Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #11
Cover Date: May 65
Title: "The Triumph of Magneto!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Chic Stone - Inker

Review/plot:
The annoying Stranger appears on Earth, and everyone thinks he's a mutant, even his 85 year old landlady, who despite her age speaks [what Stan Lee imagines to be] the lingo of the day ("How square can you be? You know - cabbage, jack, moola, dough - the rent!!").

The X-Men and the Brotherhood fight it out, but in the end the Stranger takes off into outer space with Magneto and the Toad.

As the Stranger leaves Earth, he says that his people are greatly interested in mutation.

Mastermind is turned to stone, which really alarms Xavier - just look at that expression on his face.

The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver quit the Brotherhood.

The new status quo for the brotherhood causes Xavier to have to, er, reprogram Cerebro.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Stranger, end of the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: X-Men: The Early Years #11

You have to wonder if Robert Heinlein's "Stranger In a Strange Land" had something to do with the character, as Jack Kirby was a science fiction buff.

This issue was the last written by Stan Lee. He continued writing the Avengers, and moved Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch over there. They were the only mutants he continued to write for. He must have liked them.

They don't make "computer reprogramming" like that anymore. (let alone Cerebro being small enough to incorperate...well, every evil mutant of the time)

Though it is weird that the first Brotherhood is finally stopped by...some random super-cosmic being we've never met before that isn't a mutant.

Just a quick correction, regarding Steven Printz's comment - this isn't Stan Lee's last issue of the X-Men. He sticks around until #19. This is the last to feature Kirby's full art, though - he'll continue to provide layouts and such for a few issues more. Similar to how his final involvement with the Avengers comes in #16 of that series, published the same month, he goes out with an issue that serves to draw a line under those preceding it.

You know I just realized something: Magneto seems to have this tenancy to go in over his head during his different "phases" leading to his downfall. (well pre-Claremont)

*In the Lee/Kirby era, he tries to create a group of elite mutants to prove his power...then he tries to recruit a cosmic being who isn't a mutant.

*He then (essentially from the later X-men appearances to pre GS X-Men) tries to create these super-powerful "Mutates" to prove his superiority (while getting loonier and loonier; see his Inhumans appearance)...and then he creates Alpha.

*Even in his infamous/classic 1970s animated appearance, he yells over and over "he can do anything"...then Reed Richards pulls out a wooden gun.

Magneto never seemed to set up for the possibility of downfall back in the 60s and early 70s, did he?

Maybe the fact that this was it for Stan on X-Men explains some things.

Like, why is Cyclops running around in his civies? I just read the issue in Masterworks and couldn't help wondering that.

What happens later? The Stranger departs with Magneto and Toad. When Magneto next appears, it almost is like they forgot for an issue or two what had happened to him (I know they explain it, but it takes a while).

And then Mastermind, who will next appear in the Factor 3 trial and just seems to have miraculously gotten better on his own.

It was like Stan loved the BoEM and used them in so many issues and when he was leaving, decided, the hell with it, I'll make sure no one else can use them either.

As James W. pointed out this was not Stan's last issue. I think he wanted to free up Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch for use in the Avengers and the Stranger was the next step in Marvel's cosmic evolution eventually leading up to Galactus.