X-Men (1963) #29

Cover by Werner Roth

Cover Date: February 1967

On-Sale Date: December 1966

Synopsis: Mimic ends up in a fight with the Super-Adaptoid, loses his powers, and has to quit the team.  (It's too bad Roy Thomas couldn't squeeze the Super-Skrull in there as well.)

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES

Page 1

The narration says that it's early Winter, December to be exact, which continues Roy Thomas's dedication to tracking the passage of time.  This would put it right at the end of XY 1.  Angel says that Jean is away from college for the weekend, continuing another trend of always having villains attack on a Saturday.  It's one way to get around her being away from the team, I guess.

Angel has finally recovered from his injury at the hands of Cyclops, and probably recently if Jean is commenting on it.  This has been a six-month recovery, so it was pretty serious, but as I've mentioned before we can possibly chalk that long recovery up to Angel's hollow bones.

Finally, the X-Men (including Mimic) are still all teenagers.  Closing in on the two year anniversary of X-Men (1963) #1, that would make Iceman around 18.  I have Beast (the oldest) at around 19.5, and the rest in between.  I'll have to start ignoring those "teenager" references in regards to Hank pretty soon.

Page 2, panel 5

Cyclops thinks that it was only a few weeks ago that he blasted Angel accidentally on purpose.  That was in X-Men (1963) #26, which specifically happened a few days after issue #24.  Issue #24 is set in June, so Roy's timeline is getting a little screwy.  We'll just pretend that Cyclops was supposed to think "months" instead of "weeks".

Page 5, panel 3

The Super-Adaptoid was built by AIM scientists to destroy Captain America, "many mortal days ago".  He believes he accomplished that task in Tales of Suspense (1959) #84.  That issue was released concurrently with X-Men (1963) #27, so it probably happens between #27 and #28, or maybe between #28 and #29.  He's been hiding out in a Revolutionary War ammunition bunker ever since.

Page 7, panel 3

The Adaptoid claims to be the result of years of biochemical research.  I'm not sure if that tallies with the history of AIM, but it probably doesn't matter. This is an X-Men timeline, not an Avengers one.

Page 9, panel 3

Mimic transferred from Metro College to Xavier's at some point after X-Men (1963) #27.  Unlike Jean he's an orphan, so he doesn't have pushy parents telling him where he has to go to school.

Page 10, panel 1

Angel and Beast say that they've been waiting "weeks" to beat up Calvin Rankin.  This is another case of Roy Thomas having a contradictory timeline, unless it's just that they've been getting particularly annoyed with him lately.

Page 11, panel 4

Banshee returned to his homeland of Ireland at some point after last issue.

Page 13, panel 4

The Adaptoid took the power of four Avengers during Tales of Suspense (1959) #84.  Those four Avengers are Captain America, Hawkeye, Goliath and the Wasp.  It's probably lucky for the X-Men that Thor and Iron Man were out that day.

Page 18, panel 1

The Adaptoid believes that he killed Captain America weeks ago, which gives a timeframe for when Tales of Suspense (1959) #84 happened.  

Page 20, panel 8

Thus the Mimic leaves the X-Men, having been depowered in his battle with the Super-Adaptoid.  It's open to debate how long he was on the team.  According to this issue Roy Thomas believes it was a few weeks, but a closer look at the timeline reveals that it was more like six months.  The former makes more sense character-wise - Mimic doesn't seem like the sort who would stick around that long - but I have to pick and choose what to ignore.  In the end, those specific references to months and seasons win out over vague references to "weeks".  (And if I really want to square these references, I could just say that it took Calvin a month or two to move to Xavier's full-time.)

COUNTING THE DAYS

This issue takes place on a single day (either Saturday or Sunday) in early-to-mid December (i.e. not during college break).