The X-Men (1963) #5

Cover by Jack Kirby

Cover Date: May 1964

On-Sale Date: March 1964

Synopsis: Angel is kidnapped by the Brotherhood and taken to Asteroid M. With Professor X now seemingly robbed of his mental powers, the X-Men must invade Asteroid M and rescue Angel without the professor's guidance. They manage to do so, destroying Asteroid M in the process. Professor X reveals that he was faking his power loss, and that the X-Men have just passed their final exam.

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES

The X-Men are just returning from Santo Marco as this story begins, so there shouldn't be any guest appearances between the last issue and this one.

Marvel Girl's parents had told her they would drop by the school on their way to the World Fair, presumably some time shortly before X-Men (1963) #4. She probably means the New York World's Fair which ran from April to October in 1964 (and the same months the following year).  This could always be written off as a topical reference, but it does give a rough guide as to when Stan and Jack saw this story occurring.

Here we learn that the harness Angel uses to hide his wings was designed by Professor X.

Jean's mother gives us further confirmation of the ties between Xavier and the US government. Given that the school will later be portrayed as a secret headquarters, we have to assume that this information was only known to Fred Duncan and his closest associates. Either that, or the US government knew where the X-Men were located right up until Kitty Pryde erased all traces of the team from the government's electronic records in Uncanny X-Men (1981) #158.

This is the first appearance of Asteroid M. Magneto has a lot of bases in these early days, but Asteroid M is the most impressive, and must have taken ages to construct. More than anything else we've seen, Asteroid M indicates that Magneto has been preparing for conquest for a very long time.

The Brotherhood have been searching for the X-Men for weeks, without success. This indicates to me that it's been weeks since the end of the last issue.

This weird trance that the Toad goes into is never explained (which is most unusual in the very-explainy-indeed Silver Age). My take on this scene is that Xavier is influencing the Toad here, but there's no evidence for that outside of this scene, and the fact that Xavier does have his powers at the time.

COUNTING THE DAYS

If we assume that the Brotherhood's search for the X-Men takes place entirely between issues, then this story begins weeks after X-Men (1964) #4. That also allows time for the X-Men to get from South America to Westchester, so it fits pretty well.

(Also, I've started using a different notation for pages and panels. When I say something like page 6.4, that means page 6, panel 4.)

• Day 1: Page 1 to 9.1. The X-Men return to the mansion and must entertain Jean's visiting parents. Mastermind returns to Asteroid M, having failed to find the X-Men. Magneto comes up with his own plan.
• Day 2: Page 9.2 to 24. Toad lures the X-Men into a trap, Angel is kidnapped and taken to Asteroid M, the X-Men rescue him and destroy the asteroid, and Xavier reveals that he never lost his powers. There's no specific time-jump given here: it could be days later, or on the same day the X-Men returned from Santo Marco. I've placed these scenes on the following day to give Magneto time to enact his plan.