The Essential X-Lapsed, Episode 2 – X-Men #2 (1963)
X-Men #2 (November, 1963)
“No One Can Stop the Vanisher!”
Writer/Edits – Stan Lee
Pencils – Jack Kirby
Inks – Paul Reinman
Letters – Sam Rosen
Colors – ???
Cover Price: 12¢
Welcome back to the least essential podcast with the word Essential in it’s title! Today our teen-age heroes are going to take on the dread threat of the villainous Vanisher! What hope might they have against a foe who can… ya know, vanish?
Will Professor X have to get his hands dirty this time??? Let’s find out!
Plus: We’ve already got a letter in the Essential Mailbag! Hop aboard, we’re havin’ fun ova hea’!
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@acecomics / @90sxmen / weirdcomicshistory@gmail.com
This issue felt really thrown together. There seemed to be quite a few little inconsistencies appearing. Professor X is already appearing older than Stan had made him in the first issue when he referenced his parents working on nuclear research. I suspect that he had forgotten that detail by the time he came to write this month's dialogue and just went off the art which always depicted the Professor as older. Of course the most obvious error is Jean's teleportation. As you say it shows that nobody should be their own editor.
You were reading the book in black and white so you'd have missed one of the silliest errors when they talk about that red ice-cream van which is clearly white. The whole ice-cream van thing looks ludicrous in hindsight. Clearly the "hated and feared" bit was not in the earliest conception of the team. Kirby is obviously depicting them in the same way he did the Fantastic Four as celebrities as well as super-heroes. It'll be interesting to see when the anti-mutant rhetoric starts. I imagine it has to be there by the sentinels story but I guess we'll find out.
I'm really enjoying these Essential episodes. They are a real palate-cleanser between the often dense modern comics. It was a great idea to go right back to the beginning while you await your orders.
For every wonderful Kirby creation there's a grumpy old man Kirby face. But sometimes Kirby was drawing 3-5 issues a month, so it's amazing that we got anything other than stick figures.
I wonder what month saw the most output from Kirby in his career. Maybe that month on 1964 when he drew Spider-Man too for an issue.