This is the Seventh Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast: When I first came across the X-Men

Welcome to the Seventh Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast, I remember when I first started collecting, I would collect  Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider Man, Captain America and Avengers and so on but there was one particular title I had never tried before, can’t recall why but i just never read any Uncanny X-Men.  Which is surprising seeing as how the X Men were hot at the time.  Well as luck would have it this one comic book found it’s way to me via a discount bin in a bookstore.  They threw this issue in a pile and it caught my eye, it would be the first issue of the title, The Uncanny X Men.
Nice one huh?  Uncanny X-Men # 161 would be my introduction to the world of mutants, hated by the world who needs them.  The first thing that grabs your attention (although at the time I had no idea who they even were) is the fact that it’s Charles Xavier and Magneto side by side.  And Charles was walking or rather standing.

Written by Chris Claremont   Penciler David Cockrum   Inker-Bob Wiacek   Letters-Thomas Orzechowski   Colours -Glynis Oliver-Wein  Editor -Louise Jones  and the E-i-C-Jim Shooter.  
The story was called Gold rush, it tells the story of how Charles and Magneto met, how they formed a bond, how they realised they were both born with special abilities, it was told during flashbacks.  In Xavier’s mind, he is in Israel, 20 years ago, meeting his old friend Daniel Shomron. Daniel contacted him to help with a patient, Gabrielle Haller, who is catatonic after her experiences imprisoned in Dachau during WW2. Daniel introduces Xavier to Magnus.

They go to see Gabrielle, and Xavier enters her mind. There he discovers a wall, and she summons psychic monsters to force him away. He breaks down the wall. There he relives Gabrielle’s experiences in the concentration camp, including a mysterious final metaphoric memory in which the camp supervisor turns her into a statue of solid gold. Following this, Gabrielle wakes up, and they put her to bed after letting her cry herself out. They go to Daniel’s office, connecting most of the images she conjured to reality, but the golden statue bit perplexes them. Unfortunately, they are overheard, and a mysterious figure sneaks away to inform the “leader”, with a mental “Seig Heil!”. It was a good story that I enjoyed.  I wont spoil it for you, as this issue had some other interesting events as well.

It’s nice once in awhile to revisit and reread that first comic, the one that got your attention and made you a collector.  Funny thing about this issue, I had lost my first copy of Uncanny X Men #161, I thought I would never see this comic again but a few years later I would come across this issue again in a bookstore and yes it was in the discount bin, I grabbed it right away.  Never looked back after that.

Thanks for reading the Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast.