Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #9
Published Date: Jan 65
Title: "Enter, The Avengers!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Chic Stone - Inker

Review/plot: OK, wouldn't it be cool if Professor X lost the use of his legs when humans found out that he was a mutant and they tried to lynch him or something? Wouldn't that sort of fit thematically?

Well instead he lost his legs fighting a really corny generic super-villain who is helping prepare for an alien invasion. Or maybe he is an alien? Anyway, Xavier left the X-Men a few issue ago so he could hunt down Lucifer(!) for a rematch (alone in a wheelchair journey to the center of the earth)...

...and now that he's spent all that time searching for him, the Avengers find him too.

But he's going to detonate a bomb if he gets attacked, so the X-Men have to fight the Avengers to prevent them from reaching Lucifer until Xavier can stop Lucifer with his mind.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - this was reprinted as a Marvel Milestone Edition because it is the first battle between the Avengers and the X-Men, but it's really nothing of consequence.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Pushed up a bit because Iron Man will soon go missing.

References:

• Running into the X-Men, Iron Man says "Why does every group we meet try to hog the battle for themselves?", referring to Fantasic Four #31 when the FF wouldn't let the Avengers fight the Mole Man.

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: Marvel Milestone Edition: Uncanny X-Men #9

Lucifer was actually an alien.

The battle between Lucifer and Charles where Xavier lost the use of his legs was later retconned by Claremont in X-Treme X-Men #44 to have taken place in Afghanistan, not Tibet.

Was there an in-story reason for the change, or was it just due to the sliding timescale, with Afghanistan just making more sense than Tibet "seven years ago" or whatever it currently is?

I think it was more a matter of Claremont using it as a way to retcon Tessa into Xavier's past.

It was also possibly his realisation that a creature called "Lucifer" was more likely to live in mountains in that area than in Tibet (and I suspect he had in mind linking his being there to the real-world Yezidi).

Personally I think it's a better match but would love to have seen more. He did intend to delve into the backstory further in a proposal called X-Men: Year Zero but the series was rejected.

argh! spoiler alert! you guys totally ruined the secret. there was no mention of aliens in this issue. things will never be the same again.