Definitive Proof That Gambit Is More Powerful Than Superman!!

It's a long story, but Professor X has gone bad and taken over the Shi'ar Empire, mentally controlling Gladiator and many others.

Ah, but Gambit is free...

See!! Gladiator can be mentally controlled...but Gambit can't, because his thoughts are "like quicksilver!" Proof that Gambit is smarter than Gladiator!!

NOTE: That isn't really Charles Xavier, it's the "War-Skrull," who using the "Matrix device" to absorb his powers as well as mimic his appearance. So maybe the imposter just wasn't experienced enough to control Gambit. Still, he was powerful enough to telepathically control Lilandra & Gladiator and the Starjammers...

Anyway, next issue, it's time for the physical confrontation!

And that's enough to knock out Gladiator for the rest of the story.

So, Gambit is smarter AND more powerful than Gladiator. And since Gladiator is a Superman analogue, than ipso facto, Gambit is smarter and more powerful than Kal-El. That's just science, kids.

I bet now you're really looking forward to the Gambit movie. Right? Right...?

From Uncanny X-Men #276 & 277 (1991)

Friday Night Fights--Havok Style!!

MC Spacebooger has decreed that the next 12 rounds of Friday Night Fights must "feature something reminiscent of summer."

Well, what the hell is more reminiscent of summer...than Alex Summers?

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of cheap. But it's worth it to tie into this fight.

We start with the X-Men being all angsty, as only Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and Tom Palmer could do:

Throw in a Sentinel to break up the soap opera:

Don't make Alex Summers angry...you wouldn't like him when he's angry!

SHAZAM!!!

Special bonus: The rad cover by Adams & Palmer:

Spacebooger has always been disappointed that the movie Havok can never, ever look as cool as Neal Adams drew him.

Concentric rings of death from X-Men #58 (1969), by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and Tom Palmer.

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Because there's a lot of members of the Summers family, and I'll keep using them, unless I win. So go and vote!!

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--When The Crime Is The Worst Option!!

Sometimes, villains are bone stupid.

Of course they are--if they were smart, they wouldn't be criminals in the first place!!

But sometimes, megalomaniacs turn to ridiculous crime schemes when they could make far, far more money by being capitalists rather than criminals.

For example, one day at NORAD...

 Now, you and I have seen enough Warner Brothers cartoons to know not to press the red button that says "PRESS ME."

But sadly, that most basic bit of security was obviously never part of the training of NORAD personnel...

Now, as master plans go, sending the Ani-Men in to take over NORAD so you can control the U.S. nuclear arsenal isn't too bad.

Then again, given that you've apparently perfected teleportation, why go all Dr. Evil here, Count Nefaria? Why not patent that technology, and get freaking rich licensing it to transport companies or travel agencies? Hell, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies would be more than willing to pay you billions for the use of that tech! And if you got other nations involved in the bidding war...well, holding the world for ransom while having to fight the X-Men is easily the least profitable and most problematic choice you could make there, right?

I just saying, hire a good lawyer, and sell that tech. Get rich legally. Retire. Stop doing stuff the hard way!

From X-Men #94 (1975)

Tales From The Quarter Bin--The Inhumans Did It First!!

You know, maybe I've been all wrong about the Inhumans!!

See, I've always thought that they were a monstrous creation, an absolute monarchy built on eugenics, with a permanent genetic underclass enslaved to make the trains run on time while the haughty royal family sits around opining how superior they are while occasionally going into space to commit genocide. A really repulsive concept, top to bottom.

Of course, matters aren't help by Marvel's constant attempts to shove the Inhumans down our throats as some sort of "replacements" for mutants, a move that is neither necessary nor sensible.

And yet...maybe it was the mutants that were stealing the Inhumans thunder all along!!

Because...and honestly, this was a big surprise to me--the Inhumans were called "Uncanny" before the X-Men ever were!!

In a long forgotten series, from 1975-1977, the Inhumans had Uncanny emblazoned above the masthead for all 12 issues!

Meanwhile, it turns out that the X-Men never had "Uncanny" on a cover until #114, more than a year after the last issue of that Inhumans run!!

Before that it was always "All-New, All-Different" (except for one issue that said "Now On Sale Monthly").

So it's pretty clear that the X-Men ripped off the Inhumans in the first place, as Marvel desperately tried to ram mutants down our throats to replace their obviously superior and much more interesting Terrigen-swilling despots!!

...

Nah, I don't believe it, either. The Inhumans suck. Always have, always will. Even if they were Uncanny first...

