I’m reading the Essential Uncanny X-men Volume 1, and so far have read the Giant-Size Issue and 94-101.

Basically, this is the X-men team, and series that made the mutant characters, and the X-men book popular. And X-men such as: Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, and more were introduced.

Reading it, I must admit to being quite bored, and not in a good way at all.

Now I am all for “Suspension of Belief” in these types of stores.

But the LOGIC and MISUSE of Valid Science was so ridiculous!

I’m talking PURE bad Science used, as in things happening in the book, that cannot happen.

I mean really bad stuff.

I’ll point out a few examples, only cause I don’t want to read the issues again, and point out all the terrible ideas used in the issues.

In Giant-Size X-men 1 that introduces the new team:

-Basically the original X-men get captured and only Cyclops returns. So what’s Xavier do? Call the military with his connections? Call the Avengers and his other superhero connections?

No, he would rather travels the world, (but you know being a psychic he could’ve just saved time and done an astral plane talk) and from the corners of the world recruits a new team. Then the new team heads to the island that the original X-men were lost in.

And Cyclops the field leader basically admits: He has NO PLAN, doesn’t know where to go, or what to do to find the original team.

(WAY to plan ahead and think things out. Yes, Cyclops and Xavier would make great field leaders in battle. Just tell the troops to rush into enemy lines without a proper plan of action.)

The enemy is, get this, the Island itself has become alive and is feeding on the original X-men teams bodies for energy.

Yeah, like this villain didn’t put me to sleep half-way into reading this book. (No seriously, I put the book down my eyes were so heavy and fell asleep. Yes I know, a sign of great writing.)

Using mutant powers in weird ways, they launch a beam into the Earth’s molten core and thrust the Island into Outer Space! (No read that last line again, I’m not joking.)

As I said, I can suspend belief, but C’mon. Talk about kooky writing and logic. It was abound galore, in this the first issue of the new team.

Now to issue 94-95,

-The old team basically Quits and Walks out the Door!

- They fight the Ultra Boring Count Nefaria. The plot is the Count takes over a U.S. military base, and will use the U.S. missiles to target all nations of the Earth, unless he’s paid his ransom.

The new team arrives and there are various fights and Thunderbird is blown to pieces in such a cheap pathetic way.

And since Bucky is back, isn’t it time the Original Thunderbird was back?

Issue 96 is a stand alone with a Demon beast to fight.

Issue 97 a crazy issue of Havok and Lorna returning and teaming with Eric the Red to kill the X-men.

They fight in an airport with planes exploding.

Then in issues 98- 101

The Sentinels return, except this time they are led by Dr. Lang, he captures a few X-men and does not kill them right there. Though, his goal is to exterminate all mutants. (So the logic of just capturing them, you know, really plays out.)

Where does he put the X-men? Why in s Space Station above the Earth!
And he sends his Sentinels to fight in space, because the X-men are in a Space Shuttle to rescue their teammates.

Plus Dr. Lang builds X-Sentinel robot imposters of the original X-men, complete with the Original X-men’s powers! (Yes, read that last line again.)

In the chaos of battle, the space station is going to break apart, the Space Shuttle is out of manual control. And the only way back safely is for Jean Gray to pilot the ship back. So she taps the pilot, to steal his memory of how to fly the Space Shuttle and heads back to Earth. The Ship lands and crashes many times on the cement before flipping into the ocean, where the team lives and Phoenix appears from the water.

As I mentioned above, I am all for Suspension of Belief. But the combination of:

-Badly written stories

-Poor use of real world Science

-Boring villains and story pacing

-Unexplained things happening off-panel that affect the plot. With only a text caption saying what happened to off-screen relevant scenes.

Equal for me, a boring read so far. Hopefully it picks up in issue 108 when Byrne takes over. In fact I know it does.

I guess when it comes to comic books: These X-men stories HAVE NOT aged well, and held up to the test of time.

But the funny thing is: Works of quality, do Stand the test of Time.

I only have to look at all the great Marvel Silver Age material as mere examples.

Things like the early Spider-Man issues, the early Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and so many more are great examples of books I enjoy.

Of course quality and what is considered good and bad, is Subjective to the reader. What one reader likes, another may hate. And so forth.

But this is my view of the early X-men stuff so far. And a clear example, to me at least, that Marvel in the 70’s sure as heck lacked the CREATIVE JUICE that the 60’s Marvel had.

Thought I suppose, that’s a good topic for another day.