X-Men #4

X-MEN #4 (1963)
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

This counts as the villain origin of multiple characters, of which only a few will stay villains.
Notice the coloring is all over the place on the cover. Every villain except Magneto has a miscolored costume (and even HIS costume is a little weird, missing a bunch of details).
I can excuse Mastermind and Toad, as their actual look is not all that great to begin with.
Quicksilver is wearing what will become his classic costume, but he’s going to wear green for the majority of his first appearances.
Be far the most baffling decision is to have the Scarlet Witch wear green. Kind of defeats the purpose of the name, doesn’t it?

Like most of the early X-Men stories, we begin with the team training in the Danger Room.

Everyone is given a specific task, and Marvel Girl’s is to… open a box that contains a cake.
A birthday cake to celebrate a 1 year anniversary… which has 26 candles that disappear between panels.

The scene is directly contrasted with out first look at the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
The two teams have one thing in common: they both eat their meals in full costume.

Mastermind doesn’t waste any time demonstrating his power, and Toad similarly is quick to show off that he’s completely useless.

Mastermind is also already shown to be a complete sleazeball. It’s mostly subdued in this era, but it goes to show that Claremont’s characterization didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.

Scarlet Witch’s costume is only slightly off her classic one, with the most obvious difference being that giant headpiece that will later be simplified. Other than that and the longer gloves, it’s basically her standard Silver Age attire.

Her dynamic with Quicksilver is relatively similar to the classic formula, but whereas she would typically tell her twin brother to knock if off, this time she’s the one to call him to her side.

For some reason the comic keeps us in suspense before it reveals who “the Leader” of the group is. As if Magneto wasn’t on the cover already, plus we’re going to see him literally three panels later, so what the heck was even the point?

Speaking of Magneto, his plan is to steal a US warship…

…which Angel spots in a rather unbelievable coincidence.

Professor X is rather weird in this period, taking steps and precautions that admittedly make sense but don’t actually factor into the story… such as checking Angel’s blood pressure after a long flight.
Also the backgrounds randomly keep disappearing; it’s quite evident that Kirby wasn’t really giving a lot of attention to this series.

Magneto returns to his base, where he’s informed that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver want to leave.
It’s now that we learn the origin story of the twins, and it’s important to remember that they were NOT originally considered to be Magneto’s children.

The fact that Magneto is the father won’t be established until 1982.
That’s why I found it a bit weird that the fandom was so outraged in 2014 when it was revealed that they’re not Magneto’s children after all… they had ALREADY been in that situation for the first 18 years of their existence!

1964-1982 = 18 years not being children of Magneto
1982-2014 = 32 years being children of Magneto
2014-2022 = 8 years not being children of Magneto
So as of 2022, the twins have spent 26 years with a different origin. Unless they are retconned again (which they probably will), in 2029 they will have spent MORE time not being children of Magneto.

Back to the story, Magneto uses his ONE warship to attack the fictional country of Santo Marco (presumably in South America).

Professor X calls the X-Men, showing us what they are doing in their spare time: Beast is doing math, Marvel Girl is exercising, Angel is listening to music and Iceman is… eating ice cream?

At least in the modern recoloring I think it’s ice cream. In the original it looks like he’s drinking snow.

Little known fact: in the Silver Age, Magneto straight up had mental powers.

Magneto obviously doesn’t listen to Professor X and decides to invade Santo Marco… by having  Mastermind create the illusion of a marching army.
Magneto won’t established to be a Holocaust survivor until much, MUCH later, but in light of that origin… yeesh.

Rather confusingly, however, just a couple of panels later Magneto is employing a REAL army.

It’s quite obvious that Lee & Kirby didn’t really know what to actually DO with Magneto, and so you might think he’s basically a Doctor Doom ripoff here… except this has a cover date of March 1964 while Fantastic Four Annual #2, the first appearance of Latveria, has a cover date of September 1964.

 

The X-Men attack Magneto’s stronghold, and it’s time for the Brotherhood to show off what they can do. Nice to see Mastermind’s illusions being given more depth than just being holograms.

Quicksilver, on the other, hand, is a bit underwhelming. Truth be told, Kirby doesn’t really do a great job at illustrating his speed.

Scarlet Witch’s powers have always been a little vague, but they’re worse than usual here. We still haven’t established the idea that she manipulates probability, so her power right now is “she points her finger and stuff happens”.

Speaking of weird uses of powers, I’m not exactly sure how Cyclops does this stunt.

Cyclops unwillingly destroys a large part of the base when fighting Quicksilver, and Magneto flees.
As Beast points out, the X-Men haven’t really been astonishing here.

It’s not a great look for them to be put into a corner by a river of boiling oil…

…which is not even really there.

Meanwhile Magneto is going to leave the country and detonate A NUCLEAR BOMB.
Which I guess he kept laying around just in case!? WTF!?

Yeah, try to reconcile THAT with your “he’s not really bad guy” interpretation, you weird Magneto superfans.

Then Professor X takes the blast of the first bomb to prevent Beast from activating it.
First of all: even this early his telepathy should’ve been powerful enough to just block Beast.
Second: wow that is one impressive display of upper body strength!!!

While Mastermind doesn’t comment on the decision of detonating a nuke, Scarlet Witch hopes she could do something to prevent it… and Quicksilver does just that.
So one of the villains arguably was able to do more good than the X-Men, go figure.

And so we end with the X-Men letting Magneto go because they have to help the woulded Professor X.

Yeah it’s not like one of you guys can fly and follow the ship.

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Historical significance: 3/10
This might be controversial, as both Scarlet Witch and to a lesser extent Quicksilver are very important characters… but if skip all of their appearances prior to their membership in the Avengers you’re not missing anything.
Mastermind is quite unimportant; if it wasn’t for his role in the Phoenix Saga (arguably the only time he’s been interesting) he would’ve been left behind.
And speaking of being left behind… Toad. He looks ridiculous, has an unimpressive power, his personality is laughable… no wonder once Magneto rose to prominence Toad stopped being given roles, it’s impossible to take him seriously.
In fact my absolute favorite use of Toad is in the absolutely hilarious Peter David run on Spider-Man where he becomes a rival and then a friend of Frog Man. 

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Pretty much the epitome of the Marvel scale.

 Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
These early X-Men stories are rough, as it’s blatantly obvious that neither Stan or Jack were bringing their A game.
The X-Men themselves don’t particularly come off as very competent heroes; at least when that’s the case for Spider-Man it’s to milk angst and drama, but the X-Men remain very basic.
The fact that Professor X constantly needs to save them doesn’t really help.
Magneto is as stereotypical as in his first story, if not even more. Mastermind is fine as a generic villain, but Toad is just a waste of space. It’s very, VERY hard to understand why exactly Magneto keeps him around. While I’m not one of these guys that thinks Kirby did everything (have those people ever read the stuff Kirby wrote himself?), I’m positive Toad is 100% a Kirby creation as he really fulfills the aesthetic that will become prevalent in the Fourth World series.
By far the most interesting are Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver; I don’t think they were originally intended to join the Avengers, but there was certainly a redemption arc already in Stan’s mind.

How close is this to the modern character?
Mastermind: 9/10
His darkest aspect is not showcased, but there are hints.
Toad: 2/10
For the classic Silver Age Toad it’s an easy 10/10, but he was completely revamped following the X-Men movie. He still sucks, but he’s basically a different character.
Quicksilver: 8/10
He’s quite on point. Overly protective of his sister and impatient, although not to the extent seen later.
Scarlet Witch: 6/10
Saying that Wanda has gone through a lot over the years would be a massive understatement.