Uncanny X-Men #52 Jan 1969
"Twilight of the Mutants!"
Continued from last issue...
Erik the Red, a potential recruit for Magneto's mutant army in the Mutant City,
is brought before Mesmero, who believes the new comer should be destroyed.
However, Erik the Red easily defeats Mesmero's Demi-Men with the force beams fired from his hands,
forcing Mesmero and the others to flee, but they are buried in rubble caused by the fight.
Traveling through the complex, Erik comes across
Lorna Dane who is lost in thought over her loyalty to Magneto, whom she just learned is her father.
Lorna attempts to defend herself but Erik the Red informs her that he has come here to join Magneto's mutant militia.
Lorna confronts her father to get his decision.
Strapped for new recruits, Magneto accepts Erik's offer to join the group and she tells the new comer the decision.
With Erik's approval, Lorna orders him to help her free Mesmero and the others from the rubble.
Meanwhile, Marvel Girl, Beast and Angel spring into action, initiating their plan, Operation: Twilight, and return to the Mutant City.
While inside the main complex, Erik and Lorna have succeeded in freeing Mesmero who expresses
his distaste in Magneto's decision to allow Erik into their ranks, but accepts it out of loyalty.
Erik tells Lorna and Magneto that he doesn’t trust Mesmero and asks her to monitor him to which he is granted permission.
However, when left alone with Lorna, Magneto tells her that he trusts neither man and says that they are both capable of treachery.
The X-Men meanwhile have been sneaking through the complex and cross paths with Erik the Red, who turns out to be none other than Cyclops in disguise.
The group prepares to sabotage the base in an attempt to destroy the Mutant City and crush Magneto's army.
When they hear footsteps they attack the source quickly, realizing that it's just Iceman, who has come to seek out Lorna on his own.
The commotion alerts Mesmero who catches "Erik the Red" with the X-Men and attacks with his Demi-Men.
As the other X-Men battle off Mesmero's minions, Marvel Girl pits her mental powers against Mesmero's hypnotic abilities.
Watching the battle unfold, Magneto orders Lorna to attack the X-Men, a command which Lorna complies with.
However, on the way she is confronted by a revived Iceman, who tells her that she's been lied to by Magneto.
He tells her that he has spent the past few days looking into her background and learned that both of her parents
died in a plane crash just shortly after she was born, making the fact that Magneto is her father an impossibility.
Accepting the truth, Lorna agrees to help the X-Men and with her magnetic powers,
turns the table on Mesmero and his Demi-Men, saving the X-Men from defeat.
Revealing to Magneto that she has learned the truth, she denounces him.
Fleeing the scene, Magneto tells the X-Men that he has set the Mutant City to explode in 60 seconds.
The group flees the scene, just barely surviving the blast when Iceman shields them from it with an ice shield.
With the battle over, the X-Men return to New York accepting Lorna into their ranks.
Script by Arnold Drake, pencils by
Don Heck https://comicvine.gamespot.com/don-heck/4040-6609/ and Werner Roth, inks by John Tartaglione.