Welcome back to the adventures of swingin’ Spidey in 1967. It feels like forever since we got back here. Here we begin a complete run through the eras. Last batch I left a few out due to not wanting to use them up too early. But… this isn’t a Spider-Man comic, as you probably noticed. Weird place to start, isn’t it? But this is where it goes. I realize this post is called X-Men 35, and yet this is X-Men 83. As mentioned way back in the post about MTU #4, X-Men spent years as a book of reprints, and it turns out getting this copy of the story was much cheaper than the original. It’s still from 1973, it’s not new or anything, but newer. Let’s see how Spidey meets the merry mutants for the first time. This one’s written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Werner Roth, and inked by Dan Adkins, and begins with the X-Men’s associate Banshee flying around wailing like, well, a banshee, as he does. He’s somewhere in Central Europe, hunting a group called “Factor Three,” and I am not enough of an X-Men guy to know what that is. He finds ‘em, though, and because he flies by making a loud and awful noise, they know he’s coming. A door opens in their secret mountain lair and…
The spider-like robot almost overpowers him, but Banshee manages to fly away. He goes back to his place and sends a desperate message to Professor X, but he passes out almost immediately and is captured by sinister forces. Also, Professor X is missing right now, and The X-Men are trying to find him. They’re working on that when they get Banshee’s message.
Weirdly philosophical there, Roy…
So, yeah, this just becomes a Spider-Man comic for a few pages…
Is Cerebro picking up Spider-Man? That’s odd. The X-Men go to investigate, minus Jean, of course, because she’s a girl, so she gets left behind in case Banshee sends another message. Blah. They drive down to the old mill in Professor X’s Rolls Royce (Take that, Batman!). At their destination, Spider-Man is still running from that robot, saying he feels like he’s stumbled into something that doesn’t concern him.
(It would’ve actually been X-Men 27, but you know, reprints)
Spidey goes on to dispatch The Beast with similar ease, as if this was his comic and not theirs, and is working on doing the same to Iceman when Cyclops decides to maybe try reasoning with him. Before we can see how that goes, though, we cut away to Jean, who’s found a note in Professor X’s files on Factor Three that conveniently reveals he put a special crystal in Banshee’s headband that would let them contact him at any time. That’s handy! So she sends a message, but Banshee’s still knocked out. Alright, back to the boys.
(There’s only 4 masked mutants here, Spidey, come on) Spidey continues to evade everything The X-Men can throw at him, just running the table on ‘em in their own book, until Cyclops finally gets it together.
And that’s that. The X-Men go home and Jean tells them she’s been able to pinpoint Banshee’s location, so they’re off to rescue him, but that’s nothing to do with us. Kinda crazy how much panel time Spidey got here, and how he managed to repeatedly insult and outwit his far lower-selling labelmates. The X-Men were never a hot property until the All-New, All-Different era, seems like you’d want your guest stars to think they’re awesome in case said guest star’s fans are only buying your book for them. But, hey, what do I know about marketing comics in the late 60s? Come back next time for actual Spider-Man adventures.