Master of the House

Uncanny X-Men #15 – By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (Designer) & Jay Gavin (Penciller)

This issue is really more science fiction than a super-hero story. It features the classic story of man’s creations overstepping and wanting to rule mankind. We’ll see this type of story told many times over the next several decades with creations like the Borg in Star Trek, the Cybermen in Doctor Who and, most notably, the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons are probably the best direct comparison to the Sentinels – created for protection and war, developed their own sentience and eventually sought to over throw their creators.

In this particular part of the story, we see the Sentinels in their headquarters and we are introduced to the Master Mold – the single gigantic Sentinel that directs all others. The Master Mold confronts it’s creator, Bolivar Trask, and threatens to destroy human cities unless he gets the secret of creating more Sentinels. This is a key aspect to this type of science fiction story – how does a machine propagate his race? If they are superior to humanity, they must be able to expand and reproduce.

Meanwhile, the X-Men are seeking to rescue Trask and stop the Sentinels. Iceman and Beast are captured in the first attempt to breach the outer defenses of the Headquarters. They are pulled inside, tossed into a glass cell, and gassed into submission. As the X-Men plan a second assault, the Master Mold decides he can better learn to defeat mutants by studying them. At the demand of the Master Mold, Trask hooks the Beast up to a psycho-probe and Beast reveals details of his life before he was recruited by Professor Xavier.

We really don’t learn very much about Hank McCoy’s early years, simply that he was always short and stocky and very intelligent. His agility developed around puberty, but his powers really manifested during a football game, during which he couldn’t resist kicking off his shoes and hanging from the goal posts by his feet after scoring a game-winning touchdown! We also get to briefly meet his parents and learn that his father worked as a laborer at an atomic project. Here we see radiation linked to the early mutants similar to Brian Xavier who worked with atomic weapons. The key factor in this scene is Trask realizing that the X-Men only want to help humanity, and that by trying to destroy them, he’s only created a deadlier enemy.

Professor Xavier shows some interesting uses of his own powers in this issue. First he blacks out a number of Sentinels using a bolt of mental energy. Essentially, he wipes their hard drives and deactivates them allowing the remaining X-Men entry into the headquarters. Then, through the psychic link he shares with all the X-Men, Xavier senses Beast relating his story. Xavier ventures out in his astral form, and uses his mind to dull the Beasts thoughts so he can’t give away any of the X-Men’s secrets. But the Master Mold detects his presence and uses electrical discharges to harass Xavier’s astral presence and drive him back to his body. We see Stan Lee making a lot of assumptions on the brain and electrical energy in this issue. Certainly pseudo-science at best, but makes the story fun and entertaining like Star Trek Technobabble.

The remaining X-Men rescue Iceman, leading to one of the funniest scenes in the book. As they seek to escape, Iceman creates a wall of ice to slow down the charging Sentinels. The section leader of the squad orders one of the other units to activate his boot jets and use its head as a battering ram to shatter the ice wall! Classic Stan Lee moment! The section leader then uses a “heavy gravity ray” to immobilize the X-Men.

The issue ends with Trask refusing to give up the secret of Sentinel creation and the Master Mold threatening to make him talk! Another classic moment!

With a great Science Fiction premise, some truly funny action moments and another excellent opponent, this issue of X-Men really has things moving and pushing this book to the top of the heap!

Note: This issue was reprinted in February, 1970 as the second story in Uncanny X-Men #68 (under a nicely recolored cover of this issue) and again in July, 1995 as X-Men: The Early Years #15 (cover by Adam Hughes).

Professor Xavier and the X-Men #17 – By Jorge Gonzalez and Chris Batista

Again, Gonzalez stays very close to the original story with his reimagining – in fact, more so then he has in the past. The biggest difference is that Bolivar Trask is the narrator of the story. This proves a bit interesting as we see his changing attitudes towards mutants as the issue moves along. Mostly Trask’s narration is exposition, but occasionally gives us a deeper look at his thoughts.

A couple of noted difference do arise in this version beginning with Professor Xavier only being able to temporarily disable the Sentinels controlling the weapons. I could go either way on this point, but I admit having a time constraint raises the tension a little like a good action movie. And Professor Xavier isn’t detected by the Master Mold until he attempts to manipulates its cognitive functions. I actually liked this take on the scene, since it shows Xavier’s increased desire to hamper the Sentinels as well as illustrates the fact that the robots don’t actually have psychic powers, but a physical countermeasure against them.

The end of the issue makes a little more sense as well. The X-Men prove they can easily dispatch a single Sentinel, but when the robots get together, they can create the Gravity Field that locks down their opponents. I like the idea that each Sentinel can be a “corner point” of the field, making the field more powerful with the more Sentinels feeding it! In the original story, the field was generated by a single Sentinal (granted, he was a “section leader), but that seems to unbalance the story too much.

In Beast’s flashbacks, we also hear the names of his mother and father – Norton and Edna – which we were not privy to in the original. Other than that, the story proceeds essentially the same as the original.

Chris Batista’s artwork is still in the more stylized sort that was growing in popularity in the late 90’s, but it exhibits some nice throwback to the 60’s era in spots that give the issue a more classic feel then others in this series. I don’t talk about covers a lot, but this issue features a stunning cover by Jim Calafiore. Very interesting perspective of Cyclops as viewed through a hole he just blasted in a Sentinel’s chest! The ink work is a little heavy, but it plays nicely into the style.

A nicely retold story for 90’s audiences too lazy to find the originals.

Up Next: Uncanny X-Men #16 and Professor Xavier and the X-Men #18