Issue(s): Uncanny X-Men #7
Cover Date: Sep 64
Title: "The Return of the Blob"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Chic Stone - Inker

Review/plot:
Magneto is still in his recruitment phase. He tried for Namor and Thor, but they wouldn't go for it. This issue he has found the Blob, who, as Magneto discovers with a mental probe, is still brainwashed after his encounter with Professor X.

While Magneto fights the Blob...

...the Brotherhood easily defeat the same group of carnies that gave the X-Men so much trouble in issue #3...

....and in the fight the Blob bumps his head and remembers that he's a mutant. He joins the Brotherhood in order to get vengeance on the X-Men for screwing with his head (perfectly reasonable).

Meanwhile the X-Men have been celebrating their graduation...

...but Professor X has left the X-Men, leaving Scott in charge. He shows Scott Cerebro, which can be used to detect mutants. Scott feels he has to sit at Professor X's desk just in case Cerebro detects anything, which of course it does when the Blob's memory returns. The rest of the X-Men are at a beatnik club in town, where they listen to the poetry of Bernard the Poet...

...and the Beast becomes a minor celebrity due to the size of his feet.

        

Bobby is making time with a waitress named Zelda.

Unfortunately, he's been idolizing Scott too much and he's wearing one of his awful checkered suits. Cyclops calls the X-Men back before Bobby can get a date. This happens a lot with Bobby early on. He never seems to have time to date girls.

Despite an implausibly creative use of Iceman's power...

...the Brotherhood have the X-Men on the ropes and would have defeated them all if Magneto hadn't gotten impatient and fired a bunch of torpedoes at both the X-Men and the Blob. The Brotherhood flee in Magneto's Magna-Car

...but they are armed with the knowledge that Xavier is no longer with the X-Men. The Blob leaves, pissed at everyone and not interested in being a super-person.

It's worth remembering that the Blob's powers aren't just based on his girth. He literally sticks to the ground (his toes are a little weird, too).

The X-Men, broke, have to borrow cab fare to take a taxi home since their helicopter was destroyed in the fight.

Mastermind continues his creepy advances on the Scarlet Witch.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - first Cerebro. Formative X-Men story.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Professor X leaves the X-Men this issue, so he shouldn't appear with the team elsewhere between here and issue #9.

References:

• The Blob first appeared in UX #3

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: X-Men: The Early Years #7

This is also "Historically Significant" as the first time Xavier makes Cyclops the team leader.

Also notable for being the first appearances of Zelda and Bernard the Poet!

Isn't the brain made up with magnetic impulses? Maybe that's. How magnetosphere reads minds

It was later revealed that there was circuitry in his helmet that allowed him to read minds.

I just discovered this. There's a printing error on the cover. If you look, you will see some feathers on the bottom left of the "X" in the title. This looks suspiciously like the wing tip of angel from the cover of x-men #3. I think this is a botched cut and paste job.

Just a link to the GCD for cover Tabe8 refers to (and you can click back to issue #3). The "cut and paste" would have been much more literal back then.

I think you have a typo here, since it's "Cerebro", not "Cerebo". Both in the book and in the continuity.

Except for page 7 that spells it "cyberno" for some reason.

The beatnik coffee shop was a neat piece of early X-Men, but it seems surprising Bobby/Iceman went to it. One can imagine why the Beast wants to go. He's intelligent, and the beat culture tends more intellectual. Even if he doesn't agree with what they are saying, he probably has conversations there he can't have with anyone else. But why does Bobby want to go? Bobby, besides being designated the youngest, always had the least personality of the team. He's rather bland. Why he wants to go there, and kept going, is never really explained.

My theory is he went the first time because it was something to do, so he latched onto Hank. Every other time, it was because he wanted to get into Zelda's pants, and this is something Zelda enjoys.

To me, it's the opposite. Bobby wants to go where all the cool kids are hanging out. [Pun not intended] Scott and Warren aren't cool. Here he's free to have fun with the goofy kid scene that Lee and Kirby described so well, and meet girls. Hank was there to keep an eye on him. He could be focusing on his scientific pursuits instead of listening to Bernard the Poet. You and I would pick Bernard because, like, wow, man, but not Hank. He has tasks to accomplish, and was the most mature of the X-Men except maybe Scott. So he has to forego his interests and look out for the lad who's really into this chick.

When Hank really wants to let his hair down, he and Scott go to Harry's which is nearby in Westchester. But those stories aren't Comics Code-approved.

@Karel, yup just a typo on my part. Thanks.

The beatniks weren't the cool kids, unless you belonged to that clique and Bobby doesn't. If we saw a side of Bobby where he liked reading Jack Kerouac books, foreign films, drug use (in a code book, heaven's forbid!), or was into other beat activities, then yeah, it'd make sense. But he doesn't, so it don't. Instead, Bobby is just a normal American teenager.

