So, the original X-Men VS Kang: who'd win?

Given how close Kang came to defeating the Avengers when he first appeared, I'd be worrying for the X-Men, but then again, let's not count out the team that, over the decades, has seen off the likes of Magneto, Apocalypse, the Sentinels, etc.

To broaden the topic a tad, feel free to ponder what would have happened if the team introduced in GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1 had faced Kang, too.

Over to you.

Of course, a well-prepared time traveler is nearly unbeatable just on the face of it. Any writer who wanted to could simply play the ol' Kang shows up three seconds after his last defeat scheme over and over again until he finally beats all of his opponents. He could also simply remove his foes from the time stream or kill their ancestors. He can regress them in age to infancy and what not. It kind of makes you wonder how much more effective the guy would be if he just skipped the fighting and moved ahead to the winning.

On those terms, Kang's pretty much unstoppable, except against other time travelers, whose chances against him would largely depend upon how much information they have and what arbitrary rules of time travel are being applied.

If Kang shows up in Earth's distant pre-history fashioning himself as the Scarlet Celestial and interferes with the Celestials genetic experiments with early humankind, then we never get mutants and no teams of X-Men are ever born. Of course, his absolute mastery of this timeline is threatened by all of the alternate timelines already extant in which mutants were born, and all of the timelines he creates via his interference in this one, but hey, that's a multiverse for you. You literally can't win.

If, on the other hand, Kang shows up in our time to battle the original X-Men or the new, his success or failure largely depends upon whatever scheme he's shown up to work. At that point, the X-Men's "victory" over the time traveler depends upon their defeating his plan since it makes no sense for a temporal controller to be without an exit strategy. Kang's pretty much always going to get away, so the question is whether or not we can stop his plan this time. 

The X-Men are pretty good plan-stoppers and resourceful enough to hold out against Kang's super-science attacks. His Ultra-Diode Ray could cause some problems for them, ala' Mesmero, but the X-Men have an array of telepaths available to them, so who knows how long he'd be able to keep any of them under his control? 

On the basis of "Can we stop Kang from activating all of the Earth's fault-lines at once?" or "Can Kang make a good enough showing in this fight to impress the dad of the girl he likes?" I like the X-Men's odds. Of course, it all depends on how big Kang thinks. "Will Kang be able to alter Asgardian history so that all Asgard serves him?" would be a slightly different kettle of fish. 

So, either team of X-Men wins if Kang is up to his usual tricks. Kang of course, would conquer them at first (He is a conqueror, after all) but then the team would rally, figure out his weak points and overpower his devices. His plans would be undone. If Kang really works the time travel angle of his power spectrum and wins early enough before the fight really begins, then it's a whole different ballgame.

Young Robbie anecdote: I must have been about 5-6 when I first saw imagery of Kang and Doctor Doom. First impression was that they were not of this world!

Today, folks can Google an origin. And even back then, there were usually recaps in books (e.g. Emil Blonsky was bathed in gamma radiation, etc.), but if discussing a first glance, that's where some of my assumptions came from.

It occurs to me that after Professor X, Moondragon, and Psylocke, the Marvel Universe didn't have a lot of mentalist/telepath heroes. Yes, Xavier "gave" part of his power to Marvel Girl, so I guess she counts... but without very many of such, I don't suspect that Kang would have been able to find many defenses against telepathic attacks.

And no, I don't count Dr. Strange or Scarlet Witch as telepaths,. They could communicate telepathically, I suppose, but while there might be some small crossover, I think of them as magic based heroes.

As for the All-New X-Men... they would have been far more capable, but a brand spanking new gang of heroes would have no teamwork. Kang was only beaten by the Avengers the first time by subterfuge by Rick Jones and the Teen Brigade  (one might say by "overconfidence"... which could easily be considered Dr. Doom's fatal flaw as well. COINCIDENCE???  Well, yeah, probably.)

Still, it's Cyclops running the team. I could conceive that Cyclops would pit the most potent of the new X-Men against Kang in open battle, while he sent Thunderbird and Nightcrawler as an espionage team to find something in Kang's ship to defeat him.

Regarding the appearances... Dr. Doom always seemed to be a man wearing a metal mask. An articulated and moving one, sure, but no question that a man was inside it.

Kang looked like a man with a blue face, with a odd headpiece. I never gave any consideration that it was just a mask... it showed his face too perfectly. Possibly makeup, I s'pose... but why wear all that make up and NOT hide your identity? (At that age, I had no idea what fetishes were, and still don't consider such appropriate in a comic book.)

And when is Marvel going to give me a Hulk VS Lizard battle? I'm still waiting! 

I'd envision Banner and Dr. Connors working together on their respective problems after both men read of attempts to curb aggression in reptiles. It all goes wrong (of course!) and Hulk has a "grunt 'n' groan" with the Lizard.