UNCANNY X-MEN #2: No One Can Stop The Vanisher!

In their second-ever adventure, the X-Men stop the Vanisher! In a story that basically breaks the entire franchise before it's even gotten started!

This issue has been Reduxed! For the new and improved write-up, click here.

Written By: Stan Lee
Drawn By: Jack Kirby
Inked By: Paul Reinman
Lettered By: Sam Rosen
Originally Published November 1963

It probably wasn't easy being Stan Lee or Jack Kirby in late 1963.

Since November 1961, they had introduced the Fantastic Four, Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, Ant Man and the Wasp, and Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Lee had also launched Spider-Man with Steve Ditko a year prior, and the same month the X-Men debuted, Lee and Kirby also banded their various loose heroes together as the Avengers, soon to be joined by a returning Captain America. Stan Lee was the editor overseeing the entire Marvel monthly comic line - writing most and farming a few out to his brother Larry and select others - and while Jack Kirby wasn't drawing every single comic, he was relied upon as the source of many, most or all of the ideas Lee was building his books upon (depending on who you ask.) That's a lot of material to generate on a constant basis, and if I can be a little sympathetic, it's almost amazing that the books, flawed products of their time written mostly for kids/teens, are as good as they are.

Part one is, you have to come up with a new idea every issue (in this case, X-Men was running every other month.) So far so good: the X-Men go up against a mutant whose power is to teleport instantaneously and is using it to do crime. Good hook. Then you need to wrap that up in a story, preferably with a beginning, middle and end, what he wants, and how the X-Men go about defeating him.

This is where Lee, Kirby and the rest run into a bit of trouble, and not for the last time.

Our story begins with Professor X summoning the X-Men from their day off in the city (they're always taking days off in the city.) En route, Marvel Girl shoos away a gaggle of groupies intent on fondling Angel, uttering this immortal line:

I know, I know, "Dr. X." I told you I wasn't going to nitpick.

When they arrive at the X-Mansion, Professor X projects some mental imagery for them, in a sure-why-not use of his mental powers that I think is never used again because of the worrying implications that the Prof can see anything even in places where he is not actively looking. This is how he introduces their new foe, the Vanisher, and, guys and gals... let's take a minute to appreciate that couture.

Formless snakeskin tunics and Elizabethan collars are in, especially if you look like Professor Farnsworth.

After Vaisher demonstrates his teleporting powers by performing a daring robbery in full view of the police, we learn his big scheme: to steal the United States continental defense plans and hand them over to the Russians - unless the U.S. government pays ten million dollars.* Hard to argue with a blackmail scheme that ambitious.

*Tax free. And in 1963 dollars!

When he goes to use his vanishing powers to steal the plans, which are of course kept in a brown valise and not, say, a locked safe too small to teleport into, the X-Men are waiting for him (outside the building.) They play hot potato for a while in a fairly well-done scene, unable to land any real offense or recover the goods when the Vanisher... vanishes.

And that's when Professor X, consoling the X-Men than they did all they could under the circumstances, reveals he's got an Ace up his sleeve.

"He's like a helpless child!" says Iceman, (one of the heroes.)

Without having to try particularly hard to get to him, Professor X completely erases the Vanisher's mind - not only taking away his knowledge of his mutant powers, but his entire identity. It feels a little like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly, even if there didn't seem to be any way to defeat the Vanisher with fisticuffs. Yes, he will no longer be a menace, but from that image, it looks like he might not even remember how to feed himself. Good grief, Xavier.

For every story of the remainder of the series' existence, we're going to have to live with the knowledge that whatever problem the X-Men are having, Professor Xavier could probably just scoot in there and mindwipe any problems away. And he doesn't seem all that shy about doing it, either. The best you can hope for is that it's not permanent, but if that's the case, Vanisher will eventually regain his memories and is powers, and then we're back to square one and nothing has been solved. Yeesh.

I feel like there was a missed opportunity to let the X-Men work out for themselves what might be the flaw in the Vanisher's teleportation abilities, some technical weakness they can exploit. You know, when you're inventing all this stuff whole cloth, you can set the rules as you like. Instead, this. No wonder the X-Men are hated and feared.

This is why you shouldn't overwork yourself, writers. You end up taking the cheap way out and coming up with an all-purpose solution that could end any problem and erase the need for a story. Professor X ends the thing with a glib line about how the human brain is the most magnificent power any of us possess. But I imagine he's specifically talking about a human brain with the ability to erase other human brains.

Further Notes:

We get another glimpse at the bouncing ball that is the X-Men's public image: not only do we begin with Angel surrounded by his "chickadees," Cyclops and Iceman rescue some construction workers from a falling wall and get to bask in their already-glowing reputation. Later, when news of the X-Men's (apparently very public) failure to catch the Vanisher reaches the newspapers, a wave of anti-X-Men sentiment grips the apparently-highly-suggestible nation. Easy come, easy go.
We briefly meet Professor X's contact in the FBI, Agent Fred Duncan (who has presumably sanctioned him to take care of mutant threats.) More importantly, we are also introduced to the Xavier School's Demerit program, with Iceman receiving one for speaking out of turn during the initial Vanisher debrief. After all, this is still a school, and where else are they going to learn to respect their elders?

The issue also features a thread about all of the top gangs in the underworld uniting under the Vanisher, declaring that with him around they'll never go to jail. I don't think anyone explained to them exactly how the Vanisher's powers work, but he nonetheless basks the affections of this mob of scruffy dudes while sitting in laissez-faire repose in probably the moment of the issue. After Vanisher's defeat, this leads to a scuffle between the X-Men and the gangsters that defines "perfunctory."