Hank isn't going to the Coffee-A-Go-Go because Bobby is into Zelda, at least not in this issue. Because Bobby doesn't meet her until at the end of this first visit. Of course, maybe Hank thought it'd be fun, decided it wasn't, and now goes because Bobby wants to go. I could buy that. However, I am sure the original reason he went was because Hank wanted to go. Hank was smart, but he wasn't a nerd or geek. He had well rounded interests, and as we'll learn was into athletics (not surprising given his power).

While Scott was too introverted and uptight to be fun, Warren always seemed like the "cool" kind to me. He was rich and glamorous, but never seemed to hold it against the others. He was very much about treating his mutant teammates as equals.

I never got the impression this is where Bobby met Zelda. It's not clear where they would have met earlier, but it's also not clear why any of the X-Men are in a beatnik bar. Especially Hank, who would find more intellectual connections with astronomers, chemists and computer programmers than with potheads who think reading a housewife's shopping list constitutes genius. When he met Vera, she was a librarian.

Bobby's the only one who might possibly be interested, and even that's iffy. What were Lee and Kirby thinking?

Warren was certainly "cool" in the sense that he had friends and was a hero and all that, but he's never struck me as the type to just go to a hangout to, well, hang out. He's more fun than Scott, but who isn't? He didn't even like the Hellfire Club and they catered to people like him.

ChrisW, where ELSE would groovy teens in their oh-so hip suits go?

They're already in New York City, so they might as well head to Empire State U and visit the Coffee Bean. Pete, Gwen and Harry aren't there yet, but I bet Hank and Bobby could find some fun folks.

Another weird thing- Scott Lobdell established in X-Men 297 that the original 5 had been hanging out at Harry's Hideaway since Jean's "16th birthday". So the X-Men must have been going to the Coffee-A-Go-Go and Harry's Hideaway at the same time.

In the (probably non-canonical) X-Men: First Class Special published in July 2007, writer Jeff Parker revealed that Bernard the Poet is a latent mutant. Despite this revelation, his poetry still sucks, though.

As per Michael's comment, Parker also stated in that story that the X-Men started going to the Coffee-A-Go-Go in Manhattan specifically because Bobby was interested in Zelda.

Bernard's poetry does not suck!!! He's reading a housewife's shopping list, that's genius, duh!!! You just aren't taking enough drugs to appreciate his genius. May God have mercy on your soul. :(

*Anybody who's currently flying on drugs and still says Bernard's poetry sucks can be ignored because, well, Bernard... Oh Bernard, how can we ever hope to live up to your standards? SIGH*

Another dent in the theory that Bobby Drake is gay.

Bobby, I'm generally appreciating your comments from an "I've been reading this stuff real-time since the Dawn of the Marvel Age," but the "as-you-go" attempt at debunking Iceman's now-canonical sexuality is rubbing me the wrong way. It's not at all unheard-of for gay boys/men to date or have feelings for girls/women. Whether due to socialization, an evolving self-understanding, or simply having occasional heterosexual impulses, it happens quite frequently in the real world. And in light of the retcon, these instances should be understood in retrospect as being cases of either exceptions to his emerging dominant interests, or behavior due to social pressure. Whether the writers at the time of these stories planned it that way or not is irrelevant...

What really pisses me off is that Bendis went out of the way to shoot down the possibility of Bobby being bi.

I get your point but I have a problem with taking long established straight characters and changing. I have no problem with gay characters such as Northstar or others but I don't like changing established characters anymore than I like changing the race or gender is established characters. Why not create brand new ones and do what you want with them

I have mixed feelings about changes like this. On the one hand I want things to stay true to the original author's intentions. On the other hand I want things to stay fresh and current enough to attract newer and younger readers. Only new sales can keep these characters alive. For formula fiction to survive after tens of years and hundreds of issues (or a long series of movies), eventually it's not going to be enough to compress time and use a sliding timescale. In 2016, Bobby Drake can't have been born in the 40s and hang out in beat clubs like the Bobby Drake of Earth-1963 had done.

These comics belong to a new generation now. Either they allow things to change, or they become stale, like DC had become stale in the 60s ha. Plus, I'll take Sam Jackson's Nick Fury over David Hasselhoff's any day. I'm willing to give Miles Morales and Riri Williams a chance. It's their turn. It's only natural for Parker and Stark to eventually move on. Likely they'll come back eventually anyway, altogether the same, yet completely different, just like they've always done.

I agree that characters need to evolve and change while the fundamentals should stay the same.

The problem with declaring the original writers' intentions "irrelevant" is that the current writers' intentions can be declared equally irrelevant eventually in the future.

Agreed, Mark

I'm with Thanos on this, I don't see why they didn't just say Iceman was bi, maybe with a preference for men if they wanted. I think that interferes with the original writers' intentions less, while still adding an extra layer to the old character that he's been keeping hidden, & also providing LGBT representation.

