Free X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor by Joseph J.; Darowski

influenced by human emotions and frailties, it is in the best interest of the humans to take orders from the Sentinels. In The X-Men #15 (Dec. 1965), the Sentinels tell Trask, “We can only guard the human race by becoming its master! Humans are too weak, too foolish to govern themselves. Henceforth, we shall rule!!” (351). Not only does Trask see his creations spin out of his control, he sees that the X-Men fight for themselves but are also willing to sacrifice themselves to protect a city of normal humans. In the following issue, just before sacrificing his own life to prevent an army of Sentinels from being created, Trask realizes that “[i]n my ignorance, in my fear, I created an evil far greater than the menace it was built to destroy!” (383). The finale reveals that the true evil was fear and ignorance, and that, just as significantly, fear and ignorance can be overcome. Lee and Kirby had toyed with reluctant villains before in the X-Men—Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver only served Magneto because he had previously saved their lives—but Trask is the first villain to fully reform in the series.
    Following Stan Lee as writer was Roy Thomas. Although Lee and Kirby had launched many very successful superhero comics for Marvel, The X-Men was struggling for sales. Perhaps it was for this reason that Thomas introduced a different tone to the series. The first set of Thomas issues have the X-Men fighting past villains, such as the Blob. These issues had been plotted before he became the writer, with Thomas only adding dialogue. As Thomas explains of his first issue, The X-Men #20 (May 1966), “The book had already been plotted and even drawn by Werner Roth when I was given it to script. Stan didn’t take any plotting credit in the printed book. For all I know Werner may have plotted the book himself” (DeFalco 21). When Thomas began giving the series his own twists, he made the book more similar to the other titles Marvel was publishing. The X-Men ceased fighting evil mutants or threats such as the Sentinels and began fighting supervillains who had already appeared in other Marvel comic books. Eventually Thomas would return the X-Men to the themes that Lee and Kirby established. The end of Thomas’s run on the series includes some very overt condemnations of prejudice.
    Although making the X-Men more like Marvel’s other titles may have been logical from a certain business perspective, it did take away some of the unique qualities of the series. Rather than being a series that was tackling a relevant issue, the title became a fight-of-the-month series. In X-Men #22 (July 1966), the X-Men fought a group of supervillains that included such uninspired characters as Unicorn, Plantman, the Scarecrow, Porcupine, and the Eel. In The X-Men #24 (Sept. 24), “The Plague of Locusts,”a conveniently named Dr. Hopper attacks the world with a plague of giant grasshoppers in what seems like the plot from a science fiction B movie from the 1950s. Soon the X-Men would fight villains more traditionally associated with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. At least some fans took note of the change in tone. Many Marvel comic books feature a letters column, in which letters from fans are published and the editor of the comic book responds to the questions or complaints or praises the fan voices. The letters column is obviously a very mediated forum—the editor carefully selects what letters to publish—but it was used as a tool for Marvel to create a sense of belonging amongst their fans. In the first letters column, appearing in The X-Men #5 (May 1964),Kenny Crowe wrote in saying, “I like the Homo Superior and Homo Sapiens bit in The X-Men. It tends to give the magazine something besides just ‘good guys vs. bad guys’” (129). But it was not uncommon to see letters that were critical of the creative direction of the series published in the column. For example, the letters page of The X-Men #29 (Feb. 1967)includes a letter by