“Enter, The Avengers” (k032)

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Posted in K100.

“Enter, The Avengers” is a 20-page Kirby story from X-MEN #9 [1965], inked by Chic Stone, who inked most of Kirby’s work for one year in mid-1960s, most of it quite attractive. This is also around the time that crossovers became even more frequent at Marvel. This month also had Thor meet the Hulk, Spider-Man meet the Human Torch and the Avengers fighting the FF villain the Mole Man in their own book.

In this story the X-Men are summoned to Europe by Professor X, who is hunting down the villain Lucifer, the man who cost him the use of his legs in some hinted-at story that wouldn’t be told until after Kirby stopped drawing the book. The Avengers also wind up in the same region, apparently thanks to Thor’s hammer detecting evil rays or something. Yeah, I don’t know what that’s all about, but something has to lead to the crossover.

The Professor finds Lucifer, but finds out that he’s rigged a bomb to explode if his heartbeat stops, so he mentally orders the X-Men to stop the Avengers from interfering. So of course, they fight, which has some entertaining interplay with a lot of characters to choreograph.

Eventually Professor X communicates with Thor and convinces him that they should let the X-Men handle this, and the team re-joins the Professor to defuse the bomb. And for some reason the Professor then lets Lucifer go now that he knows he can be defeated. So much for Xavier’s vow earlier to make sure he never menaces humanity again.

This is a solid story with a few very amusing scenes, like the tourist who runs into both teams.

https://www.comics.org/issue/18909/#141897
X-MEN ANNUAL #1 [1970]
MIGHTY MARVEL TEAM-UP THRILLERS [1983]
MARVEL MASTERWORKS #3 [1987]
MARVEL MILESTONE EDITION – X-MEN NO. 9 [1993]
X-MEN – THE EARLY YEARS #9 [1995]
ESSENTIAL UNCANNY X-MEN #1 [1999]
GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #3 [2005]
MARVEL VISIONARIES – JACK KIRBY #2 [2006]
MARVEL MASTERWORKS – THE X-MEN #1 [2009]
X-MEN OMNIBUS #1 [2009]
X-MEN VS. AVENGERS [2010]
X-MEN VS. AVENGERS – FANTASTIC FOUR [2011]
X-MEN EPIC COLLECTION – CHILDREN OF THE ATOM [2014]
KING-SIZE KIRBY [2015]

 

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