Beware Of The Blob! Part One

In order to understand how X-Men came to be, we must look at Doom Patrol the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four was almost certainly following the coat tails of the Justice League, DC's successful team book of the time. The publisher of Marvel Comics, Martin Goodman asked Stan Lee to come up with a  team for the company .


The result was a bit different from most previous comic book teams. One way was that the Fantastic Four wasn't composed of pre-existing characters, but ones who shared a origin and were indeed an extended family. Very soon into their run they would also shed secret identities, and after a few adventures in "Central City" (presumably located in the East Cost State), they were firmly situated in a real life city, New York.

But more importantly they had genuine conflict among the heroes. Weird Silver Age shaded melodramatic conflict but still conflict. This helped it become a runaway hit who's influence is still felt by nearly every comic without wooden logs for main characters.


Obviously Marvel wanted to keep warming itself on the flames of the team book craze they helped kindle, so they churned out another book in "The Sensational Fantastic Four Style" (hey I didn't come up with that tagline), The X-Men. And they were like the Fantastic Four, except there was five of them, and they weren't related, and at the start they were kind of weird and creepy.

So yeah the X-Men started as a cash in. Stan Lee apparently decided  that coming up with individual origins was getting boring, so he had the five X-Men, Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Iceman and Marvel Girl (Jean Grey if you don't know her old codename) be part of a emerging race of mutants. Who are of course persecuted because normal people are dicks with no sense of self preservation.


From X-Men issue 3, Beware The Blob

The 60's predecessor to Weight Watchers could be a little zealous

Peculiarly Angel appears to have gained some kind of omnipresence power, for he is not only tea bagging the Blob but also flying above the logo. Also X-Men covers had a habit of claiming  something within was the strangest thing ever, for example the X-Men were the strangest superheroes ever. And while Blob is a little strange he pails next to the guy with the power to spit out a space ship, or the equally bald Charles Xavier clone with boobs. 

Also that X-Men taking America by storm thing is an overstatement... if saying Wolverine doesn't appear in a lot of comics is also one. Yeah X-Men during the 60's was never a very popular book, mainly being seen as the Fantastic Four But Less So. In fact for a while it only existed as a reprint title. X-Men probably owes it's more recognizable elements and it's popularity to Chris Claremont and John Byrne. But that's another story. 

Also look at Iceman in the corner logo trying to actually be seen, maybe he got sidelined as punishment for only throwing what appears to be a slightly dirty toy rocket at the Blob. 

Also soon we shall see why the Blob is such a threat, and it will shock you true believers!


There's a fairly boring add for a wrist radio, which would be great if you were attending a Dick Tracy costume competition. But we're skipping it. 

"Marvel Girl will not participate in this exercise despite catching things in the air being like a third of her power!" 

I've actually seen a lot of super-villains like the Blob, though to be fair they were all from the TLC network. And Captain Planet. Also I like how Xavier feels the need to say "sawdust filled bags" instead of just "bags", though the Professor is enough of a dick to say fill them with nails. And as we will see the X-Men are dumb and devoted enough to let them. The sad thing is in all likelihood there is at least one poor soul who thinks this is a better story than the Dark Phoenix Saga or God Loves, Man Kills. 



This was drawn during the period where the Iceman was less "The Iceman" in appearance, but more the Melted Marshmellow Bloke. 

"The doors are locked so you may not escape, my X-Men!"

You could say that the "probably" part of the sentence gives him some leeway, but it's pretty weird the guy with the destructive uncontrollable eye beams is apparently more powerful than the girl with control over matter. And would later go onto basically be the source of all life and rebirth ever. I mean Cyclops is no one to scoff at but his power has 
fairly limited utility. Oh I get it, it's the 1960's so Scott has the cock bonus, ding ding!

Here's a thought Iceman's layer of snow covers all his figure except his boots, why? Is he so proud of his polish job that he can't bring himself to hide it? 

You are also now looking at what passes for team dynamics in early X-Men comics, the team's barely constrained hatred and hair trigger tendency to beat the shit out of each other. Or perv on Jean whichever is more convenient and more disconcerting. 

"Ah the fifth avenue giant floating eyes, take a picture honey!"

