Magneto Triumphant!
X-MEN — Issue No. 112, May 1978
Book: X-Men
Issue No.: 112
Published: May 16, 1978
Title: “Magneto Triumphant!”
Cover Price: 35¢
Format: Digital scan
My fondness for Chris Claremont’s late-’70s/early-’80s tenure on X-Men is not unusual — it’s an iconic run, like Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four and Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, so it has plenty of fans. Claremont worked with some great artists on X-Men over the years, but John Byrne and Terry Austin (who penciled and inked this issue, respectively) might be the best — or at least the ones most associated with the famous “Phoenix/Dark Phoenix” arc that was in progress in 1978 and finally wrapped up in 1980.
All that is to say, I love the X-Men characters, and I love the work of Claremont, Byrne, and Austin, so it is hard for me to come up with much to say about books like this one (issue no. 112) other than “oh wow oh wow oh wow it is so good!” I mean, just look at this close-up of Magneto — comic book artwork doesn’t get much better than this.
Other than just saying “oh wow” some more, I guess I could talk a little about the plot. Magneto, powerful mutant and long-time X-Men hater, has captured the X-Men (plus the blue-furred former X-Man Beast) in a circus wagon. That seems pretty silly till the X-Men find out that Magneto is using his magnetism powers to fly that circus wagon at a high speed and altitude to Antartica. They can’t escape without suffocating or freezing or falling thousands of feet to their deaths.
After they all get to Antartica, Magneto flies the wagon into an active volcano where he has a vast underground secret lair. That’s right, inactive volcanoes are for second-rate James Bond villains — Magneto is so tough he builds his lair in an active volcano and uses his powers and I assume some technology to keep the whole thing from melting.
Having the X-Men right where he wants them, Magneto proceeds to beat them all pretty easily. Except for Phoenix (AKA Jean Grey, FKA Marvel Girl), who Magneto barely beats for reasons that are not entirely clear. Then he hooks them all up to some kind of brain scramblers so all of the X-Men are trapped in Antartica, inside an active volcano, unable to move or even speak. Magneto closes out the issue with a chilling line of dialogue — “If there is a hell, X-Men, surely it cannot be more terrible than this.”
That Magneto dude is just evil, y’all. I am sure the X-Men will get out of this, but I can’t even guess how. So it’s basically a perfect cliffhanger.
Next time — I’ll be back Tuesday with the Beatles (yeah, the Sgt. Pepper guys) and my week twenty wrap-up!