X-Men (1963) #65

Cover by Marie Severin

Cover Date: February 1970

On-Sale Date: December 1969

Synopsis: Professor X comes out from the basement where he's been pretending to be dead, and sends the X-Men to fight the alien Z'nox.

Proposed Placement: XY 3, May

CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES:

Page 7

Let's kick off with this issue's big retcon: Professor X wasn't the one who died at the hands of Grotesk in X-Men (1963) #42, it was actually the Changeling in disguise.  The Changeling, having just discovered he was dying, went to Xavier hoping to find redemption.  This just happened to coincide with Xavier discovering a vast alien threat, and wanting to go into hiding.  So the Changeling impersonated Xavier for a few weeks (according to Xavier on page 8.1), and died heroically. So it goes.

This flashback has to happen after the Changeling's villainous turn in the Factor Three saga (in X-Men (1963) #37-39).  The X-Men were already noticing oddities in Xavier's behaviour in issue #40, so Changeling's diagnosis and this flashback must take place in the gap between issues.  I have a gap from February to September of XY 2 between those issues, so there's plenty of time for Xavier and the Changeling to cook up this plan.  Changeling's time impersonating Xavier covers issues #40-42, all of which I have taking place in September; this is consistent with Xavier's claim that Changeling led the team for a few weeks.

As for Xavier's star-scanning, I assume he's doing it as a direct result of his confrontation with the alien "Mutant Master" in issue #39.

Page 6

Some of you may recall that Marvel Girl was also in on Xavier's secret plan.  Back when he "died" she claimed that she'd known all along that he had an incurable illness, but now she has to admit that she's been pretending Xavier was dead for months (since September XY 2).  Xavier swore her to secrecy, and she's done a pretty good job of keeping this from the other X-Men, even down to some convincing tears after his funeral.  Let's just assume she was mourning the Changeling, shall we?  After all, she must have gotten to know him reasonably well while they were planning for this ruse.

Page 8, panel 1

Xavier claims here that he split his powers between Marvel Girl and the Changeling.  Not only does this explain how Changeling could use telepathy while impersonating Xavier, but it explains Marvel Girl gaining telepathy around the same time.  None of this make sense from a modern perspective, if only because Xavier's powers can't just be passed around like this.  We'll learn in Bizarre Adventures (1980) #27 that Jean already had telepathy that was suppressed; rather than giving her his powers here he's removing the blocks on her own power, so that's her covered.  As for Changeling, he's not a natural telepath as far as I'm aware, and I don't think this has ever been dealt with.  My personal head-canon is that Xavier taught him to use his shape-changing to stretch his brain, giving him low-level psychic powers.  It's all conjecture though, and really no more plausible than the explanation that the comic gives.

Page 4

The villains of this issue are the Z'nox, an alien race so dangerous that Xavier had to go hide in his basement for half a year to prepare for them.  Far back in their history, their evolution "soured", and produced a race completely lacking in compassion.  They've been perfecting conquest for eons, and about a millennium ago they built a gravity transformer drive that they can use to pilot their home planet around the universe.

According to page 5.3, a Z'nox craft landed at the south pole last night to act as a homing beacon for the rest of their race.  The remainder of the story has the X-Men driving these Z'nox out, while Xavier hits the Z'nox planet with a concentrated beam of compassion collected from millions of human minds.  A bit of a sappy "power of love" ending, but surprisingly enough this moment will be very important to the first few years of Chris Claremont's run on the book.

COUNTING THE DAYS:

This issue takes place over a single day.  I have it happening the day after last issue's battle with Sunfire.