Oh so the students aren't allowed to talk with their mouths but you are Charles? And yeah many of you are wondering why Charles isn't using Cerebro for mutant detecting, that hadn't been introduced yet. Instead he apparently simply monitored the entirety of the population in his range for mutants. Because fuck privacy. 

Now can anyone who knows about really old motor vehicles please for the love of God tell me what the hell that thing in the bottom right panel is? Not the eldritch pair of eyes, the freaking bus(?), I mean it could be a bus? But why is the top bulging out, but not like a double decker bus would? 


Moving on. 

Hey who are the evil mutants again?

Either they forgot to colour Jean's hair in top left panel, or the shear sliminess of her team mates aged her about thirty years. The second a new mutant is detected  all these fuckers can say is "Possible women? Surrender it!" And is Professor X using the possibility of getting to screw Jean as an incentive to get their shit together? Is she not allowed to pick her own partner? And oh God, fucking Hell, is Charles lusting after his student? Who's like sixteen? And he knew her since she was twelve.  Oh and "female" did the X-Men found reddit? You know a lot of the time in modern comics , especially in the Ultimate universe, people try to discredit Professor X by calling him a cult leader.

Fifty years ago they were exactly right. 

Also what the fuck is up with the word balloons, there's like pink and yellow and orange. It's like this is actually a Deadpool comic.  It can't be all telepathic speech.

"Yeah none of the other X-Men can get at me in the air, aside from Cyclops with his eyebeams eye-beams... or Iceman. Actually I think I'm a little screwed Jean"

Jesus who gets to have sex with Jean is a grim life or death struggle now? Is the X-Mansion just some kind of perverted breeding camp? Actually this explains everything, Professor X is in fact Mister Sinister in disguise! And now here comes the "The X-Men are morons who mistake everything and everyone for mutants!" portion of our feature.  Iceman's one kind of makes me wonder, why was that guy just burning things with his friend in the middle of the street? Was it simply a newspaper he was done with? If so why didn't he just throw it in a bin? 

Perhaps he is actually an operative of the CIA, meeting with his handler after an eventful operation in the USSR. And those documents are secret papers from the Nazi regime detailing their scientists' discovery of how to manipulate what in 1953 the rest of the world would call DNA. Recovered by the Soviets after the fall of Berlin, they put it to work crafting synthetic plagues that would have wiped out all resistance to the march of communism, and creating soldiers which would have America on its knees. Agent Roger Bach saw some terrible things in those red labs, and is firmly of the opinion that no one nation should have such knowledge. Not even the USA which has treated his family so well since they fled Warsaw. So with tacit permission from his handler he burns the papers. Even though within was the potential to give back his polio crippled daughter's legs. 

He returns home that evening to his wife and daughter, catching the last half of the radio serial he promised to be home in time for. His wife hates how often he doesn't come home on time or at all, but she understands. It is moments like these that remind him why he's part of this mad biz, for them. 

I'm sorry I appear to be trying to avoid thinking about the comic with all my might. 


So a mutant with gravity defying powers, Angel's going to be pissed. And how in the Hell is that "twilight" it's clearly like noon. Wow I thought day for night shots only happened in movies. 

I would have guessed the mutant was the unnaturally skinny and tall guy behind Blob

Wait how is the glass protecting the sign? Seems to be more like a kind of impractical platform for the workers. Were labour rights so bad in 1964 that any safety measure was an unintended side effect? And I don't care if it is "twilight" those guys should be able to see Beast he's like a foot next to them. 

How is this con meant to work? Some guy tricks  people into thinking he shot stuff with his back turned and.... 

While we're on the subject Cyclops needs to drain surplus energy? What happens do his eyes explode? Does X-Men 3 happen? Please no, anything but that! Another thing about his eye beams, aren't they concussive not hot?

And you think he's a mutant because he's overweight? Never take these people to Hungry Jacks or they'll go nuts. Also Blob is already wearing a stupid costume, great foresight. 

"If you compete with your mom and friends you're a freak"

If all I knew of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee came from just this comic I'd assume they had "no talent! No lessons!". If you haven't guessed the magic art reproducer is in fact a tracing tool. You don't need fancy equipment for that or else half of deviantart would be out of a lot of money. 



Not much to say about  about the kite bit. Though the guy with the green kite looks a bit older than the target audience.

The return of the strangest foe of all, the discoloured speech balloons!

