Check out the credit box on the splash page. While this was Neal Adams’ first Marvel comic, he’d actually been around for a long time—having worked on the syndicated Ben Casey strip, and a bunch of books for Warren and DC. But until you’ve done Marvel, you don’t exist. At least that’s how Stan Lee sees it. Anyway, this is his debut for Marvel and … Wow.
Look how he illustrates Marvel Girl’s use of her powers. Nobody had done that before. It’s not just a great way to depict mental powers, but it’s beautiful. I mean, suitable-for-framing beautiful. As for the writing, we see Jean Grey becoming a much more important character and the Living Pharoah becomes the much-more-interesting Living Monolith.
Great comic all around!
I agree! “A+”, actually! Neal Adams comes on board and takes a “blah” comic-book series and transforms it, overnight, into the State-of-the-Art! From the little things, such as putting the Angel into a real pair of boots beginning with the splash page, as opposed to the baby-blue ballerina opera-slippers he had been sporting the previous seventeen issues, ( beginning with issue#39 ) with no explanation- just DO it- it needs doing! Neal apparently just simply refused to draw him in those fruity slippers, and that was it! This step also begins the Angel’s transformation journey from wearing the biggest eyesore in comics of the time, to the sleek and beautiful outfit that Magneto, of all people, designed for him in issue#62, with another outfit that falls in between the two extremes, along the way! The BIG thing, of course, is the new direction the series undergoes with this issue, with Adam’s arrival, which has always struck me as being just a little too big of a coincidence. Roy Thomas’ work on this series up to this point was standard funnybook fare, which became some of the best comics of all time with Adam’s arrival. There is a legend in the industry that insists that Adams would not come to Marvel in 1969 unless Stan and Roy gave him a series that he could do all by himself- pencils, inks, letters, edits- and writing. Adam’s presence on “The X-Men” during this time would certainly suggest that some kind of major change had occurred. Roy’s prior work on this series simply could not compare with what was happening beginning with “What is…..the Power??!” I have posited this theory at several comicons across the past thirty years, and it is almost never received well. Neal Adams “ghost-wrote” those comics, Thomas collected the by-line, undoubtedly due to contractual considerations, and I know it in my bones. Sharing this theory at comicons doesn’t make me very popular, ( Roy certainly has his fans, of which I am one as well, but still…… ) but I know what I know, and I feel what I feel. Neal passed away earlier this year, and our beloved industry will never quite be the same. The ultra-realistic style promoted by Neal, and the other late titans of realism, George Perez and Jumbo John Buscema, is currently out of fashion, has been for some time now, and quite possibly may never return. That’s an awful shame, the result being I will continue to limit my involvement with comics strictly to the works of giants like Buscema, Perez, Romita Junior, and the Nefarious Neal Adams! Excelsior!
Dude, you should write a blog. Or, if you want, you can write “second opinions” for this one and I’ll post them in the main article. I love your thoughts on comic issues!