Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige drew a good deal of attention last month when he casually announced tentative future plans for both the Fantastic Four and the X-Men (well, specifically, he just said "mutants") to become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since Feige announced Marvel's plans all the way until the end of 2021, it will be a number of years before the Avengers get a chance to meet the X-Men for the first time in the MCU.
Since we can only dream about what the first meeting will be like between the two teams in the MCU, we might as well take a look back to see how the two teams met each other in the comics! Their first meeting was over 50 years ago, but the road to that first meeting took a few surprising detours along the way.
The X-Men and the Avengers were paired together in comic book history right from the start, as they each debuted during the same exact month in July 1963 and it is possible that they even hit the news stands on the same day (July 2, 1963)! Marvel's initial plan was to launch a new team book (X-Men) and a new solo hero series (Daredevil) in an attempt to evoke their first two hit series, Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man. Daredevil #1 was delayed, however, so Jack Kirby and Stan Lee quickly put together the Avengers to hit the release date that they had scheduled for Daredevil.
In December of 1962, Marvel made a bit of history by releasing the first two Marvel Comics issues that featured crossovers between Marvel characters from different titles. The Hulk faced off against the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #12 while Spider-Man tried to get a job from the FF in The Amazing Spider-Man #1. Once that proverbial seal was broken, it became a common sight to see Marvel superheroes popping up in each other's titles. This came to a head with the formation of the Avengers, an ongoing team book consisting of othwewise solo heroes who featured in Marvel's then-current comic book anthologies (Thor in Journey Into Mystery, Iron Man in Tales of Suspense and Ant-Man and the Wasp in Tales to Astonish) along with the Hulk, whose ongoing series had just recently been canceled.
A novel little thing that Stan Lee liked to do in the early days of Marvel was to pretend as though each individual Marvel comic book series was its own independent entity and thus any crossover between the magazines was done "through permission of the other magazine." This oddball fiction was present in October 1963's Tales of Suspense #49 (by Steve Ditko, Stan Lee and Paul Reinman), where the Avengers and the X-Men first crossed paths...in a fashion.
The issue opens up with one of the more ridiculous set-ups of a Silver Age superhero tale. The Angel is flying back to the X-Men's home in Westchester when he comes across Iron Man in the process of doing a test of an atomic device. Iron Man tries to warn Angel, but it is too late! The device explodes!
Naturally, Iron Man's armor protects him, but Angel has no such luck. However, instead of killing him, the atomic energy turns him evil because, well, that's obviously what happens when you're blasted with atomic energy, right?
The now evil Angel heads back to the X-Mansion to fight the rest of the X-Men. He handles them fairly easily, since his teammates are holding back, not wanting to hurt their friend, while he has no such limitations. He then flies off to go meet up with other evil mutants (this would be released actually before the introduction of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in X-Men #4). The X-Men are desperate, so they contact the Avengers for help....
The only Avenger who was able to answer the call, though, was Iron Man, who decides that he is going to handle this mission on his own, since he blames himself for Angel turning evil...
Iron Man and Angel have a major tussle, but in the end, Iron Man was able to break through to Angel's good side by putting himself into a situation where Angel would have to save his life. The grateful X-Men part friends with Iron Man, with Professor X offering him a favor in the future...
In a clever bit of cross-marketing, Avengers #3 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Paul Reinman) was released that same month and Iron Man uses a holographic projection device to contact the various other superheroes of the Marvel Universe in pursuit of the Hulk, who quit the Avengers at the end of the previous issue (after the rest of the team was way too easily convinced that he had turned evil due to a shape-shifter taking the Hulk's form)....
Iron Man's projection heads over to Westchester, where we are reminded to check out the Angel/Iron Man battle in Tales of Suspense #49 (then still on the news stand!)....
Again, though, this was still mostly just Iron Man meeting the X-Men. The first full meeting between the two teams would take place one calendar year later, in October 1964 in the pages of X-Men #9 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Chic Stone). By this point, Ant-Man had become Giant-Man and Captain America had returned from suspended animation to take the spot of the Hulk on the Avengers' roster.
The concept of the issue is that Professor X has been captured by his old nemesis, Lucifer. The X-Men traveled to Europe to help Xavier against Lucifer, but since the Professor was captured by the villain, their mission changed to a rescue effort...
The twist, of course, is that Lucifer has come up with a giant thermal bomb that will detonate if his heart stops. This complicates matters when the Avengers show up to take care of Lucifer, as they discovered the threat of the giant thermal bomb. Xavier warns his students through telepathy that they have to keep the Avengers away from Lucifer and the confused Avengers are soon battling the X-Men...
The X-Men held their own, but it was clearly just a matter of time before the Avengers overpowered them.
Luckily, Xavier then used his powers to contact Thor directly and Thor surprisingly is willing to just drop the matter. The Avengers vote on it and they decide to leave the X-Men alone to carry out the rest of their mission...
The X-Men and Xavier take down Lucifer together, with Xavier using his powers to keep Lucifer's heart rate steady while the X-Men defuse the bomb.
Outside of a few cameo appearances (like when both teams attend the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm), the two teams would not tangle again for a number of years.
Let's hope the first meeting between the Avengers and the X-Men in the MCU goes a little bit more smoothly.