UNCANNY X-MEN #8: Unus, the Untouchable!

The X-Men do battle with a foe they can't even touch! (Stop! Unus time!)



Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Inker: Chic Stone
Letterer: S. Rosen
Originally Published November 1964

We begin this week with the X-Men being put through their paces in the Danger Room, as usual, at the handoff their interim leader, Cyclops. Cyke is taking his Professor X role very seriously, right down to wearing the Prof's old suits as he prepares his teammates for any underhanded attack they might face in the field.

As usual, the X-Men play as hard as they work, and after training Beast and Iceman make for the city for a little recreation. Unfortunately, as heroes tend to do, they wander into trouble, performing an impromptu rescue for a stranded kid who managed (quite impressively) to climb to the top of a water tower.

Despite Beast's heroism, the assembled mob lashes out, violently chasing Hank and Bobby from the scene. In a fit of pique, Beast decides he's had it up to here trying to Protect A World That Hates And Fears Him™ and storms out of the X-Mansion, quitting the X-Men for reals - and it's to the scene's credit that you can actually buy that the normally-evenkeeled Hank McCoy will have such a harsh reaction.

Scott is distressed enough to call Professor X, who is deep in a cavern in Eastern Europe "hunting for Lucifer."* The Prof, for his part, seems a bit blasé about Hank's turn, believing it best to let him blow off some steam, and feeling certain Hank won't, say, join Magneto or anything - even though Hank's reason for leaving the X-Men is exactly why Magneto hates humans in the first place.

*It's not specified here that Lucifer is the name of a villain Professor X has encountered before, leaving the reader to assume the Prof is off hunting for Satan himself. The X-Men will actually meet the devil - or a least one of them - many years down the road and it will be considerably less awesome than hoped for.

Beast does the only thing more sensible than joining a Mutant Terrorist Organization: he becomes a pro wrestler. I utterly love when superhero comics meld with Pro Wrestling, since the two have a lot in common - ostensibly depicting simplistic yet sensational battles between good and evil that occasionally dabble in black-and-grey morality and even more frequently struggle with truly executing their vision and promoting their characters.

The bounding Beast's first opponent is the sublimely-named Unus the Untouchable. Try as he might, the merry mutant can't seem to stagger or move his foe, bouncing off of him like a superball. The Beast loses via countout, ensuring a future rematch.

Although not long on Magneto-style charisma or Quicksilver's character depth, Unus is a perfectly fine villain-of-the-month in the mold of Blob or Vanisher, and in fact his story is very much the same as Blob's. Instead of using his power - having an impenetrable force-field - as a sideshow attraction, he's using it to succeed at pro-wrestling. He's raised his profile to the point where Mastermind appears on behalf of Magneto to give him a tryout, probably because Unus is a little tired of languishing in the midcard. Grab that brass ring, Unie!

The X-Men, minus Beast, blunder over to fight Unus, and put up a good enough fight but can't seem to overcome his power. They return home to regroup only to find Beast designing a new weapon to battle Unus... a ray gun that will increase his power! The X-Men are rightly incensed, believing that what they need is for Unus to be less  powerful, not more, but Beast doesn't have time for explanations. He empowers Unus with results familiar to anyone who remembers the story of King Midas...

It actually gets a little dark. Unus is unable to feed himself as items hurl themselves away from him uncontrollably. Beast fixes him as long as he promises never to ever use his mutant powers for crime/terrorism ever again. Much like the Blob before him, he decides to go back to exploiting his powers for personal gain in a nonviolent, socially-acceptable way.

Further Thoughts:

After four very repetitive battles against Magneto, we go back to meeting random new mutants as antagonists and I feel like we've reached the apex of what was possible to do with an X-Men comic at this time. The inciting incident plays off the thread of mutant-phobia that was starting to develop in the series, and having Beast - the X-Man with the most strongly-defined personality - strike out on his own finally gives a member a chance to demonstrate what he is like outside the context of the team (the fact that he's also an articulate science-genius capable of developing a power-enhancing raygun is also a tad convenient.) Even better, the "King Midas" solution to the Unus problem is a simple but elegant bit of lateral thinking... maybe not a million miles from using Prof X  to mindwipe all their problems away,  but more poetic and satisfying.