X-Men 33 - The Outcast

Professor H was nice enough to step away from the wayback machine long enough fill us all in regarding one of the rejected covers for X-Men 33, and provides a color version of the cover as well:

"Gil Kane's X-Men cover ran into problems.  First, several changes were made, including the positions of both hands on both Marvel Girl and Cyclops, Cyclops' eye-beams were added, and a lot of minor rendering lines were added or redrawn on the main figure's hands. 

But then, the Comics Code apparently thought the main figure of "The Outcast" was too frightening.  So The Outcast was replaced by The Juggernaut (who had been on Werner Roth's rejected cover in the first place).  Juggernaut's hands were left unchanged from the previous version.  The figures of Marvel Girl & Cyclops were replaced with Iceman and Angel, and their floating heads were replaced with the faces of Cyclops and Marvel Girl-- taken directly from Roth's cover! 

(See this post "http://unpublishedxmen.blogspot.com/2013/06/x-men-33.html" for a look at Werner Roth's unused cover.)

Roy Thomas & Gil Kane would go on to collaborate on a wide variety of books, including the creation IRON FIST. 

For Gil Kane's cover, for contrast, my choice of colors, first on "The Outcast" and then on the background, was designed to highlight their otherworldliness and evil, as well as reflect the manic intensity of Kane's art. I didn't even bother trying to make it similar to the published version, and I specifically wanted it to be as "wild" and "demented" as possible.  I feel this manages to capture the look of the era (1967 was the "summer of love" and "psychedelia" after all) but also comes close to almost looking like a "black light" poster."

(Note that the second version is inked differently, and Cyclops is using his powers.)

(As always, you can catch Professor H in his wayback machine @ http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/)

X-Men 33

Professor H. has provided not only the unused cover art for X-Men #33, but he also took the time to create a color version.  The original art is by Werner Roth, and the published version is by Gil Kane.  However, please take the time to notice that the floating heads on the published version are taken from Roth's unused cover art.  Professor H can be found in his wayback machine here:

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/

Featuring The Beast and Iceman

In 1968, after the apparent death of Professor X,  The X-Men split up into smaller groups for several issues.  Angel and Cyclops had previously been featured in solo stories, and now Beast and Iceman were featured in an adventure together against the Maha Yogi.

Next, Cyclops and Marvel Girl were pitted in battle against Computo and his robot hive.

However, while the end of this issue promised another adventure of Beast and Iceman in the next issue, the team's breakup was cut short.  The next issue featured a reunited X-Men in battle against Mesmero.

But fear not, readers!  Know that in my constant observations of all things X, I observed that Beast and Iceman did battle Metoxo in an unpublished adventure.  While only one page of this story has surfaced, it may yet be possible that a complete unpublished issue 49 exists!  Behold the art of Werner Roth and Sam Grainger:

A larger version is available at Heritage Auction's website:

http://comics.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=110114&lotNo=14642

(Note that they have the issue numbers wrong in their description of the piece)

Also, thanks to Professor H's wayback machine, there is a version of this page colored by Professor H himself!

A link to the full sized page can be found here:

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2011/11/coloring-samples-part-2.html

However, this is not the end to our tale.  Beast and Iceman's battle with Metoxo the Lava Man was recounted in a very different way by Kurt Busiek and James Fry (with inks by Neil Vokes) in 1994's Marvel Holiday Special.

Here is a portion of the flashback scene for this battle:

While it was nice to finally see this story come to light, it would be even better to see the original tale published.  Please contact Citizen X if you have observed any more pages from this story, or any other unpublished tales of the X-Men.  That is all for now, readers!