1980 – Whatever happened to the Claremont/Byrne What If Magneto Had Formed the X-Men?

Let me be upfront. I actually couldn’t find out about what happened to this issue. On his forum, John Byrne couldn’t recall its ultimate fate. Maybe it evolved into the “What if Magneto had formed the X-Men with Professor X?” special published in 2004.

Byrne revealed the following in an interview in the Art of John Byrne (1980):

The basic premise was that Charles Xavier had faced Lucifer, and the dead bolt fell on him – the thing that crippled him. Only this time it killed him, so there was never a Charles Xavier. It was Magneto who formed together the first band of X-Men which were not called the X-Men, they were called the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

They were Cyclops, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Beast, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, with somewhat different names. Cyclops was still Cyclops, the Angel was the Arch Angel, and carries a flaming sword. Iceman had a different name, I can’t remember it right now. Marvel Girl became Psyke. Beast was still the Beast, and Obviously Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch still had the same names.

The story was essentially that with that particular team forming the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Magneto beats everyone. He destroys the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, in their earliest stages. In order to destroy the Fantastic Four, they team up with Doctor Doom. Doctor Doom then turns on them (this is an earlier form of Doctor Doom, the one of about issue #10 of the FF). He turns on them and Magneto magnetically, simply crushes the Doctor’s chest plate (laughter) ‘So much for you fella!” Then, all the other super heroes are either imprisoned or destroyed. Those who are not killed are imprisoned on Asteroid M and Magneto rules the world!

We show that it’s not all that bad a place, really. Homo Sapiens are not the top dogs anymore – the world is ruled by Homo Superior. And everything is going along real cool and neat, until one day, along comes the Silver Surfer, followed immediately by Galactus.

And in this case, since the Thing was killed in the destruction of the Fantastic Four, there is no Alicia to soften the heart of the Surfer, so the Surfer doesn’t turn on Galactus, so Galactus eats the world. Of course, Asteroid M with all there superheroes on it, which is in orbit, goes drifting off into space with Spider-Man and Daredevil and all the other survivors.

Apparently Claremont and Byrne had plotted it, Byrne was to draw it and Claremont script it.

1982 - X-Men Graphic Novel & Neal Adams

From Comic Book Artist Collection Vol #1:

A couple of weeks after Neal Adams had started drawing the graphic novel, Jim Shooter, Marvel’s editor-in-chief, told him “I can’t put the contract together. I can’t do it.” Neal had insisted on a contract that wasn’t a work-made-for-hire agreement. Shooter then turned to Brent Anderson and the rest is history.

Here are Adams' pages:

Interestingly, Adams’ opening scene has Magneto being attacked by the Purifiers whereas the final product had that rather controversial opening with the Purifiers killing the two young mutants and Magneto coming across their bodies.

1986 - Anatomy of a Cover - Classic X-Men #1

Updated with more sequential images from Ferran Delgado's blog posting.

A little bit of love for Art Adams and his cover to Classic X-Men #1...

Preliminary cover design

Another preliminary, this time drawn by John Romita Sr.

Recoloured version

1983 - New Mutants

I fondly recall picking up a copy of the New Mutants #1 from a local convenience story in 1983. Unlike reading the X-Men, where I had felt I was always behind, since I was reading starting with issue #168, and that there was a lot to catch up on, this issue was a great launch into the world of mutants.

While the New Mutants had powers, they weren’t your traditional city-patrolling heroes. They were kids and they not only had to deal with controlling their powers, they had to deal with real teenage problems, like crushes, school, and insecurity. Claremont’s writing style was perfectly suited to play up these angles and really hook young readers. And they were a family.

Having been part of that target market in 1983, I can say that this title captured the imagination of that thirteen year old and had me hooked with the first issue and would see me collect the title until it ended at #100.

The New Mutants quickly rose above its label as an X-Men spin-off. The first three issues introduce the new team of mutants through Danielle Moonstar's point of view. She also has the biggest chip on her shoulder. Her constant conflict with Professor X is well used to allow us to learn a bit more about each character.

The biggest difference between the New Mutants and the X-Men is that the New Mutants were still just kids. When the New X-Men were recruited, they were almost adults and had learned to use their powers on their own. However, the New Mutants are raw and talented kids who need to be trained to properly use their powers.

As far as I'm concerned, Bob McLeod has always been an underrated artist who never really had that chance (beyond the New Mutants of course) to distinguish himself as a premiere artist. While Claremont’s style and dialog always worked for me, it was the crisp art of Bob McLeod that drew me into this series. Artist Bob McLeod dropped in to provide some fill-in art for Uncanny X-Men #151 and 152 and was actually offered the position of full-time artist on the title.

From an interview with Adelaide Comics and books (http://www.adelaidecomicsandbooks.com/mcleod.html), McLeod expanded:

“Then they liked that job, so they offered me the book; but they said, “You can either do the X-Men or we’ve got a new series we’re starting up called the New Mutants.  It’s up to you, but this is going to be a new series and should be big, so it might be something you’d want to get into instead of the X-Men”, and even though the X-Men was kind of the hot book at the time, New Mutants was something that I could co-create and get in on the ground floor, so to speak, so I chose to do that.”

