Falls Apart in the Second Half
The eighth issue of The X-Men starts out pretty good. The X-Men, though they've graduated, are still a team and are training together in the Danger Room under Cyclops, who seems to be an even sterner taskmaster than Professor X was.
Later, Hank and Bobby save an imperiled child in Greenwich Village, only to be attacked by an anti-mutant mob. When they get back to Professor Xavier's School, Hank, disgusted, quits the team saying "I'm through risking my life for humans".
So far this is a great comic - but this is where it takes a turn for the worse. In just a week, Hank has established himself as a pro wrestler sans mask, going by the name 'The Beast' (anyone see a problem with that?).
He goes up against 'Unus the Untouchable' who, in one of those extraordinary coincidences, also happens to be a mutant, and of course Magneto's looking to recruit Unus.
Unus decides to rob a bank just for the hell of it, and the X-Men, coincidentally, happen to be there to try to stop him. What follows is a really lame battle that includes things such as this:
In other words, since Marvel Girl asks 'what next, Cyclops?' the entirety of 'Marvel Girl! Plan G-5! Quickly!' translates to: 'Catch me.'
They leave Unus on top of a building and conveniently forget about the rest of the bank robbers and returning the huge bag of stolen money.
Back at the School, they find Beast who has already managed to whip up an incredibly sophisticated gadget which he repeatedly says is to defeat Unus, but when he says it will increase Unus' power, they all automatically assume Beast is working for Magneto and attack him. Yes, really.
Beast runs away and confronts Unus, who despite the fact that Beast says he's going to stop him, just like the X-Men, Unus assumes Beast is working for Magneto (doesn't anyone listen to what Beast actually says?).
Anyway, in the interest of preventing spoiler in case you choose to actually read this dud, let's just say that Unus is defeated and everything goes back to normal in the end.
I'm giving The X-Men until issue #12 to start getting good. Otherwise I'll just skip a decade and rejoin the party at Giant Size X-Men #1.
