Before Days of Future Past
While widely considered one of Marvel's best titles, that wasn't always the case for The X-Men. It really wasn't until the 1981 X-Men volume 2 that it took center stage as Marvel's best book. Back in the mid-1960s, X-Men was pretty much an also-ran from the 'House of Ideas'.
That is until the Sentinel Saga. Beginning with this issue, Stan Lee hit on a really great idea. Mutants are already a little suspect - what if you ratchet up fear of mutants to full blown Red-scare level paranoia? Then what if someone (in this case a character named Bolivar Trask) decides to build humanity a defense system against said mutants - an army of heavily armed giant robots?
Finally the X-Men had a threat to face that really felt unique to their comic. Sure they had arch-nemeses in the likes of Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but when it comes down to it, they're just another supervillain team.
The issue starts out great with Xavier giving the X-Men a vacation. Meanwhile, Trask starts making media appearances sounding the alarm about an impending mutant overthrow of mankind. At first Xavier tries to handle things in a very intellectual manner; challenging Trask to a debate on live television. But then Trask unveils the Sentinels, and in a brilliant plot twist, they decide that in order to protect mankind they must rule mankind. Xavier immediately calls all the X-Men back together as all Hell breaks loose in the TV studio!
One of the best issues of the early X-Men.
