Appearing in "If Iceman Should Fail..!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) (Main story and flashback)
- Toad (Mortimer Toynbee) (Only in flashback)
Other Characters:
- Unnamed nurse
- Unnamed mutant clone slaves
Races and Species:
- Mutants (Main story and flashback)
- Humans
- Gigantians
Realities:
Locations:
- Milky Way (Main story and flashback)
- Solar System
- The Stranger's Museum Planet (First appearance) (Only in flashback)
Items:
Vehicles:
- Magneto's metal gondola and balloon
- Laser-induced hypodermic
- Magna-Car
Synopsis for "If Iceman Should Fail..!"
Continued from last issue....
Professor X, Angel, Cyclops, and Marvel Girl have all been defeated by Magneto, who put the team into a high altitude hot-air balloon, hoping that his hated foes would perish once it reaches its destination of 100,000 feet. Magneto revels over the victory, magnetically lifting the mansion out of its foundation. He then decides to use the mansion as his own base of power then sets the house back down to the ground. Entering the residence of his hated foes, he then uses his magnetic powers to destroy Cerebro. However, his destruction is interrupted when the Worthingtons -- Warren's parents -- arrive for a visit. Magneto confronts them at the front door and uses magnetic hypnotism to put them under his thrall, ordering them to go sleep upstairs in the upper bedrooms. Magneto then comes to realize that one of the X-Men -- Iceman -- is missing, and waits for him to return to the mansion so that his revenge can be complete. Magneto boasts how Iceman is the weakest of all the X-Men.
Meanwhile, Iceman is still recovering from injuries sustained battling the Sentinels. His doctor injects the unconscious mutant with a new medicine with a special device. It stops the boy's delirious rantings; however, if he will awaken remains to be seen. Meanwhile, high above in the weather balloon that might mean their doom, Professor X exerts all his mental power to try and overload the mental-wave disruptor that has been attached to his head. His ploy succeeds and he revives the rest of the X-Men. They begin to assess their abysmal situation and wonder how Magneto could have returned, after being taken from Earth by the Stranger.
Back at the X-Mansion, Magneto uses his magnetic powers to assist him in constructing a device that can duplicate body cells and create an army of mutant clones, using the Worthingtons as the source material. Probing the situation mentally, the Professor learns of Magneto's plans and tries to revive Iceman, who awakens from his coma and agrees to go out and try and stop Magneto. Marvel Girl is then instructed to use her telekinetic powers as an anchor, preventing their balloon from floating up any higher. The Professor then probes Magneto's mind so that he and the X-Men can learn how Magneto managed to return to Earth:
They discover that shortly after Magneto and Toad were taken to the Stranger's homeworld, Magneto began plotting his escape. One day, they were left to their own devices and Magneto -- taking advantage of the fact that the Stranger allowed them to roam his planet freely -- brought Toad to a location where a number of rocket ships had been collected by the Stranger and put on display in a museum. Magneto then used his magnetic powers to gain access to one of the rockets and after kicking Toad off the entrance ladder, Magneto flew the rocket back to Earth.
Bobby arrives at the mansion and spies on Magneto to learn what his plan is. Seeing Magneto creating Mutant clones from the Worthingtons DNA, Iceman sneaks into the room where they are sleeping and uses his ice powers to stop the flow of information, leaving the clones inert. Furious that his creations have not come to life, Magneto enters the room and attacks Iceman. Magneto underestimates Iceman's ability and Bobby manages to fight off Magneto's attacks, creating an ice slide to send the two of them out of the mansion.
Meanwhile aboard the balloon, the Professor comes up with a solution to get them back on the ground. He orders Cyclops to use his optic blast to poke a pinpoint hole in the balloon so that the helium inside slowly leaks out and they can then safely descend to the ground below. The X-Men safely land on the ground and attack Magneto together, however the Master of Magnetism manages to fight them off. Before they can renew their attack, Magneto magnetically traps Iceman and threatens to kill him if the X-Men don't cease their fighting. Iceman tells the others not to surrender for him, however Angel flies in and manages to pull him free from Magneto's grasp.