@James - I agree with most of what you're saying, but you made me smile saying "I'll take Sam Jackson's Nick Fury over David Hasselhoff's any day"... I don't think there are many old school Nick Fury fans who saw the Hasselhoff film and thought "Finally! The Nick Fury I always pictured has made it onscreen!" :)

I saw the Hasselhoff Fury film and while it wasn't as bad as I dreaded, it was still pretty poor.

I agree, making Iceman bisexual would be more consistent with his earlier characterization(s).

On a related note, it was interesting to me that George Takei, now an uncloseted gay man, who used to play Sulu on Star Trek TOS, didn't like the fact that they made the Sulu character gay in the latest JJ Trek movie. His argument was right in line with yours, saying that they shouldn't go against the original writers' intentions for the Sulu character.

If we could pick anyone we wanted to play Fury, wouldn't it be cool to go back in time to get Steranko at about age 29 and put the ol' eyepatch on him? Steranko's Fury will always be my favorite version.

Steranko drew Fury to resemble Burt Lancaster, his favorite actor, so I think it would be cool to have gotten Lancaster to play it. Steranko was a major influence on Paul Gulacy who also made many of the characters in Master o Kung Fu resemble various actors.

Looks like the beatnik scene (or this particular place at least) is more mutant-accepting than the general average. In the next issue, Hank has "had it" with bigoted humans, and he does not strike me as type to flip from the first incident, implying things like microaggression, verbal abuse and other oppression mechanics have happened off-screen all this time. Experimental poetry is small price to pay to get a bit of breather.

I think it would have been better to make Iceman bi, but I have no real problem with him being gay, because it's pretty clear to me that he was repressing a lot for many years, and he's the type who would try desperately to fit in and feel normal (whatever he defines as normal). I mean, he held down how many accounting jobs that he hated for how long? All because he thought he was supposed to. So he thought he was supposed to date women. And he may have even been drawn to some of them, and confused his feelings for something more, all while being in denial, internally, about his true self, because he thought he wasn't right. I'm sure his bigoted father couldn't have had anything to do with that.

1. It would have been way more interesting and probably a way for Marvel to have their cake and eat it too if young Bobby was gay but old Bobby wasn't. Alas, that would make some people foam at the mouth. I'm gay and the way Marvel handled this was horrifyingly silly. Bobby went from repressed to the Human Torch.

2. Gay men, at least none I have ever dated, known, or read about, don't randomly date women to explore heterosexual feelings. At all. Your Sexuality 101 textbook is wrong.

But what about men who aren't 100% sure of their orientation? Surely they'd experiment a bit until being totally sure? Not trying to be contrarian, just thinking about the confused/repressed cases, which seemed to fit Iceman for a long time.

And I agree old/original Bobby could have stayed ambiguous (or even revealed as bi if you want a middle ground) so it wouldn't be so awkward for continuity. Or they could have revealed it way sooner so it wouldn't look too out of place today, but good luck writing such revelations in the past decades...

I'm totally ok with teen Bobby being gay, anyway.

Also that Magna-car looks like a Fantasti-car ripoff to me. Get more creative, Magneto!

Later on in X-Factor Bobby has more than one quite normal romantic relationship with a female supporting character. Recent revelations that he is gay only seem to fit with the first few decades of stories featuring him if his sexual orientation changed at some point.

It is possible (although very rare - especially amongst men) in real life for somebody to move far enough along the Kinsey scale during their adult lifetime to describe them as moving from straight to gay (rather than from either to bi). It is, of course, much more plausible that such a thing could happen in the MU given the sheer number of mind-altering superpowers out there. I would find a story establishing that this has happened to Bobby far more convincing than being asked to believe that he was gay all along.

How many of you discussing Iceman’s sexuality identify as straight or bi? If you do, you can stop it right now. You are doing the equivalent of “mansplaining” womens’ issues to a woman. If you want to know how authentic Iceman’s story arc has been, you can only ask someone who came out later in life as gay who had lived outwardly as a straight man.

Jay, i think it's unreasonable to ask that no one comment on the developments for Iceman unless they are gay, and the comments so far seem pretty civil (except for a jerky comment responding to Jay that i've deleted).

That said, it's all pretty off topic for this issue. I think a little discussion due to Iceman's interactions with Zelda was merited, but we're now debating the entire retcon and that should really wait until i get to the issue with the revelation. So please take further discussions to the forum.

I've added a topic in the forum.

Forgive me for getting back on-topic....

I was mildly amused by the user interface for Cerebro as seen on page 11. There is a handy panel that provides a warning light for several "known hostile mutants". When the warning goes off, it registers only the Blob. But at this time, the Blob is surrounded by the Brotherhood. Why didn't any of the other warning lights go off? Cyclops infers (or assumes) that this means the Blob's memory has returned. Do these warnings trigger only on someone regaining their lost memory? Not terribly useful functionality. This would be useful only for the Blob and the Vanisher, and ironically the Vanisher isn't listed on the warning display.

Professor X may be brilliant, but when it comes to mechanical design, he's no Tony Stark.