Funerals, Remote Islands and Secret Plans

 

cover art by John Buscema

I promise not to whine any more about how this story arc crossed from one title to another, forcing young readers to cough up another 12 cents to perhaps buy a book they didn't necessarily want to buy--or that their local 7-11 might not get. There's nothing wrong with characters guest-starring in one another's books and cross-promoting different aspects of a Comic Book Universe. But these crossovers between titles are WRONG--WRONG--WRONG!!! But I won't whine about it. Except to say that it's wrong. Gosh darn you, Roy Thomas, you were WRONG to do this. WHINE-WHINE-WHINE!!!

Oh, well. It's been over a half-century, so perhaps we should just move on to the actual story from X-Men #43 (April 1968), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by George Tuska. In Avengers  #49, Magneto had tricked Quicksilver into rejoining him and had arranged for Wanda to be injured--apparently at the hand of a regular human. 

But now, Quicksilver isn't so sure he did the right thing. Also, he wants to pay his respects to Professor Xavier, who was recently killed. (Actually, it was a shape-changing mutant impersonating the Prof who died, but that's not a concern for us now.)

So he observes the Professor's funeral from afar. The X-Men spot him and, though they had heard from the Avengers that he'd switched sides, they try to talk to him. But Pietro doesn't trust them and speeds back to Magneto's remote island HQ.

Once there, he meets Toad, who is his usually annoying self, and speaks to Wanda. We learnt that Pietro is concerned about Magneto's sincerity in promising to help Wanda regain her powers, but doesn't feel like they can give up on this plan yet.

The issue also includes a scene in which the X-Men watch a last video message from Professor X, which we'll skip over. It's well-written, but not a part of this story arc. 

Anyway, a ship will be sailing near the island carrying a large new computer that Magneto needs to build a mind-control machine to subjugate humanity.  He snatches up the ship when it nears the island.

But the X-Men suspected Magneto might be after the computer and are on board. In the ensuing fight, Pietro tries to subdue the X-Men without hurting them, while Cyclops tries to subdue Pietro with minimum violence.

I like this part. So far, the issue has been exposition-heavy and a little slow-paced. But there fight scene, though relatively short is a good one. I enjoy how Pietro can't bring himself to fully embrace villainy again--Magneto played on his anger over Wanda's injury to get him to turn, which made sense. But I think Roy Thomas realized that he could not simply have Pietro jump feet first into being a bad guy. Once he calmed down, of course he'd have second thoughts.

In the end, though, Magneto uses a booby-trap to capture his old enemies.

So this story ends with a cliffhanger. Next week, we'll leave this cliffhanger unresolved for a time as we jump over to Avengers #50 and wrap up Hercules' story arc. That issue of The Avengers actually came out a month before this issue of X-Men, but I'm trusting the Marvel Wiki as to the best reading order.