...And in this corner, hailing from New York City, featuring the combined power of all six X-Men... "The Mimic," Caaaaaaaalvin Rankiiiiiiiiiiin!!!
Story: Stan Lee
Pencils: Jay Gavin
Inking: Dick Ayers
Lettering: Artie Simek
Originally Published April 1966
It's vacation time yet again for the X-Men, and Bobby and Hank are out on a double date with Zelda the coffee waitress and Vera the librarian respectively. But as literally always happens when the X-Teens are let loose on the street, they can't help but trip over a potential new enemy.
In this case, it's Calvin Rankin, a real piece o' work who has the hots for Vera. Cal and Hank exchange some words and before you know it, it's fisticuffs. But the strange thing is that Rankin is the one who starts leaping around like a Beast, and when Bobby joins the fray, Calvin cools him off with a handful of ice and escapes as an anti-mutant mob shows up, ironically to defend the two X-Men.
Rankin reveals to the audience that he can mimic the powers of anybody he's near, and has deduced that he's just met some X-Men (and later, Marvel Girl) so he finds his way to the Xavier School somehow so that he can gain the powers of all six X-Men at once. He also reveals one of the most stunningly gaudy costumes in comic book history, but hey, he's on a budget here. He gets his books on mine engineering from the library.
He nearly beats the X-Men singlehandedly, but teamwork is a thing, so they just about manage to put him down. They'd better - he's only had those powers for a minute and they are literally shown in nearly every issue honing their powers with grueling Danger Room workouts for hours on end. Despite his defeat, he escapes and kidnaps Jean in the process, luring the team to his Secret Mineshaft Base (!!)
There, he reveals to Jean the origin of his ability. His father was a scientist, and one day a Science Accident happened and (mumble mumble) he gained the ability to mimic others. Mostly, it was just mimicking his fellow students' sports abilities and teachers' knowledge. In a way, he also has the ability to mimic the origins of Professor X and Beast.
Father and Son moved into an abandoned mineshaft where Dr. Rankin promised young Cal that he would find a way to make his powers permanent, and not need to be near the person he was mimicking. But their experiments were such a drain on the power grid that they caused rolling blackouts that led an angry mob to their door. Seems like an excessive response, but folks in these old comics tend to get riled up into mobs real easy. Dr. Rankin tried to seal it off with explosives - seems very excessive - which killed him and cut off access to the machine. Cal vowed to finish the work his father started.
The X-Men arrive in the patented X-Copter, but Mimic is able to use their combined powers to reach the machine. But in a twist, it turns out Dr. Rankin Sr. designed the machine to rob Calvin of his powers once and for all. Professor X wipes his memory, naturally, and sends him on his way.
Further Thoughts:
Oof, do I have some mixed feelings about the Mimic. Every hero has to fight a bad guy with his same powers, so it makes sense the X-Men would meet someone with all their powers. In fact, pretty much everyone the X-Men have come up against lately has been a really credible villain, from the Juggernaut, to the Sentinels, to one of the better efforts for Magneto. Mimic is in that trend, too, posing a unique threat, albeit not so iconic.
I actually do enjoy that he's an over-the-top hard case who is literally glowing red in aggro mode from the moment we meet him, a dickweed with a chip on his shoulder who immediately decides he needs to use his Combo-Man powers to fight the X-Men because he just can't not. He's not in it for glory, ideology, money or even a personal vendetta like the Juggernaut. He really just is a jerk.
At first I lamented that the character had to get such a one-and-done treatment because of the possibilities his powers present, but it's actually quite a good story, a little Twilight Zone "I never said..." twist regarding his scientist father, and anyway until we get some new X-Men, the possibilities are pretty much fully explored here in this issue.
Of course, he does re-appear before too long, and that's not necessarily to the world's benefit.
More notably, Vera and Zelda establish their roles as steadies for Beast and Iceman, and for whatever reason I find them to be one of the more enjoyable aspects of the next stretch of X-comics.
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