In these early X-Men issues and many of these silver age comics in general it seems like the creative team writes themselves into a corner and ends up getting out of it in a silly or underwhelming way. But again I think that’s just them not expecting the readers to be paying that much attention or care about those details.

Hi Jerry!

Overall I thought Roth did an accaptable job on the pencils, and don't forget this waas only the second time he worked Marvel method (from Stan's plot synopsis) so he was getting accostomed to it. Yes, as usual, lots of holes in the plot, but the Mimic was a good foe, and I'll look forward to your thoughts on the first big scripting change next issue.

Almost forgot, I doubt Kirby did any cover layouts at Marvel. He either drew the cover or didn't. Lee could have designed the cover with Roth, or someone like Romita may have produced a quick sketch for Roth to follow, although this would have been a bit early on for him to be doing that. I'd also add that it looks like Marie Severin did some corrrecting on the Mimic's wings and hands. She was working in the ofice at this point and likely assisted on art corrections from time to time.