This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the first twenty stories of the “All New, All Different” X-Men beginning in 1975. I have a soft spot for superhero stories because reading them as a kid served as a gateway to two of my adult passions – mythology and opera.
GIANT-SIZE X-MEN Vol 1 #1 (May 1975)
Title: Deadly Genesis
Villain: Krakoa
NOTE: This was the very FIRST appearance of the new team of X-Men who replaced the original, blander team launched in 1963. That team’s original series had been canceled and reduced to reprints (reruns).
Synopsis: The story opened with a series of vignettes featuring Professor X traveling the world rounding up a new batch of mutants detected by his invention Cerebro. Three of them had prior history in the Marvel Universe:
*** WOLVERINE (real name unknown at the time), who had fought the Hulk and the Wendigo in Canada. Wolverine willingly joined the X-Men and angrily resigned from Canada’s Department H, which had been sending him on missions up to that point. This would have repercussions down the road.
*** BANSHEE (Sean Cassidy), a sometime foe and sometime ally of the original team of X-Men. This Irishman had also fought Captain America and the Falcon.
*** SUNFIRE (Shiro Yoshida), a Japanese mutant who had fought the original X-Men as well as Sub-Mariner, Iron Man and Captain America.
The rest of the mutants Xavier rounded up were new:
*** STORM (Ororo Munroe), from Africa, where her weather-controlling powers had made her revered as a goddess by an isolated tribe.
*** NIGHTCRAWLER (Kurt Wagner), a German circus performer whose monstrous appearance made him the target of a mutant-hating mob from which Professor X saved him.
*** COLOSSUS (Piotr Rasputin), a Russian teenager working on a Collective Farm in the Soviet Union.
*** THUNDERBIRD (John Proudstar), a Native American mutant from a reservation in the American Southwest.
Once they were all assembled at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, the professor introduced them to Cyclops (Scott Summers), the leader of the original X-Men, who briefed them. He had led the original team – Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl, Polaris and Havok (Beast was joining the Avengers at this point) to investigate a new mutant detected by Cerebro on a Pacific Ocean island called Krakoa. The original team vanished and only Cyclops escaped in their aircraft, but with no memory of what happened there.
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ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #1 (Aug 1970) 
Dr. Doom Title: Unto You is Born … the Doomsman 
FANTAX 
SALTARELLA 
CAPTAIN VICTORY 
Powers: Captain Victory (No relation to the Jack Kirby character of that name) could fly and had massive super strength. The upper limits of his flying abilities and his strength were never established before the character disappeared. 
LIGHTNING GIRL 
THE BLACK SPIDER 
Powers: The Black Spider was in peak physical condition and exceled at unarmed combat. He was also a skilled investigator and handy with a gun. Luckily, Ralph’s lifelong hobby was the study of spiders, so he used trained tarantulas and black widows from a package on his belt against his foes. 
SUPER MYSTERY COMICS Vol 1 #3 (Oct 1940) 
Meanwhile, D.A. Nelson goes to his secret lair – a cave in the woods called the Web, where he keeps his spiders and other items. He becomes the Black Spider and trails Harrigan like Peggy is doing. Our hero arrives in time to save her from Harrigan and a Risko gunman, but she tears off his mask and learns the Black Spider is really Ralph. 
SHOWCASE Vol 1 #6 (Feb 1957) 
JUNGLE ACTION Vol 2 #19 (Jan 1976) 
EERIE #62 (Jan 1975) 
FIRE-EATER 
Powers: Fire-Eater, as his name would imply, could “eat” and suck in large flames as well as blow fire-blasts from his mouth. He was also impervious to fire and was skilled at unarmed combat. 
MADAME STRANGE 
Powers: Madame Strange was strong enough to rip iron bars out of a jail cell’s window, was bullet-proof and could run at greater than human speed. She was also an expert at unarmed combat and was skilled with a riding crop AND at knife-throwing. In addition this superheroine had her own personal plane from which she could drop bombs. 
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