So far the X-Men has been a case of a lot of good ideas not living up to their potential mostly due to weak plotting and shaky character motivations. Issue #4 feels like a conscious effort to fix that, while simultaneously significantly widening the scope of the story: we're not talking about bank robberies or recruitment here, this is a tale about a sovereign nation being taken over by a villain, and a cast of antagonists that genuinely justifies the presence of the whole squad of X-Men. It's also the first story in the series that comes across as an intentional take on the complicated concept of moral questions that can't be answered cleanly.
X-Men #4:
"The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!"
- Writers: Stan Lee
- Artists: Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: January 3, 1964
- Cover Date: March 1964
I don't really know why Stan Lee and Jack Kirby insist on starting every issue of the X-Men with a training sequence in the Danger Room, but here we are again; maybe reader responses indicated a generally positive opinion on them, but to me they only make the beginnings of these stories feel static and sleepy. Usually the sequence also serves no other purpose but to display the power sets of the various characters, which could be done in a more efficient, engaging way. At least in this issue, however, the training session is justified by a moment later in the story where Iceman uses a trick from this scene to solve an actual problem, which is a genuinely fun structural beat. Still, dedicating three whole pages to a Danger Room scene feels like a waste of space, particularly when the story is as big as this one.
We're also introduced to the charmingly labeled "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants", in a scene where the villains -- Toad, Mastermind, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver -- have an argument and end up fighting each other. It's a classic comic book trope for introducing power sets particularly with bad guys, to just have them fight each other for a while. It achieves that goal just fine, while establishing a certain degree of distrust between the group, separating them from the X-Men whose power implicitly comes from teamwork.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman. © Marvel Comics. |
The actual plot begins unfolding with Magneto single-handedly commandeering a destroyer ship -- this is a pretty good scene, where the absurdity of him doing it alone doesn't play as ridiculous, but as a functional display of his power level. This is particularly achieved by pointing out that what he does is in fact rooted in his power to manipulate metal, and so the hijacking is believable.
Professor X approaches Magneto via a psychic link, and we see them converse in a sort of astral form. Xavier's astral self is standing instead of sitting in his wheelchair, which is a nice detail. The purpose of this exchange is mostly to reiterate the ideological divide between the two mutant leaders -- Xavier explains that mutants and humans working together can bring about a golden age, while Magneto considers humankind fit only for slavery. It's a simplified portrayal of their philosophical divide, but it's a necessary scene because it's been a couple of issues since we've seen Magneto, and this split being at the core of the X-Men mythology is still being established.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman. © Marvel Comics. |
Magneto and his group of allies use the destroyer to invade a fictional South American country called Santo Marco, which they quickly overtake by using an illusion army created by Mastermind -- it's kind of a wild storyline, but it works, not least because Kirby's art sells the overwhelming implied force of the marching army that isn't really there. The story goes as far as establishing that after the initial takeover, Magneto recruits actual people to serve in the army, which is a clever extension that many stories would have omitted, and it makes the plot stronger.
The X-Men get into Santo Marco posing as students with Professor X as their teacher, and the sentries let them pass -- it's a bit easy, but I suppose if we needed to allocate all those pages to the Danger Room, we have to cut the fluff from somewhere. At least there is an explanation to how they get in, even if I would have preferred something a little more clever.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman. © Marvel Comics. |
Around this time, we also establish a bit of backstory for the Scarlet Witch, who owes a debt to Magneto for rescuing her from hateful villagers who feared her as a witch. There was an opportunity here to draw out the uncovering of Scarlet Witch's origin by not explaining the entire story immediately after Magneto hints about the debt, but Silver Age comics didn't do that kind of delayed gratification very often.
We start to become aware that this Brotherhood of Evil Mutants might have a little more substance to it than its delightfully old-fashioned name would imply. It's very understated, but there's a feeling that each of the four followers of Magneto is in the group for different reasons: Scarlet Witch due to her debt, Quicksilver to watch over his sister, and Toad is implied to just be simping for the powerful Magneto. We could have done more with this, perhaps by replacing some of the boasting and blustering from the intro scene with a little bit of revelatory dialogue indicating the various mutants' actual motives, but this is already very dynamic for a 1964 comic.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman. © Marvel Comics. |
The latter part of the story is, as is to be expected, mostly oriented around action -- it's a bit of a change in pace from the average fight scene, as we're now watching the X-Men assault the evil mutants' castle, guarded by human soldiers. In this case splitting the heroes up makes more sense than in most situations narratively, and you do want to split them up in some fashion just to give them the space to utilize their abilities and perform visually interesting action. Jack Kirby finds fun ways to display the strengths of each of the characters, with only Marvel Girl feeling a little under-utilized, which unfortunately is a common situation in the X-Men series so far.
The action sequence has a nice degree of tension throughout, with the bad guys beating the X-Men in individual combat, and the heroes figuring out ways to bounce back. They ultimately prevail through teamwork, and force the villains to flee, but not before Magneto rigs two bombs: one small, to explode when the X-Men enter their command center, and one nuclear bomb to wipe out the entire nation if the first bomb fails. Professor X senses the first trap and leaps from his wheelchair to protect his students, injuring himself and seemingly losing his psychic powers in the process.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman. © Marvel Comics. |
As the villains are making their escape onto the commandeered destroyer, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver express internal conflict: they side with Magneto, but refuse to let so many innocent people die. At the last moment, Quicksilver speeds back to the bomb to defuse it, before departing with the rest of the mutants.
This scene is very powerful, even though there was no reason it needed to be Quicksilver specifically to disarm the bomb; just having one of the X-Men figure out a way to disable it would have been passable enough. But that decision, which doesn't result in Quicksilver joining the X-Men in a clean switching of sides, is a fascinating story beat that elevates this story, while propping up the suggestion of complex ideological conflict better than the conversation between Professor X and Magneto did. We're now introducing a layer of grey into the premise of the X-Men that amplifies the understated thematic components that were already there: the battle lines aren't as clear as you'd traditionally expect in a Silver Age comic.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman. © Marvel Comics. |
The issue hints at a lot of profound storytelling elements without hitting on them too hard, and that makes this issue feel complicated and messy in the best kind of way: even if Xavier's questionable morals, which we've explored a bit with the previous issues, wasn't intentional, now the angle of breaking down clean conventional conceptions of good and evil is clearly pre-meditated and purposeful. It's still mostly just a nod here and there, but this kind of premise that resists easy ethical judgements was definitely breaking new ground in comics, and we're finally grasping it in earnest, where the first three issues only hovered around it.
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