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| Cover by Werner Roth |
Cover Date: May 1966
On-Sale Date: March 1966
Synopsis: The X-Men battle the Blob and Unus, who are unknowingly working for Lucifer. Lucifer zaps Xavier with a ray, and Marvel Girl learns about their history while reviving him.
CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES:
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| Page 4, panel 5 |
Professor X has just finished installing a new Cerebro, as Magneto smashed the original to pieces in issue #18. This doesn't quite make sense, because Xavier used Cerebro to scan the Mimic in issue #19. Let's assume that he started fixing it right after #18, got it basically functional before #19, and has only fully restored it just now.
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| Page 5, panel 5 |
After being told that Cyclops has quit the team, Xavier notes that Scott has been terribly distraught for the last few weeks. It's not clear what could have caused Scott to become more angsty than usual, but if we're looking at recent events in the comics then the rise of anti-mutant sentiment stoked up by Bolivar Trask could be the reason.
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| Page 6, panels 2 to 5 |
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| Page 7, panels 1 to 4 |
This flashback, in which Lucifer influences the Blob and Unus to team up, happens days before the beginning of this issue.
Not long after this flashback, Lucifer makes Unus immune to the ray that Beast invented to keep him in line (as noted on page 9.7). While I'm on the subject of things that Lucifer has been doing in the background, he set up a mental screen to stop the X-Men and Xavier thinking about him. He probably did this not too long after his defeat in issue #9.
According to Unus, it's been more than a year since X-Men (1963) #8. This is true in publishing terms, so I could always write it off as a topical reference. I currently have issue #8 in June of XY 0.
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| Page 9, panel 6 |
According to Unus, it's been more than a year since X-Men (1963) #8. This is true in publishing terms, so I could always write it off as a topical reference. I currently have issue #8 in June of XY 0.
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| Page 14, panels 1 to 4 |
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| Page 18, panels 1 to 4 |
This issue features a long flashback to Xavier's first confrontation with Lucifer. He says that it happened "some years ago"; I currently have it in XY -10, a few years after Xavier's military service.
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| Page 19, panel 2 |
Lucifer has spent years observing Earth, and his people have waited "long" to conquer it. That's all vague enough to fit pretty much anything I come up with.
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| Page 20, panel 5 |
Xavier bought a private jet several weeks ago, before their fights with the Sentinels and Magneto (so between issues #13 and #14. Possibly he bough it in reaction to the X-Men having to catch a cruise ship to Europe in issue #9, but that's conjecture. He had a jet that could be flown via telepathy in the very early issues, but whatever happened to it is a mystery that the comics don't answer.
COUNTING THE DAYS
This issue takes place over a single day. If it's taking place over a year after X-Men (1963) #8 (as Unus claims) then the earliest it can take place is in June of XY 1.
“The X-Men battle the Blob and Unus, who are unknowingly working for Unus.”
ReplyDeleteLUnus doesn’t know he’s working for himself? Riiight…
Unus*
DeleteThe law of the internet: when pointing out someone's error, you are bound to also make an error. Thanks for the heads up though, I've fixed it now.
Delete