The X-Men and Magneto resume their battle until Professor X tells them all to stop fighting and surrender. The X-Men are shocked at this order and Magneto gloats over his "superiority" over the X-Men. However, this only proves to be a delaying tactic on the Professor's part as he has delivered a mental summons to the stars, calling the Stranger back to Earth to collect Magneto. Magneto flees the scene, with the Stranger trailing behind him.
The X-Men then rush inside to stop the machine (which has now begun to operate since Iceman's ice has thawed) before it can bring Magneto's slave Mutants to life. With the machine deactivated, the clones disintegrate and the X-Men destroy the machine.
The next day the Worthingtons awaken from their sleep with absolutely no memory of their encounter with Magneto, and join the X-Men (now in their civilian guises and with their secret identities protected) for breakfast.Appearing in ""Lo! Now Shall Appear -- The Mimic!""
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Vera Cantor (First appearance)
- Zelda
Antagonists:
- Mimic (Calvin Rankin) (First appearance) (Main story and flashback) (Origin revealed)
Other Characters:
- Dr. Ronald Rankin (First appearance) (Only in flashback) (Death)
- Unnamed construction workers
- Blackie - Calvin Rankin's classmate - (Only in flashback)
- Unnamed baseball players - (Only in flashback)
- Unnamed students - (Only in flashback)
- Hawkeye (Clint Barton) (Mentioned)
- Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Realities:
Locations:
- Earth
- North America
- United States of America
- New York
- Westchester County
- New York City
- Calvin Rankin's mine hideout (Main story and flashback)
- New York
- United States of America
- North America
Items:
- X-Uniforms
- Cyclops' Visor, Version 1
- Cerebro (Mentioned)
Vehicles:
Synopsis for ""Lo! Now Shall Appear -- The Mimic!""
The X-Men are in another training session supervised by Cyclops. The session is once more interrupted by Iceman's childish games and the session is preempted temporarily while Cyke takes Bobby down a peg. Cyclops then tests Hank's time record for dealing with a trap door test which Hank passes with flying colors. The Professor enters the room and applauds his students’ good work and tells them that after their great performance against the Sentinels and Magneto, and the fact that they are at their fighting peak, he has assigned them all a brief vacation. The team then off their costumed identities and go into the city in their civilian guises.
Hank and Bobby go to the library where they are to meet Bobby's girlfriend Zelda to join Hank on a blind date with Zelda's friend Vera. Hank has his reservations about meeting this woman, but becomes instantly smitten when he finds that Vera works at the local library. Along the way to their scheduled date, they run into Calvin Rankin, a young man who has been trying to get Vera to go out on dates with him. Jealous that Vera is out with Hank, the hot tempered Rankin starts to fight Hank. Hank pulls his punches, attempting to hide his mutant nature, however when Hank attempts to fight back he is surprised to find that Calvin somehow has powers the same as him. After he easily trounces Hank, Bobby attempts to fight back, but is hit in the face with a snowball by Calvin. Just then, construction workers notice the fight and attempt to stop Calvin from beating up Bobby, however Calvin manages to dodge a thrown brick and suddenly creates an ice wall to protect him from other projectiles. Surprised at these new abilities, Calvin flees up the side of a building, evading the arriving construction workers.
Surprised, Calvin recognizes his new abilities as powers that belong to two of the X-Men, and correctly deduces that Hank and Bobby are secretly Beast and Iceman. He then tests out his new abilities, hoping to use them to destroy the X-Men, however they eventually fade away. Calvin forgot that the skills he mimics from others fade away once he is far enough away from the people he mimicked them from.
Returning to the streets and going out for coffee, Calvin runs into Jean Grey while she is out shopping when she accidentally bumps into him. After rudely shouting at her, Calvin sits down at the table and realizes that he's also mimicked telekinetic powers and realizes the redhead he's bumped into is none other than Marvel Girl. Realizing the X-Men must be in town in their civilian identities, Calvin decides to follow Jean to discover the location of the X-Men's secret base.
