X-Men (1963) #40

Cover by George Tuska

Cover Date: January 1968

On-Sale Date: November 1967

FIRST STORY: "The Mark of the Monster!"

Synopsis: The X-Men fight Frankenstein's Monsters, which is really an alien robot. Yep.

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES:

Page 1

This story is explicitly set in Autumn, which means that a hell of a lot of time has passed since last issue.  X-Men (1963) #29 was the last issue to be set at a specific time (Winter).  Issues #32 to #39 all happen in fairly quick succession, as they involve the capture of Professor X, and one assumes that captivity didn't last for months on end.  I could open a gap somewhere between issue #31 and #32, but #32 has references to Juggernaut being brought to the mansion weeks ago, and that means issues #28-32 should be close together.  The only conclusion I can come to is that the team has a quiet six months or so, which makes sense given that they defeated pretty much their entire rogues gallery during the Factor Three saga.

Page 3, panel 1

Professor X and Marvel Girl have apparently been working on a "hush-hush project" lately.  This is the first inkling we get that Xavier is preparing for his own death (or to fake said death, depending on how far ahead writer Roy Thomas was planning things).  Her "yes and no" answer fits perfectly well with the idea that the Changeling is involved in all of this, masquerading as Xavier.

Page 3, panel 4

This flashback shows an expedition that was financed by the New York Museum finding Frankenstein's Monster frozen in a block of ice, somewhere in the Arctic Circle.

Page 4

Professor X assigned Frankenstein for his students to read last Spring (not long after he got back from his Factor Three captivity).  Iceman didn't read it, which sounds about right, but why it's taken Xavier this long to learn about that is anyone's guess.  Perhaps he's been distracted with faking his own death.

Professor X summarises the end of the book: Victor Frankenstein pursued his creation into Arctic regions, where he died. The monster boarded the ship to see Victor's corpse, then leapt overboard and was last seen being borne away by the sea.  (The scene of the monster jumping overboard is depicted in the third panel.)  According to Angel, this happened more than a century ago; the novel was published in 1818, so it's more like 150 years.

Xavier's assertion that "he always suspected" the events of the book to be real is an odd one, and odder still is his claim that he believes the monster to be an android.  I guess his mental scan of the creature from earlier could have informed him of the latter.  As for the former, I'm tempted to say that this is actually the Changeling doing a bad Xavier impression.  "Just pretend as though you already know everything," is something the real Xavier might have told him to help him with the ruse.  You don't fool me, Changeling!

Page 15

Supposedly, the Frankenstein robot was created by aliens from a tropical planet, who were passing by Earth 150 years ago.  This would put the events in 1817 or 1818 (depending on whether we go by cover date or publication date).  The robot was supposed to contact the people of Earth as a test, to see if humanity would react with hostility, but instead the robot malfunctioned and went berserk. The aliens chased it to the arctic, where it was rendered helpless by the cold.

Mary Shelley somehow learned about all of this, and it inspired her to write the novel.  She wrote it in 1816, which screws up the timeline above; I'll have to move those events back a few years.  Of course, all of this ignores the later revelation that, in the Marvel Universe, the events of Frankenstein happened as they did in the novel, and that presumably Mary Shelley based her book on a true story.  So we have two conflicting origins for Frankenstein's Monster, which does make things a bit awkward.  Luckily for me, this won't really become relevant for an X-Men timeline, so I can just forget about the conflict and go with the robot.  (Actually, I just remembered that there's an X-Men villain who is a descendent of Victor Frankenstein, so I will have to deal with this eventually.  Stupid Marvel Universe and its stupid interconnected stories.)

COUNTING THE DAYS:

This story takes place over two days during Autumn.

• Day 1:
• Page 1 to 15.6: The X-Men defeat a robot of Frankenstein's Monster.
• Day 2:
• Page 15.7: The X-Men read about the adventure in the newspaper.

SECOND STORY: "The First Evil Mutant!"

Synopsis: Scott Summers is forced into working for mutant criminal Jack Winters (aka Jack O'Diamonds). Professor X comes to his aid.

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES:

Page 1

Jack Winters mentions that Scott caused a stir in the capital "earlier today".  Again, Roy Thomas has his timeline messed up: earlier issues show that Scott revealed his powers, this was monitored by the FBI and reported by the media, and then the next day Xavier read about it in the paper and went to Washington.  This is the timeline I'm going with.

This does clear up another discrepancy, however: the "capital" that Winters is referencing is almost certainly meant to be Washington, so Scott's incident happened there and not in New York.

Page 2, panel 5

Professor X is shown here using Cyberno, the precursor to his mutant-detecting machine Cerebro.  This presumably means that Xavier already had the device built before this story, but the use of the word "makeshift" throws that into a doubt.  Could he have thrown it together between issues, in a matter of hours?  It seems unlikely, but it is the sort of thing that scientific types are capable of in Silver Age comics.

Page 3, panel 7

Page 4, panels 1 to 4

Winters lays out his origin story here.  He was a worker at a nuclear power plant, until a few months ago when he tried to steal some radioactive materials in order to pay off his gambling debts.  The materials exploded, and he spent months in hospital with radiation burns.  When he got out, he realised he had mental powers, and his hands were gradually transformed into pure diamond.

COUNTING THE DAYS:

This story takes place over a single day, following directly from last issue.