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I didn't remember the "sex toy" bit. Ew.
It does raise an issue I've thought about before, about how all the women in comics are gorgeous (even in crowd scenes), so how can you tell who is actually attractive? Evidently Jean Grey is quite a looker, head and shoulders above her peers, because everybody wants to have sex with her. You don't see that happening to Kitty Pryde.
By the same token, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy, as drawn by John Romita Sr., were equally attractive to the young Captain, but he could tell that MJ was supposed to be zowie by how the in-story men reacted to her (then and since). Despite her depiction, Gwen must have been a bit more ordinary. (Compared to MJ.)
This is a corollary to a story I've told here before, about how the only way I knew that the women in early Marvel Comics were supposed to be attractive was from the reactions of the men in the stories. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Don Heck were talented artists and deserve every accolade imaginable, but "pretty women" was not an arrow in their quiver.
The "sex toy" bit was added to the original story. Creepy, yes but answers why Jean wasn't abused.
Didn't Magneto find her "attractive" as well?
“I didn't remember the "sex toy" bit. Ew.”
Every issue of Classic X-Men (later X-Men Classic) had a back-up story which tied in in some way to the original issue (in this case, #111). These stories were written by Chris Claremont and drawn by John Bolton (later by others). In this case, the back-up story serves as a direct prequel to X-Men #111. Classic X-Men also featured new scenes (sometimes panels, sometimes pages) added to supplement the original story. Also, certain dialogue was changed. The Classic X-Men Omnibus includes the covers of both issues, recaps the original story, and reprints the supplemental material as well as the back-ups. It had been my intention to deal with both original and new material together in the same post, but we went out last night and I had time to read only Classic X-Men #17. In this case, the material works so well as two separate parts of the same story, I decided to handle it that way. I’ll play it by ear going forward.
“Didn't Magneto find her "attractive" as well?”
Not to mention Xavier. Double “Ew.”
That cover is terrible!
The series' regular cover artist* was Arthur Adams, and his were often better than the originals (IMO). #17 was the first (I think) issue which required a substirute artists, Jon Bogdanove in this case.
*The first regular cover artist, I should say. Later regular cover artists included Steve Lightle and Mike Mignola.
(Do you like this cover better?)
X-MEN #111:
The story opens with the Beast discovering the X-Men performing in a carnival freak show. (The cover reveals their roles.) It is revealed through flashback why the Beast came to seek the X-Men in the first place. Because this story is told largely from the Beast’s POV (or at least can be read that way), it’s a good jumping on point, especially for older readers, because the beat doesn’t really know the “All-New, All-Different” team very well at this point. He finds Jean grey and “Slim” Summers after the show, but they don’t know him and call on the circus staff to chase him down. He is captured in view of Wolverine, which is enough to snap him out of his brainwashing. Wolverine finds Jean and provokes her until the Phoenix instinctively emerges. Then it’s short work to use her powers to free the rest of the X-Men. They storm Mesmero’s wagon only to discover another villain: Magneto!
The new pages of Classic X-Men #17 recap the Beast’s origin and details how he tracked the X-Men. X-Men #111 begins an arc which continues pretty much nonstop until “The Death of the Phoenix” in #137. I keep my X-Men Omnibus and my Classic X-Men Omnibus side-by-side, and may choose to read a run of the Byrne originals, a run of the Bolton back-ups, or I may alternate back and forth.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
(Do you like this cover better?)
Ha..yes! Classic cover. And classic story at the peak of Claremont/Byrne.
But it (gasp!) doesn't feature Wolverine!
I don't remember exactly when it happens, but Cyclops reacts to Magneto by thinking, essentially, "Oh no! We're not ready!" This really cemented in my mind just how dangerous Magneto is and was. That is to say, every month our heroes (and every hero) are put into desperate jeopardy, even when they're fighting nobodies. But this told me that Magneto was really the only foe the leader of the X-Men actually feared.
Oh, and this is a great issue to put the kibosh on the idea that Xavier and Magneto have had a secret partnership since before X-Men #1. Well, at least in this timeline!
That was in X-Men #104, Captain, as Magneto was a baby when the new team was formed. And he destroyed these New X-Men which wasn't hard when two of them, Colossus and Wolverine, were particularly vulnerable to his powers. The one who did the best against him was Banshee, of all people, but they were defeated until Cyclops made the save. Magneto was at his most destructive as opposed to his previous appearances.
Speaking of which, if he wanted revenge because of his baby-dom, why didn't he go after the Defenders?
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