The Next X-Event?

Cover of "Evil matriarchy guides an unwitting world to its doom" by George Ratcliff, 1953.

Friday Night Fights--The Clothes Make The X-Man Style!!

It's not who you are, it's how you look, that allows you to beat Sentinels. That's the lesson of this week's Friday Night Fights!

Cyclops, Beast and Marvel Girl have infiltrated Larry Trask's secret mountain Sentinel HQ, when they discover that some other captured mutants are being delivered...

Well, that provides brilliant tactician Cyclops with a plan!

KRANG!!

VRAAK!! KLANG KTANG!! SHROOM!!

So...Sentinels can be prepared for only one power at a time. And they do it based entirely on how their quarry dresses.

Man, 1969 Sentinels were lame!

Spacebooger is fairly certain that this will be better than anything in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Switching costumes for victory is from X-Men #59 (1969), by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and Tom Palmer

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Jean cosplaying Wanda alone is worth your vote, right? So go and vote!!

Friday Morning Freak-Out--Jean Grey Goes Mental!!

You can take the old-fashioned portrayal of Jean's mental powers...

Or you can go full Neal Adams/Tom Palmer on telepathy!

SUPER FREAK-OUT!!!!!

From X-Men #54 & #56 (1969)

Neal Adams, The X-Men, And The Revolution!

I've sung the praises of Neal Adams before...but I think that many of us just can't conceive what an earthquake, what a thunderclap his arrival on the scene was.

Take, for example, X-Men #55 (1969).

Granted it looks as if deadlines or some such made a bit of a dog's breakfast out of this. Layouts by Don Heck, pencils by Werner Roth, inks by Vince Colletta....

I'm not harshing on the art here--I've made no secret that I'm a fan of Don Heck's 60s work, and while this isn't Kirby, the many hands produced perfectly serviceable super-hero fare.

Pay special note to the layouts, the portrayal of emotion and power and speed.

Then, imagine yourself reading that in the day, and then, exactly one month later, being presented with this:

That "introducing" is a bit misleading...X-Men #56 wasn't even Adams' first Marvel work, let alone his first super-hero joint.

But here we have the same characters, same costumes, same powers...and it's like this comic book is coming from a different universe than last issue:

Obviously Tom Palmer was a big help here, too (Adams did his own colors during most of his X-Men run, so he gets extra credit there.). But Adams' experience in the advertising world, having to draw realistic characters for ads, blossomed into this incredibly different looking "photo-realism" that grabbed your adrenal gland and didn't let go!

Adams had already been making waves with the Deadman strip and other books at DC. But good gosh, just picture having read #55 four weeks earlier, and then reading this!!

Of course, it seems that not too many did pick it up, because despite some great stories and mind-blowing art, the Thomas/Adams run was insufficient to save the book from cancellation.

Soon enough, Neal would join up with Denny O'Neil for their famous Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow runs.

But these X-Men books, where the solid-but-staid-and-maybe-even-boring style was replaced, without warning or transition by a new, incredibly dynamic and kinetic style? That's where the revolution was, brother. And comics woulds never be the same again.

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--Dead Is Dead (Not)!!

Maria Pepeta of Omaha, Nebraska, has a bone to pick with Marvel in the letter column of X-Men #53 (1969):

Yeah, that's a good question--how can you revive Magneto yet let Professor X stay dead?

We saw him die!! We saw his body!! We saw his funeral!! There's no humanly possible or plausible way to bring him back!!

Exactly one year later, Professor Xavier was alive again.

Was this the first time a significant character was retconned back from a "for real, no kidding" death? Let's not count super-villains--they were designed to apparently die and bounce back. Is this the one that opened the floodgates?

Of course, considering some of the character assassination that's been done to Xavier's character in recent decades, Charles would have been better off staying dead...

Bold Fashion Choices--Kitty Pryde, Take 2!!

Long story short, the Badoon have kidnapped Lilandra and 3/4 of the Fantastic Four and Arkon, so it's time for the X-Men and Susan Richards to attempt a trans-dimensional rescue mission!

Young Kitty Pryde wants to make sure that she can come along for the ride...

Heh. They were still trying to make the "Sprite" name stick!

Oh, dear.

This is the second time Kitty has come under the focus of our crack Bold Fashion Choices squad. And believe it or not, this costume was much better than her last attempt!

It's too bad they didn't keep that as a defining character trait for Kitty--perpetually bad taste in costumes...

From X-Men Annual #5 (1981)