THANKS FOR THE... ER, WHAT'S THE WORD AGAIN? AH, YES... MEMORIES...

Memory, as I've said before (I think, can't quite recall - tee-hee) is a funny thing.  Case in point:  Many, many moons ago (or so it seems), I remember reading a letter in a MARVEL mag, wherein the writer said that the phrase "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent" was in error, because it should read "Violence is the first resort of the incompetent".  My memory suggests that it was in relation to the X-MEN and something that HANK McCOY in particular had exclaimed.  I'd have said that it was sometime in the '70s I read this, but here's the thing.  I've just read such a letter in X-Men #45, which I first acquired in 1968, and that seems too far back to me - I'm sure it was later than that.

So what's the explanation?  It could be that someone wrote a similar letter years later, or that I read it in a UK Marvel weekly, because they sometimes reprinted some letters from American mags, but with a more British-sounding name attached to it.  (The letter was genuine, it just wasn't new, nor was it attributed to its original author.)  Marvel UK did this in the early days when they thought a letter conveyed some pertinent point that the readers would find interesting - and perhaps also fill space on a slow week for letters.  (ODHAMS PRESS did the very same thing in the '60s with regard to their Marvel reprints.)

However, there's another possible explanation.  In my collection are the first two OMNIBUS volumes of the X-Men, which include the letters pages.  Did I read it there?  No, I'm pretty sure I read it much further back than that.  So here's a question to all you Marvel experts (BARRY PEARL and NICK CAPUTO, are you reading this?).  Do any of you remember reading such a letter in a US or UK Marvel mag, and the year in which you read it?  I'd guess I probably first read it in a UK mag, but I've no idea which one.  The only other explanation is that my memory is far better than I give it credit for, and that I actually recall reading it in X-Men #45 back in 1968.  Got to be honest though, I doubt it - mainly because I'm not sure I even read the letters in US mags back then.

So if you can shed any light on this perplexing mystery (to me anyway), feel free to chip in.

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