So an interesting thing happened with X-Men comics that I haven't talked about yet: they changed big time. Looking back at the history of the series, it almost didn't make it past 66 issues. Despite the fact that the stories got really good around issue #30 (not that they were bad before, but they picked up in a big way around the 30th issue or so. The stories became a lot more engaging and the action a lot more gripping) and kept at that high level all the way to issue#66, sales were apparently slow. So from 1970 to 1975 there were no new X-Men comics. Marvel periodically reprinted old issues during this time, but until Giant Size X-Men, there was no new X-Men material. From the looks of it, the series was all but dead.
Giant Size X-Men really gave the series the shot in the arm it needed, but it also brought a whole bunch of changes, some I knew were coming and some I didn't. All in all, Giant Size X-Men is crucial and fascinating. But before I go dropping a number of Stan Lees on it, let's talk about the changes, mainly...
The addition of several new X-Men. This is where things get awesome because we get to meet a couple of my very favorite X-Men. The new additions to the team are as follows (in order of appearance): Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Banshee (although we'd met him before, this is his first appearance as an official member of The X-Men), Storm, Sunfire, Colossus, and Thunderbird. The addition of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Storm is a very welcome one. I was biting my nails waiting for them to join up. I really didn't know anything about Colossus before he joined the team, but he's quickly becoming one of my very favorite X-Men. Sunfire is a pain in the butt because he still has this WWII era Japanese loyalism and is inherently distrustful of Americans (Colossus is a Ruskie, but you don't hear him complaining about working in the US of A). He doesn't stick around with the X-Men past this issue, which is fine by me. Thunderbird is an even bigger pain in the butt than Sunfire. It's all too fitting that he dies because I was getting pretty tired of his antics. Also, I never got a sense of what Thunderbird's power was. It might have been super strength, but it's never stated or clearly implied. I could take or leave Banshee. He has pretty cool powers, but this Irish "faith an' begorah" crap is getting on my nerves a little. Also, he has the face of an Irish cop in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It seems vaguely racist. Anyway, the addition of new X-Men is a breath of fresh air. The intrigue brought by Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Storm alone probably saved the series.
Also, immediately following Giant-Size X-men, most of the original X-Men pack up and leave. I know that most of them will be back within a few issues, but their departure gives a chance to really meet the new X-Men and get to know their stories and personalities.
The story of Giant-Size X-Men is basically ok. They're looking for an extremely powerful mutant on this remote island, only to find out that the mutant is the island (I'm experimenting with italics for emphasis instead of bold type, which seems intrusive). It's the sort of thing that would sound really dumb if you sat someone down to explain it to them, but that doesn't mean it's a bad story (Try and explain Lost to someone who's never seen an episode sometime. It'll make you sound like a crazy person). Like I said, the story is ok. It's not as spectacular as you'd expect when you consider the fact that they had to call in extra help.
Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling, which usually means I have nothing else of note to say (do I ever have anything of note to say?). So I'd best wrap this up. Because Giant-Size X-Men revitalized the nearly dead corpse of the X-Men franchise, and because it introduced the world to 4 new stellar characters, how can I give it less than...
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