UNCANNY X-MEN #65: Before I'd Be Slave...

The X-Men face the ultimate alien threat, plus we find out the fate of Changeling!

Originally Published February 1970

The X-Men arrive back at the mansion only to be beckoned inside, post-haste, by Havok and Lorna. The seasoned teammates bristle at the idea of being ordered around by a pair of rookies, but eventually comply since Alex is Scott's brother and all.

 

Inside, Havok delivers a Powerpoint presentation explaining the threat that Earth will soon face - as in, later today. This would be the Z'Nox, an alien race "absolutely lacking compassion" since early in their evolutionary development, which seems like a weird, judgmental thing to say. The Z'Nox are utterly bent on conquest, and you know they're really evil because they have huge, hollow bug eyes and baleen-filled mouths.

As a weapon, the Z'Nox are the possessors of one of those singularly cool weird ideas that keep cropping up in this recent issues. Namely, they have turned their entire planet into a rocketship that they fly around the cosmos at will, wreaking havoc on their enemies' gravitational forces. Since the planet is described as being the size of Pluto, it's never discussed what happens when it encounters the gravity of the much-larger Earth, nor how its inhabitants survive away from a sun, but honestly if I wanted any of that boring hard science stuff I would follow Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter.

The five proper X-Men question what, exactly, Havok intends to do with this information, since he's a total newbie who can't go half a week without getting kidnapped and stuck in a tube, but let's be honest, that goes for the rest of the team, too. Havok reveals he's not really the one running the show here, and yields the floor to someone who knows a thing or two about fending off alien invasions:

Get X-cited everyone, the Professor is alive and well. Yay.

Charles X-plains that he was never really dead. In fact, months earlier, just as he was discovering the Z'Nox issue, he was approached by Changeling, underling of the secret squid alien invader organization Factor Three. Changey had just recently been diagnosed with a Terminal Disease and, given six months to live, decided to turn over a new leaf. This, just as the Prof was thinking "I could really use a few months of privacy to figure this one out, but it's not like I can just fake my own death or anything."

So to recap, Professor X was alive in the basement this whole time, and the X-Men were mourning a guy who once captured and tried to kill them, disguised as a man they knew and, for whatever reason, trusted. Oh, and Jean knew all about it. Now, why didn't Changeling's form revert to his own upon his death, you ask? I don't know, who am I, Neil deGrasse Tyson?

Well, once that's all sorted out, the Prof begins drilling his charges hard in the Danger Room because they have about six hours before the Z'Nox get to Earth. They would have had longer, except they spent all that time arguing with Havok about whether to go inside.

The Z'Nox arrive and are met by a salvo of missiles from the SHIELD Hellicarrier, which are no match for the weaponry of an evil alien race that can transform a planet into a ship. Unsurprisingly it is very difficult to cover up the presence of a foreign planet in the sky and a mass panic of sorts ensues as mankind is informed of the disastrous consequences...

By Neil deGrasse Tyson no less. Wow.

Once they're all warmed up, the X-Men fly to the Z'Nox ship to slap some aliens around. First they take out the giant lizard monster the Z'Nox use as a guard dog, and then they make their way to the bridge of the Z'Nox craft to bust heads.

Of course "beating up" the Z'Nox is a fool's errand - the aliens are far too powerful and the X-Men seem aware of this. Really they're just there to provide a distraction and buy the Prof some time so he can initiate his full plan.

Scanning the Earth to draw on mankind's collective love, hope and compassion, the Prof somehow combines all of his students' abilities, in some cases in ways we've never seen their powers work, to beam all this positivity into the minds of the compassion-lacking aliens, where it seriously messes them up.

It's sort of a combination of the endings to Ghostbuster II and Mars Attacks!, but several decades earlier. Also I think Doctor Who does this every other season.

With that, everything is wrapped up nicely, and the X-Men share many more happy years with their mentor.

Oh... to be continued, I guess.

Further Thoughts:

Obviously the headline here is the return of Professor X, who has been "dead" for a full third of the series to date. As with Magneto's return, I am fascinated by this turn as much for what may have happened behind the scenes as on the page. Was Xavier intended to always come back? He was noted to be acting suspiciously leading up to his death, but that was pegged at the time as being related to hiding his illness and working with Jean to transfer his power to her.

In the Sentinels story a few months ago, when the robots are rounding up every mutant foe the X-Men have fought, the story actually notes that Changeling is not present, so you'd have to figure the creators knew by then. The least likely scenario seems to be that guest writer Dennis O'Neil (who did a few more notable comics with Neal Adams elsewhere) came in and pitched the idea... that's probably not your go-to if you're just hired help.

The story itself is okay if a bit rushed... there'd been a lot of success with drawn-out stories recently, and knocking this one out in one issue seems tight. There's only 20 pages to explain Xavier's return, establish the Z'Nox as a dire, pressing threat to mankind, and depict a plan to thwart them. I daresay this story would take longer to play out these days... well, maybe longer than necessary, if we're being honest with the way stories are paced, but that's a rant for another time.

The ending, while hokey (invoking a new agey "one world" montage with children, an alarming bandolier-sporting depiction of middle eastern man and a sad old Native American man) at least does approach a grand scale. It feels more like an important story than if they seriously had to just punch aliens and blow up their ship.

I hate to say it but this whole story would maybe have been better if, instead of the new threat of the Z'Nox, it was Lucifer's race, back to take one last crack at world domination. That would carry with it some personal significance for Xavier, and their "thing" was sapping the will to fight from their conquered planets. It may have rehabilitated that character after being arguably the least competent (and least interesting) foe the X-Men ever fought, but maybe he was too far beyond repair at that point.