happened too.
6) These kids were boring! Or maybe they were just obnoxious. I can’t really tell. Even in the 20+ issues I skimmed through, they never evolved past their most basic character traits. In one scene when Prof X mentally calls the X-Men together, we are shown what the kids like to do in their free time, and basically learn all there is about their personalities.
Beast is doing homework, so he’s a nerd. Jean is doing aerobics, so she’s a self-obsessed object of desire. Angel is listening to the radio because he’s totally unremarkable in every way. And Iceman is drinking a huge milk shake because he’s such a goofball. Off panel, Cyclops is snorting coke off a hooker’s ass.
Now what you know why these stories sucked, lets see how many you can spot in this single splash page from Uncanny X-Men #6.
Let’s see… Jean makes dinner for all the men, each character gets their own line, Beast is still a nerd and Iceman is covering his pie with snow like a complete idiot. Why would he put snow on a pie??? I haven’t eaten snow since I was 8 years old.
But, if there is one thing that the old school X-Men had going for them, it was Cerebro v1.o.
So awesome.
*I would go into details on how this is possible, but I don’t want to incur Joe Quesada’s wrath.
