The Claremont/Byrne run on X-Men is the kind of thing you sort of have to love if you're a fan of superheroes. It's required reading by this point, especially if you want to understand how a team book should function. Despite the pair not always seeing eye to eye creatively, it stands the test of time as one of the best Marvel runs, standing on a pedestal side by side with Lee and Kirby's Fantastic Four and Frank Miller's Daredevil.
Today's issue is a fun little one-off that dovetails into a larger story involving the Merry Mutant's number one nemesis, Magneto. It's the prologue to one of their most memorable confrontations with the Master of Magnetism, but for today we'll be looking at one of their lesser-known adversaries, Mesmero.
First appearing in 1968's X-Men #49, Mesmero was a small time crook with a hypnosis gimmick endowed to him by the X gene. His wacky look and persona could possibly be attributed to Arnold Drake, a creator I know best for his work with on Doom Patrol. Drake's characters and stories were always more than a little off-beat, and I tend to think of him as one of predecessors to "trippy" writers like Grant Morrison. Mesmero is set up like a wrestling jobber here, at first portrayed as a huge threat, only to be knocked aside by Magneto to cap off the issue.
I guess I'm getting ahead of myself, so I'll back it up to the start of the issue. Hank McCoy, the bouncing Beast, is looking for his former X-Men teammates (he was in the Avengers at the time) and tracks them to a circus tent in Texas of all places. There he finds them performing in a circus with no memory of their former lives. They and the other circus folk get the drop on him and he has to lead a jailbreak of sorts against their captor, Mesmero. Just as things are about to play out the way you'd expect, the real big bad rears his ugly, helmeted head.
Beast is the star of the issue and Claremont does a good job of making him an endearing protagonist. He's a stand-in for fans of the pre-Giant Size #1 X-Men fans who maybe don't care for the new team or aren't familiar. Beast is one of my favorite X-Men, and if there's one thing I dislike about the Claremont run, it's that Beast isn't in much of it (from this era anyway).
The brainwashed, "circus folk" versions of the X-Men are pretty amusing. Jean Grey is a trapeze artist and sexpot, while her boy-toy "Slim" (Cyclops) is a buffoonish bouncer. Wolverine is kept in a cage and appears feral. Banshee in the carnival barker shouting "Hurry hurry hur-RAY!" Nightcrawler and Colossus are performing freaks. Each character is seen acting pretty much the opposite of their usual self. Between this and the Beast's P.O.V., this must've been a nice break from the usual soap opera stuff for Claremont.
The cover is by Cockrum, but the interiors are by Byrne. What can I say? It's John Byrne. It's great. His X-Men stuff is some of the best comic art of its time. The layouts are pitch perfect and he knows how to pick just the right moments for each panel. He and Claremont had hit their stride by this point.
I think the ending of this issue is brilliant because they lull you into this basic villain of the week kind of story and then drop Magneto on you out of nowhere at the end. When I first read this in Essential X-Men Vol. 1 as a kid, that last page reveal of Mags was one of the few non-John Romita Jr. images I would try to draw again and again. That splash has really stayed with me.
That's the Back Issue Dive for today, Thanks For Reading! Follow me on Twitter @ChrisBComics and check out my other writings at Work/Shoot, Age of Mega, Tabletop Legends, and my favorite passion project, Gotham Animated.
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