I had no idea until today that anyone outside of Spongebob Squarepants referred to money as clams. Also I love the look on Blob's face, that is the face of someone who gives not half a fuck about anything. And "Nature Boy"? Is it because he's nearly naked? Wait whatever you don't picture him-I hate everything.

X-Men, bullying and coercing a world that rightfully hates and fears them!

"The X-Men don't take no for an answer", what the fuck is wrong with these people? And Scott's calling him obnoxious, after he barges in and declares that the paramilitary group demands his presence and he really doesn't have a choice in the matter. It's like Jehovah Witnesses armed and dangerous. 


Is it me or does everyone in early X-Men who becomes associated with them in any way start focusing all their sexuality on Jean Grey? Must have been interesting when Polaris joined. Oh and good job blowing your secret identity Cyclops. 

You know aside from that bit of unwelcome touching he gave Jean earlier I'm really liking the Blob. Not that his competition is that great

Hah, that wily Cyclops attacked a man in such a way that if wasn't for his untested superpowers, he could have died! And may I say the image of Blob smoking that pipe is perfect. Of course Iceman like all the X-Men has been taught to react to pretty much every situation with unneeded aggression. 

Maybe we should stop on this last page and assume Blob killed them all. 

Charles of course enthusiastically approves of brutalizing  guests so Iceman gets to it. As you can see this was a stupid idea. And here we find out why we should beware of the Blob!... he did not want to join the X-Men. So basically they tricked him into coming here, not telling him that his only option other than eternal loyalty and accepting Professor X as his personal lord and saviour, was him brain raping him. If these are the "good mutants" the evil ones must be terrifying. Like eating live babies while masturbating at open-coffin wakes scary. 

And Professor X's horror at the first person to ever refuse joining the team is kind of perplexing considering his sample group (bar retcons I don't know about) being five people. And he's a mind controller, and back then he was certainly willing to use it. In fact I think these are actually the Egyptian Freemasons from Wild Cards. 

It all comes down to this, we are meant to think of the Blob as the villain for wanting to not be involved with the X-Men.  And we are meant to see the X-Men as heroes for trying to force him to serve their cause. He has done nothing to suggest he is a threat other than being a bit rude. I know values back then were different but this is the mindset of a bully. And considering that X-Men was heavily aimed at teenage science fiction fans, who were often viciously bullied, I'm not sure how this would appeal to them. 


Basically imagine a comic where an African warlord sent his child soldiers to kill or cripple another kid who resisted his press gang, because he didn't want to join the People's Revolutionary Front's fight against the Revolutionary Front For The People. And he was portrayed as the hero. That's basically this. 


Actually now I'm wondering what Stan Lee thought of conscription. 

Maybe Charles is actually sitting in a dam somewhere, telling Jason he's an idiot for thinking this bullshit is convincing,

Yes Blob, crush that bald mother fucker, before he can trick more teens into his house of horrors! My God Blob is an arsehole but he is a way better superhero than these freaks. Even gets in a good lame joke when he body slams Angel into Cyclops. 

Find it kind of weird Blob, in a house with advanced technology and beings with superpowers, automatically assumes ghosts are why the door closed. And thank god there's an ad, any more of the X-Dicks without a break and I would have dedicated my life to killing Patrick Stewart. And his Professor X is such a nice man.

Can someone tell me why you need to strap a fridge to your back to be a ventriloquist? 

You know even if this was literally two pages of boring text about how fun stamp collecting is if you're a boring person, I wouldn't skip it for the world. I mean it's kind of miraculous to look at. The insect collecting kit isn't fighting with the bike wind shield over who gets to molest the atomic smoke bomb, or even trying to conscript the amazing new space phone. Bliss, also I would not be surprised if the atomic smoke bomb had some plutonium in it, little authenticity for the kids. They had no scruples about it with science kits.  

I can't stop gazing at the physically impossible Scotsman

Look at that man's desperate fearful thoughts about his relentless pursuers and fear for his  safety  truly the X-Men are a light in this dark world! 

And Professor aren't secret identities non conductive to humans seeing mutants as their equals and friends? You're often compared to Martin Luther King, but I don't recall him ever giving this speech:

I have a dream, that a team of black men and women, will trick everyone into thinking they're white, and be a team of super secret blacks. And they shall use their black powers to fight the evil black people. And if any black man chooses not to join our group,  I will preform brain surgery on them so they forget all about us not being white. And if they resist, we shall beat the shit out of them. 

