X-Men (1963) #31

Cover by Dan Adkins

Cover Date: April 1967

On-Sale Date: February 1967

Synopsis: The X-Men fight the brother of Jean's boyfriend from college, Ralph Roberts aka the Cobalt Man.

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES

Page 3, panel 2 to 5

Calvin Rankin, after being depowered last issue, has returned to college.  He apparently promised not to reveal the identities of the X-Men, but I bet Professor X mind-wiped him anyway.

Xavier claims that the battles with Banshee, Ogre, the Super-Adaptoid and the Warlock all happened in recent weeks.  Those fights span from X-Men (1963) #28 to #30.  Issue #28 was set in Autumn, and #29 was set in December, but it can all work if we say that #28 happened in October or November.

Also, it's Friday.  TGIF, am I right X-Men?

Page 6, panel 6

I probably should have included another panel for context, but this scene has Jean talking to Ted and Ralph Roberts about Ralph's backstory. Ralph used to work for Tony Stark doing cobalt experiments, but a few months ago be quit and formed his own company, Roberts Research Lab.

Page 9, panel 3

Later on Ralph explains that he left Stark because they refused to divulge the secrets of Iron Man's costume.  So he's mad at Tony Stark, which really raises the question of what the hell this guy is doing as an X-Men villain.  (That's been pretty par for the course for Roy Thomas's run though.  Nefaria is an Avengers villain, the Locust would be much more appropriate in an Ant-Man story, the Mayan god Kukulcan should probably be in Thor, the Super-Adaptoid is a Cap villain, the Warlock was a Thor villain.  At least he claimed to be a mutant, I guess.  But one gets the sense that Thomas would rather be writing pretty much any other Marvel book at this point.)

Page 8, panels 1 to 4

The nightclub is playing "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees, which has apparently been out for "several months".  It was released in November of 1966.  I currently have this story happening somewhere in December, so the timeframe is a little tight, but given that this is very much a topical reference it doesn't matter in the long term.

Of much more interest is the first appearance of Candy Southern, Angel's first long-term girlfriend.  They apparently haven't seen each other for a couple of years.  Recently Candy convinced her parents to let her get an apartment in New York, where she's been working at the UN Building and taking night classes at Archer College.  She doesn't play much of a role at all in these early X-Men comics, but she'll be much more important later on when Angel is a member of the Champions and the Defenders.

Page 13, panel 2

Professor X recently equipped the X-Men with signal devices inside their watches, which is momentous stuff.  Xavier can sense messages sent from the watches mentally, and apparently each one has a unique frequency so that he knows who is trying to get in touch with him.

Page 16, panel 3

The recent destruction of Stark Industries happened in Tales of Suspense (1959) #87-88 at the hands of the Mole Man, and it is rebuilt by #89.  Not particularly relevant to X-Men continuity, but I like to make note of these kinds of things just in case.

COUNTING THE DAYS

This story takes place in a single day, a Friday.  It probably happens in December of XY 1 or possibly January of XY 2.