Good Start, Bad Finish
Once again, Roy Thomas shows he can come up with some fairly interesting ideas, yet he doesn't quite know how to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. This is especially confusing considering his impressive demonstration of his knowledge of Marvel characters and issues - yet he can't seem to remember what happens in the issue he is writing by the time he gets to the conclusion. Banshee is a great creation, despite his misnomer and the fact he looks 60 years old for most of the issue (aided not at all by the mental control cap). The problem is his disinterest in the beginning does not translate to an actual believable explanation by the end: he doesn't seem under control of the Ogre, especially since he goes and robs things on his own without the Ogre's knowledge. Apparently Banshee is the new mutant menace Cerebro detected last time, which motivated him to find some new help (relying on their enemy the Mimic, who still doesn't like them but Xavier sort of trusts for no explicable reason still).
At least Thomas continues some subplots: the Mimic is still Deputy Leader, though we still haven't gotten a satisfactory explanation for the transition. Somehow, the Ted Roberts at Metro College element has become interesting - the sad part about this is Thomas has done a better job developing this minor character than any of the X-Men, now that he has dropped (hopefully only temporarily) the Love Triangle.
Jean is thoroughly confusing in this issue: she gets mad no one remembers she's there, but she's the one who quit a few issues ago, right? She's the one who was glad she got out of the superhero game a few issues ago, right? She can pick up crowds of ladies, topple dinosaurs, trip up Sentinels ... but the only thing she can do to waylay a technology-supported Ogre is by gently placing a tree limb between his feet? Embarrassing (but not as embarrassing as McCoy's continued sexist comments about what Jean is good for).
Xavier, likewise, is confusing, unless Thomas is intentionally trying to redirect him away from the "here's another villain to mindwipe without moral ambiguity" leader he was at the beginning of the series. This isn't completely true, though, since Xavier admitted in the previous issue he overrode the will of his own students, and he intimates in this issue he allows things to go on without explaining them to his own students, thereby putting them in unnecessary danger. True, this is probably just Thomas freewheeling until he gets to the end and is forced to cram some patina of sense over the issue, but if Thomas has this all planned out in advance...he lets a few too many things slide.
The X-Men do virtually nothing except run away the entire issue, relying for no good reason on the Mimic to do basically all the heavy lifting (which makes his ire at the Beast's grandstanding at the end actually understandable). Fortunately, the villains spend most of the issue running away as well. Factor Three needs to find better help. Roy Thomas needs to finish better. The good news, at least, is he is doing a better job starting, aided by palpable absence of the tendentious "hey, Tiger, welcome to an issue with villains we'll mock ourselves!" palaver that debilitated so many recent issues.