Showing up at the mansion wearing a pair of ruby quartz glasses and a harness (so as to hide his mimicking of Cyclops and Angel's powers) Calvin shows up at the X-Mansion under the false pretense of "apologizing" for the fight he enticed earlier, and asks to join Xavier's school. He first mimics Professor X's telepathy when the Professor attempts to mind probe Calvin and finds that he cannot access his mind. He then meets all of the X-Men, mimicking their powers upon shaking their hands. The reception is less than warm, and Calvin realizes that none of the X-Men trust him. Allowed to be excused to go upstairs for a moment, the Professor tells his charges that he suspects that Rankin is up to no good and since he has deduced the X-Men's identities that they should change into their costumes and be prepared for an attack.
Sure enough, Calvin returns downstairs wearing a specially made costume. Calling himself Mimic, he tells the X-Men that he intends to defeat them with copies of their own powers. Mimic then takes down Angel with a combination of his and Beast's powers, deflects attacks from Cyclops and Iceman by using the opposites powers as a defense against the attacks. With one-on-one attacks ineffectual, the Professor orders the X-Men to attack Mimic as a team. Mimic manages to defend himself and fight the X-Men off. As the team of mutants regroup, Mimic then nabs Marvel girl and flees in a car, with her as his hostage. The X-Men follow in their helicopter hoping to catch him before he can harm Jean.
Mimic (now with all his stolen powers gone except for Marvel Girl's telekinetic power) takes Jean to an abandoned mine where Jean is surprised to find a hidden living space within. There, Mimic tells Jean his startling origins: He explains that his father was a scientist who disallowed Calvin to ever enter his lab. However, one day the defiant Calvin was snooping around his father's lab and accidentally knocked over a beaker filled with chemicals his father was working on causing it to smash open and cover him in a strange gas. Finding that he was okay, Calvin soon realized that the exposure to the chemicals somehow changed him. When in a school yard brawl with the school's boxing champ, he somehow developed his opponents boxing skills. Later he would find that he could absorb the skills of those who were around him, however his sudden bouts of perfection caused his friends to become suspicious of him and shun him.
Learning what had happened to his son and suspecting the people in town would eventually turn against his boy, Calvin's father relocated them to an abandoned mine in the hopes of working on a way to make his son's powers permanent. However, the experiments required a heavy use of power. The townspeople learned the source of the power drain and formed a mob, converging on the cave. Warned of their coming by his alarm system, Calvin's father attempted to bar their attack by blasting closed the main entrance. However, he underestimated the force of the explosion and this oversight cost the elder Rankin his life. The machine that could potentially make Mimic's powers permanent was buried in the explosion. After his father’s body was buried, the young Calvin vowed to get revenge on the world once he found a way to make his power permanent.
With his story finished, Jean properly deduces that Mimic intends to use the X-Men's powers in order to clear the rubble and free the machine that could make Mimic unbeatable. Mimic soon detects the arrival of the other X-Men when Angel's wings begin to sprout from his back once more. Rushing to the cave, Mimic then uses his returning optic blast to begin clearing through the debris. Meanwhile, the X-Men cautiously enter the cave and free Jean who would warn them of Mimic's plans.
Mimic meanwhile has managed to break his way through to his father’s lab and before he can open the door to the device he seeks, he is attacked by the X-Men, who have caught up with him. Mimic manages to fight off the X-Men and grab the Professor as his hostage to keep the X-Men at bay while he uses his father’s machine. However, instead of making his mimicking powers permanent, the device actually strips Calvin of this ability and knocks him out in the process. The X-Men, realizing the machine is overloading, carry the Professor and Rankin to safety before it explodes, destroying the entire lab. The X-Men then change Calvin back to his civilian guise and the Professor removes all memory of his identity as Mimic and sends the boy on his way, hoping that he can get a fresh new start. With the threat of Mimic ended, the X-Men return home.