So people who criticize the X-men use as a metaphor are racists who hate books about minorities. Nice.
So people who criticize the X-men use as a metaphor are racists who hate books about minorities. Nice.
It was quite interesting how Stan how the public had a variety of reaction towards the mutants, like how the general is willing to honor the name of the X-Men at the end of issue 1, Cyclops being greeted and Angel being kissed in issue 2, etc. It's not really until issue 5 that you see a mob rage against a mutant, and it was on the grounds of Toad being a phony that was part of some hoax, possibly out of a fear of feeling inferior. In issue 8, when a crowd sees the Beast rescue a child, they assume he did it to make them think mutants aren't dangerous, though it's also in the same issue in which he wrestles in front of another crowd, and they don't mob against him on the accusation of him being a mutant, despite his large features.
And yeah, I definitely agree with the point of previous writers, intentional or not, having degraded relations between mutants and non-mutants to the point that the sterile repetition of massacre and vengeance has morphed the series into a dark, gloomy, dreary, pessimistic, and perhaps even dystopian sort of comic. Even with the best of intentions, and after me having given multiple chances of reading the newer issues over and over again, it had ended up becoming the sort of comic which feels less approachable and enjoyable to me compared to when I read the earlier issues. I'm definitely all for Hickman's vision if it means having more consistently interesting variety in the relations and variety in the stories themselves too.
I suppose also worth mentioning is that in issue 4, Professor X basically explains his overall goal with the X-Men, in that he wishes to not only save mankind, but also use their powers to bring about a golden age on Earth, side by side with ordinary humans. Despite mankind's flaws, shortcomings, and the wrongs mankind has done, he definitely gave me the impression that mankind still has the capability to get better, and that while prejudice doesn't completely go away overnight, it's also not impossible to achieve any sort of progress in regards to combating against it.
Last edited by Electricmastro; 11-07-2019 at 10:54 PM.
This has been edited. In the original Xavier offers Magneto an astral hostess fruit pie and he forgets about enslaving the humans.
Anyway, in this page you can see how each man compromised to get to Krakoa. Mags did give up on his overlord ideas, and Xavier doesn’t get mutants living and humans “side-by-side” exactly, but is creating a golden age with the human drugs while mutants are now theoretically safe.
Its a fairly common take. If groups are supposed to see themselves as the X-men then the current status quo is kind of wonky, because its not like black people/gays/Muslims can expect to start an island nation that's instantly an economic powerhouse. But its a comic, so its really not supposed to be realistic all the time, and its trying hard to be an allegory for Israel, so.....eh. *shrug*
Last edited by pkingdom; 11-07-2019 at 11:30 PM.
What exactly should the books be about if they dump their central driving metaphor? I'm honestly asking.
Well, thinking it over, I think that one doesn't need a specific reason to help humanity in the first place, as Trask stated he wanted to help humanity, which there's nothing wrong with in of itself, but the issue comes with the method he used in that destroying the mutants (aside from his son, who was shielded by a medallion) would somehow help humanity. He realizes his mistake rather quickly in the storyline itself though (issue 15).
I have gotten the suspicion that it was his son predicting his mother's death which is what left Bolivar with a negative feeling that started his opposition towards mutants, possibly fueled by negative reports he had been hearing about mutants as well (issue 59).
Last edited by Electricmastro; 11-07-2019 at 11:39 PM.
No, people want to see actual minorities portrayed in their comics instead of having their stories told by the placeholders that are the X-Men. Mutants as an allegory for oppressed minorties largely stems from a time when it was difficult to feature these minorities in mainstream media, so the X-Men served as the mostly cis, white, straight placeholders to make these topics more palatable to the general audience and the censors. That's no longer needed, and Marvel doesn't really have any excuse any more not to feature minorities in their books if they want to tell their stories.
Just look how Rahne's death was received by the trans community (spoiler: overwhelmingly negative). I have no doubt Rosenberg had only the best intentions when telling a story that was supposed to call attention to the danger of violence faced by trans people at the hands of transphobic bigots, but Marvel was still rightfully called out for essentially exploiting the struggle of minorities to pat themselves on the back for how progressive they are without having to bother actually giving minorities any representation in their books.
One could argue that mutants as a metaphor for minorities not only has become unnecessary, but outright detrimental to getting actual representation.
If it's case, the question remains: "what kind of stories will he tell?" You can see the history of Israël and there are a lot of heroic and harsh stories and you can be inspired by that…
Or you can tell stories like I heard few days ago about Jewish volunteers that help Palestinians:
https://rhr.org.il/eng/2019/09/press...t-to-kick-off/
It depends on the writer and what kind of person he/she is and what are their beliefs… it's not journalistic work.
I personally don't like Machinean stories and prefer the ones that shows the complexity of the human heart.
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe