Alex Summers formally becomes Havok.
And we learn that Trask Jr., son of the creator of the Sentinels, is a mutant.
The sentinels obey the last order he gave them “as a human,” before his mutant gene became activated. You have to admire their purity of mission.
In the end, the Sentinels figure out that Havok draws power from the sun, so they fly off into space to attack the sun as the giver of mutant power. Yeah, it’s a weird, 1960s kind of sci fi ending, but it’s done real well.
Neal Adams’ art is revolutionary. Look at this POV shot:
I don’t recall seeing anything like that before this issue of X-Men.
The villain in this issue is Living Monolith, so it takes place in Egypt, and we see that Cyclops is a bigot.
It’s another great couple of issues for Roy Thomas and Neal Adams. It seems impossible that just a year ago the same person who wrote this wrote some of the worst X-Men stories of all time.
Cyclops is not a “bigot”. He’s simply pissed because those camel-jockeys chased off his brother, whom the X-Men had come all the way to Egypt to rescue in the first place. Anybody in the same circumstance would be equally vitriolic. It is worth noting here, however, that all of Marvel’s reprints of this issue ( and there have been at least a couple dozen ) have had the slur air-brushed off the page. My, what sensitive, politically-correct times we live in! Also: This is the issue where the Angel learns the hard way that his wings are incapable of making a transatlantic flight! Poor Angel!
Classifying a person as a race in a negative way is bigoted. It’s not as extreme as lynching them, of course, but the definition of bigotry is evaluating a person based on an immutable characteristic like race (racism). He definitely shows some here. Everyone has it. It is a normal trait to seek/value those who are “like myself” more than other who are “different from me.” All organisms do it. It’s not a question of being politically correct, it’s a question of being self-aware. I agree with you, though, that Marvel shouldn’t air-brush it out. Characters in literature should be allowed to have blindspots/flaws/limitations. It’s what makes them relatable and real.
I don’t believe people who refer to fighter pilots like ‘Green Lantern’s’ Hal Jordan, or “Top Gun”‘s Maverick as “jet-jockeys” are bigots any more than I believe that Cyclops is for referring to a bunch of bedouin raiders as “camel-jockeys”, during an intense moment of pique. If we are going to categorize anyone and everyone who has ever dropped an N-Bomb, or whatever, for any reason, as “racists” or “bigots”, then that’s going to be 99.9% of the global total! I believe a very celebrated individual once famously said “Let he who is without sin……”