X-Men (1963) #37

Cover by Don Heck

Cover Date: October 1967

On-Sale Date: August 1967

Synopsis: The X-Men are captured by Factor Three, and put on trial for their lives.

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES:

Page 1

The issue opens with the Changeling, second-in-command of Factor Three, viewing footage of the X-Men's first battle with the Juggernaut from X-Men (1963) #13.  This "flashback" doesn't depict any new scenes.  Changeling got this footage by probing the captive Xavier's mind.

Page 11

Also among the members of Factor Three are four old enemies of the X-Men: the Vanisher, Unus the Untouchable, the Blob and Mastermind.  I don't think this story ever gets around to mentioning how these four were recruited.  Blob and Unus are easy enough, as they were already teamed up and at a loose end after X-Men (1963) #21.  Vanisher hadn't been seen since issue #2, and was basically an amnesiac at the end of that story.  No doubt the Changeling or someone else in Factor Three restored his memories.  As for Mastermind, he was last seen in issue #11 being turned into a statue by the Stranger.  He later says that the change was temporary, and when he reverted to normal he sought out other evil mutants and found Factor Three.

Professor X detected the presence of a "new mutant menace" around issue #26, which turned out to be Factor Three.  It's never revealed what it was he detected, but I would guess it was triggered by either the reversion of Mastermind or the return of Vanisher's memories.  We have precedent for the latter, as Cerebro sounded an alarm when Blob's memories returned in issue #7.  This is pure conjecture, but I like drawing these kinds of connections to fill in the gaps.

Page 14

The flashback at the top shows the X-Men battling the Vanisher from X-Men (1963) #2, and doesn't depict anything new.  The Vanisher's costume is the wrong colour though; it should be red.

The second flashback shows the Beast zapping Unus from X-Men (1963) #8, and doesn't depict any new scenes.

Page 15

The flashback in the second panel, showing Blob being rolled in mid-air by the Beast, is new.  I've placed it during X-Men (1963) #7, between page 18.4 (showing the Beast throwing dirt in the Blob's eyes) and 18.5 (showing the Beast kicking the Blob away).  It's a bit of a rough fit, but it's plausible enough.  Stitched together it looks something like this:

The flashback in panel 3, with Cyclops blasting the ground under the Blob, seems to be showing a scene from page 23.3-23.4 of X-Men (1963) #3, from a different angle than was shown in the original story.

The Mastermind flashbacks in panels 5 and 6 don't match up to any of the X-Men/Brotherhood fights seen on-panel.  Some of you will know exactly what I'm about to say: once more the off-panel X-Men/Brotherhood fight from Journey Into Mystery (1952) #109 comes to the rescue.  It's so handy to have a story with an unseen X-Men/Brotherhood confrontation.  I can jam just about anything in there.

Page 20

The guy on the screen is the Mutant-Master, the leader of Factor Three.  His warning leads directly into a cliffhanger that continues next issue.

COUNTING THE DAYS

This story takes place in a single day, starting on the same day as the end of last issue (assuming the the X-Men caught a morning plane, and the flight was 8 hours; I'm not even going to try to tackle time zone differentials here).