In an interview with the Comic Book Bin, McLeod had more to say:

http://www.comicbookbin.com/bobmcleod001.html

“I probably could have had a lot more input, because Chris was very open to suggestions, but at the time, I just wasn't that interested in creating characters. I just wanted to draw. Chris already had the characters basically imagined when I came on board. Chris, Louise and I decided to make the thrust of the book all about the school, so the New Mutants wouldn't just be another super-group like all the others. I pushed to have more females than males in the group, and helped to decide on what costumes they'd wear (we decided to go with a school uniform), and I created the physical look of the characters. In other words, I think Rahne was basically just described by Chris as a redhead. I decided to make her short and full-figured, with bristly wolf-hair, and I came up with her transitional half-wolf look. I made Dani tall and slender and flat chested (at the time, probably the only female in comics with less than a c-cup!). It was my idea to give Sam big ears, etc. We originally envisioned Sunspot as growing huge like the Hulk when he powered up.”

From an interview with Claremont in Comics Collector #2:

“And in a sense, I think that’s perhaps why we created The New Mutants – to do a book where those realities [death and violence] do no so much intrude. To do a book where kids – a younger audience – could read it enjoy it and be scared and excited without having the fundamental pay-off of somebody suffering such an essential trauma as death. It may be that X-Men has developed to a point where it is not a book that appeals to the youngest audiences.”

I was always curious as to why McLeod had left as I had always liked his art. He explains his rationale as follows (taken from http://www.adelaidecomicsandbooks.com/mcleod.html):

 “The reason I left New Mutants was because it was so far behind schedule.  We got started off on the wrong foot.  It was supposed to be a regular series and then as I was starting to draw the first issue the editor decided to make it a graphic novel.  That was at the same time I was getting married and going on a honeymoon, and so I got behind and just never could catch up after that.  After the first three issues of pencilling I just wasn’t happy with the drawing I was doing because it was so rushed.  I then decided to quit drawing it and start inking it instead, but then that just wasn’t satisfying because I was inking the same penciller every month and Sal Buscema is a very good penciller for what he does, but at that time especially he was just doing a real standard pencilling job, nothing exciting.  So I just wasn’t into it.  Just after a few issues of inking I just decided to try to find something else to do that was a bit more fun and I never kept up with it after that.”

Marvel Comics of the 1980s Facebook group

Hey there, if you're on Facebook, check out the Marvel Comics of the 1980s group I've created:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133075556740443

I've seen a lot of comments on my pages from all sorts of fans of the Marvel 1980s and thought it would be fun to get us together in such a group where we can have some fun through some lively discussions reminiscing about 1980s comics.

Favorite last pages from the 1980s

These are some of the more memorable last pages that I recall from the Marvel 1980s... looking forward to your comments...

In no particular order...   Alpha Flight #12

Thor #337

Fantastic Four #267

Amazing Spider-Man #238

Uncanny X-Men #177

Captain America #253

Avengers #262

Avengers #277

New Mutants #18

Daredevil #232

Marvel Comics for December - 1980s goodness

THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS HC  

Written by WALTER SIMONSON
Penciled by WALTER SIMONSON with SAL BUSCEMA
Considered by many to be the greatest run on Thor ever, Walt Simonson's classic tales of the God of Thunder are collected here--completely remastered from the original artwork and newly colored by Steve Oliff! And there are too many timeless tales to count: The Casket of Ancient Winters! The death of Odin! The origins of Asgard! The sacrifice of the Executioner! Thor as a frog! The Mutant Massacre! The curse of Hela! The debut of Thor's body armor! Guest-starring Beta Ray Bill, Nick Fury and the Avengers! Featuring the threats of Fafnir the dragon, Loki, Lorelei, Malekith the Dark Elf, Surtur, Hela, the Titanium Man, Kurse, Zaniac, the Marauders, the Absorbing Man, Fin Fang Foom, the Destroyer and the Midgard Serpent!
Collecting THOR #337-355, #357-369 & #371-382 and BALDER THE BRAVE #1-4.
1192 pages, $125.

HERCULES: TWILIGHT OF A GOD TPB 

Written by BOB LAYTON
Penciled by RON LIM & BOB LAYTON

Hercules has been the champion of the Andromeda galaxy for over 75 years! But when an attempt to save the capitol city of Port Anteris goes awry, the Lion of Olympus is left incapacitated and needing to be looked after by his Olympic offspring. However, with a sinister plot brewing against his son's government and the threat of Galactus looming, Hercules--even in his brain-addled state-- is the galaxy's only hope! It's the long awaited follow-up to Bob Layton's classic Hercules run!
Collecting HERCULES: TWILIGHT OF A GOD #1-4. 96 pages, $14.99.

WHAT IF? IRON MAN: DEMON IN AN ARMOR 

Written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton
Penciled by Graham Nolan
Back-up story by Rick Remender and Shawn Moll.

Would Tony Stark still be Iron Man...if he wasn't Tony Stark? Twenty years ago, in a college experiment gone bad, the young Stark's mind is transferred to the body of impoverished but brilliant fellow student, Victor von Doom! Blamed for the unsanctioned research, his memory wiped clean, Tony is deported and forced to face life as a disgraced Latverian commoner. Meanwhile, von Doom grows and flourishes in the wealth and privilege of being sole heir to tark Industries. Thus, in separate cauldrons on different sides of the world, both Iron Man and Dr. Doom are forged anew. But who are the men inside the armors...really? Find out in "What If Tony Stark Had Become Dr. Doom?" Plus, What If: The Venom Symbiote Possessed Deadpool -- Part 4!
40 pages, $3.99.