The Classics - The X-Men #10

Someone much smarter than I once said, "The Golden Age is 10."

Meaning that some of the memories from childhood that you cherish the most are from when you're 10 years old. It's probably not true for everyone, but it's certainly true for me.

The TV shows from the mid-'60s, the books and games, and most certainly the comic books still carry with them a sweet nostalgic rush.

This issue of The X-Men, cover dated March 1965, is a good example (even though I was only nine at the time).

Created by the team supreme of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it's a rollicking, high-energy romp, as the team of mutants embarks on an adventure to Antarctica.

Like so many of Lee and Kirby's work, this one has enough ideas crammed in there to fill out a dozen issues.

In the frozen wastes the X-Men discover the Savage Land (in its first appearance), where dinosaurs and prehistoric humans live side-by-side. They meet the Tarzan takeoff, Ka-Zar (which, the splash page helpfully points out, is pronounced "Kay-Sar"), who talks is the usual broken lingo of a certain jungle lord: "Stronger than Mastodon! Stronger than giant Boar! Mighty is Ka-Zar... Lord of the Jungle!" They also meet his partner, Zabu, the Sabre-tooth Tiger.

The team battles prehistoric creatures, tangles with Swamp Men, rescues teammates and survives a stampede of Mastodons - all in the space of a 20-page issue!

The comic shows off Kirby's inventive powers, as the team hurtles from one danger to another, each one bigger than the last, and it gives Lee the chance to provide all kinds of entertaining dialogue, with special emphasis on the Beast and his extended vocabulary.

The art is inked by the guy many feel was one of Kirby's best all-time inkers, Chic Stone. I'm not sure he's my favorite - I'm more of a Joe Sinnott kinda guy - but there's no denying the power in the art here.

There are comic books I read again, more than 40 years later, and I wonder why I enjoyed it so much originally. The story isn't as good or the art not as exceptional as I remember.

But that's not the case here! This issue is as much fun - and maybe moreso - than I remembered, and it still carries that golden glow that made it one of my 10-year-old self's favorite comics.

Grade: A