I cannot see that getting quoted so often.

"Isn't the difference between a extra-strong freak and a extra strong mutant really a matter of semantics you bozo?"

And so Blob instantly becomes a mutant supremacist villain. And even begun using terminology like "homo-superior" which he wouldn't be familiar with. Seriously where did he hear that? My theory is the Professor used his powers to to turn Blob into a hammy baddie so the X-Men do not doubt X is the only way to Heaven equality. 

We really needed to be told Angel had learned how to dodge and was employing that skill here. Otherwise we would assume it was a complete accident and he wanted the gunfire to end his endless nightmare. 


And I think we've just seen the beginnings of Cerebro in the though influencer. I would have gone nuts and made a kid kill himself to if this was where I got my start. 


And knowing Professor X in the 60's, he probably means it when he says all memory. Who the X-Men are, their names, the ability to control their bladders, everything. 

Yes, they bought a clown, the X-Men are doomed!

Whether it was Stan Lee, or Jack Kirby, the decision to make Beast this amazingly intelligent dapper muscle man was brilliant. Even in this monstrous story he looks cool. Keep on manipulating objects with your feet buddy. But why in the Hell are they already back to relaxing/studying/stuffing their faces with an escaped failed convert on the loose? Not only are they evil, they're lazy as well. 

And there's something about Bobby's face in this issue that upsets me somehow, sort of like he had cheek implants.

Also circus people, I can see elephants for trampling but why the giraffes? Are they if Angel is really willing to die today? 

"You'll use it on women and they'll get the shame, we've all seen Mad Men"

I find it amazing that they advertise this in the story about the mind controlling madman. Also what was 35,000 dollars in 1964 money? Sounds like a good deal. 

Don't all circuses carry battering rams and grappling hooks.

 Blob is so desperate to gain access to the X-Mansion that he went bald from the tension! It's okay it grew back pretty quickly. And I do have to wonder what Blob could possibly want or do with advanced technology. Or what science the X-Men could have possibly furthered in-between scouring the streets for new victims and finding new a terrible ways to hit on Jean. They did invent the tumbler dryer so they could watch her undies go round and round.  

The guys going through the front were really lucky, the artist actually remembered Cyclops doesn't melt things. And poor Jean Grey, so conditioned by the patriarchy she greets even home invaders politely. 

"My own preference is Hank but the Professor says it's my slave name."

That does not look like a gorilla. Looks like a gorilla's love child with a orangutan. Filtered through a bear. Also keep on trucking Beast, only he could make that song badarse. And Beast isn't joking Charles' breeding program requires you to grit your teeth a lot. Lie back and think of up state New York. 

I think that Bonaza reference may actually be the only pop culture reference from X-Men that aged well. I'm looking at you Dazzler. 

Hey does the snow layer actually help in any way? I've been wondering for a while about that Iceman. And considering Jean's only contribution so far has been to close a door, she either is the laziest human being to walk the Earth or the least self confident since Kafka in a short story competition. 


Also if Blob did win, and did keep to his promise to the minions, how screwy would that be? A world ruled by carnies. Children would gawk at the Clean Shaven Lady, commuting would be by canon, and kids would run away to be bankers.  And the clowns would be free to ply their dark art. 

"I have given up on the mental influencer and instead have whipped up a minigun."

 When doesen't Marvel Girl need help? She apparentally needs to have her partner picked for her, she needs defending from filthy circus folk, she needs someone to mercy kill her when the Phoenix turns her into the Red Headed Mistress Of Killing Shit, where does it end? 

And Charles, you control minds, this fight will last exactly as long as you want it to. Really the X-Men are just prolonging this for me. 

"All must bow to the X-Men, or die!"

Many nights I ponder what those two guys in snow suits' gimmick is at the circus. Perhaps it's Roger Bach and his partner, who have slipped into the rabble in disguise to ensure the evil genetic terrorist Professor X goes down. And if Fredrick gets too uppity they can slip a little something into one of the five course meals he eats hourly. 

Actually Blob conquering trained super-powered beings with nothing but circus freaks and possibly two super spies is pretty impressive. Although I can't decide if it speaks well for him or badly for Professor X. 


Continued next post.