How much has the X-Men as a reflection of real life minorities changed overtime?

[skyvolt2000]

Which is something a large segment of mutants and mutates can do without any hassle. How is this a problem? Blending in allows them to escape from persecution and gives them the ability to rise up in normal society. Not passing for human is a problem or various super-human races, from Inhumans to those cosmically or radiation effected like Lockjaw, Ben Grimm and the Hulk. Looking human will still get lynch mobs motivated if they think they can harm a mutant. The more powerful and known ones will be targets for organised hate groups like the Purifiers and the Right.

May I bring up an issue of Generation X (issue 36 or 38) the team went through a portal and ran/walked past racists. Who saw Angelo & Chamber. They did not touch them. Synch comes out later-gets a beat down.
They saw that black skin before that uniform with the X.


How has blending in helped Black folks? Who can't sit in stores, walk home, read books, take out the trash, eat, shop in Wal-mart, write their OWN comics, get jobs, get an education or LEAVE the WHITE HOUSE without harassment. Folks that can tear down a building like the NORMAL looking Firestar, Iceman, Logan and others can do.

What about the Asians-the AMERICAN born ones. Who are being made the poster child for a virus.

What about the Muslim and Arabs who have been the whipping boy for EVERYTHING since 9-11. To the point a Ms Marvel book fuels a hate movement in comics.

Do we even need to discuss Native Americans? LGBTQ?

The mutants who are in these groups can't escape harassment. In fact as mutants of color (ESPECIALLY black skin) they are a green light for those groups to really go off all POC. Maybe that is why bl;ack male mutants seem to be an endanger species.

[Zelena]

May I bring up an issue of Generation X (issue 36 or 38) the team went through a portal and ran/walked past racists. Who saw Angelo & Chamber. They did not touch them. Synch comes out later-gets a beat down.
They saw that black skin before that uniform with the X.


How has blending in helped Black folks? Who can't sit in stores, walk home, read books, take out the trash, eat, shop in Wal-mart, write their OWN comics, get jobs, get an education or LEAVE the WHITE HOUSE without harassment. Folks that can tear down a building like the NORMAL looking Firestar, Iceman, Logan and others can do.

What about the Asians-the AMERICAN born ones. Who are being made the poster child for a virus.

What about the Muslim and Arabs who have been the whipping boy for EVERYTHING since 9-11. To the point a Ms Marvel book fuels a hate movement in comics.

Do we even need to discuss Native Americans? LGBTQ?

The mutants who are in these groups can't escape harassment. In fact as mutants of color (ESPECIALLY black skin) they are a green light for those groups to really go off all POC. Maybe that is why bl;ack male mutants seem to be an endanger species.

If the subject of X-men comics had been discrimination, the writers would have drawn a parallel between the discriminations towards the mutants and the discriminations towards human minorities.
But it has been almost never done.
And during this run so less than ever before. It's mutants vs humans. Point.

[BroHomo]

If the subject of X-men comics had been discrimination, the writers would have drawn a parallel between the discriminations towards the mutants and the discriminations towards human minorities.
But it has been almost never done.
And during this run so less than ever before. It's mutants vs humans. Point.

Hmmm what Do you think the point of Xmen comics ? If not to show an exaggeration of what how we should all treat each other by being about a group of outsiders rising above being treated differently and working to make the world a better place? From the jump Xmen have protected a world that hates and Fears them, while also attempt to carve a life in a world that judges them for being a mutant instead of a person. Jeez kiiiiiinda sounds what most minorities in that when people see them the majority of people already have a set of preconceived notions based on how they look .

the writers would have drawn a parallel between the discriminations towards the mutants and the discriminations towards human minorities.
But it has been almost never done.

Yeah i guess GN's like 'God Love Man Kills' or stories like DOFP or the X-Tinction Agenda, Genosha, the 198, District X, Dominant Species...just don't exist? Honestly there could be a KKK rally lunching 5 or 6 black mutants and folks would still debate if it's about discrimination lol So maybe the writers are sparing us another 'Kraoka is a Kult' level of obstinate debates

And during this run so less than ever before. It's mutants vs humans. Point.

even if this were true yo've missed the point of skyvolt2000's awesome post entirely.
Ifs the best way and only way to make a significant change in mutants lives is to 'blend in with normal society' what are the Mutants who can't supposed be to do?

[Devaishwarya]

May I bring up an issue of Generation X (issue 36 or 38) the team went through a portal and ran/walked past racists. Who saw Angelo & Chamber. They did not touch them. Synch comes out later-gets a beat down.
They saw that black skin before that uniform with the X.


How has blending in helped Black folks? Who can't sit in stores, walk home, read books, take out the trash, eat, shop in Wal-mart, write their OWN comics, get jobs, get an education or LEAVE the WHITE HOUSE without harassment. Folks that can tear down a building like the NORMAL looking Firestar, Iceman, Logan and others can do.

What about the Asians-the AMERICAN born ones. Who are being made the poster child for a virus.

What about the Muslim and Arabs who have been the whipping boy for EVERYTHING since 9-11. To the point a Ms Marvel book fuels a hate movement in comics.

Do we even need to discuss Native Americans? LGBTQ?

The mutants who are in these groups can't escape harassment. In fact as mutants of color (ESPECIALLY black skin) they are a green light for those groups to really go off all POC. Maybe that is why bl;ack male mutants seem to be an endanger species.

Absolutely on point!

[Zelena]

Hmmm what Do you think the point of Xmen comics ? If not to show an exaggeration of what how we should all treat each other by being about a group of outsiders rising above being treated differently and working to make the world a better place? From the jump Xmen have protected a world that hates and Fears them, while also attempt to carve a life in a world that judges them for being a mutant instead of a person. Jeez kiiiiiinda sounds what most minorities in that when people see them the majority of people already have a set of preconceived notions based on how they look .

What is the point in X-men comics, indeed? Lately? Certainly not to show real discriminated people… They are missing.
I haven't read everything… far from it. But except in 'God Loves Man Kills', I've never seen a parallel made between these fictional discrimations and the real discriminations, made in the comics themselves.
If you see something, you must use your imagination.

If I may say so, I would say that the writers had been avoiding, cautiously, to draw the parallel…
Again, the division, in X-books, has been made between the humans and the mutants, not between the discriminated and the not-discriminated people.

[spirit2011]

What is the point in X-men comics, indeed? Lately? Certainly not to show real discriminated people… They are missing.
I haven't read everything… far from it. But except in 'God Loves Man Kills', I've never seen a parallel made between these fictional discrimations and the real discriminations, made in the comics themselves.
If you see something, you must use your imagination.

If I may say so, I would say that the writers had been avoiding, cautiously, to draw the parallel…
Again, the division, in X-books, has been made between the humans and the mutants, not between the discriminated and the not-discriminated people.

Reading x-men comics you would never think humans suffer any persecution.
But also biggest x-men leaders are white people, so it doesn't serve the narrative

[Electricmastro]

May I bring up an issue of Generation X (issue 36 or 38) the team went through a portal and ran/walked past racists. Who saw Angelo & Chamber. They did not touch them. Synch comes out later-gets a beat down.
They saw that black skin before that uniform with the X.

Interesting how that comes from the same series of X-Men titles in which non-mutant black people have been seen disapproving of their children being mutant “freaks” and seem to support senator Kelly. I suppose one would think the writers would write non-mutant black people being more supportive of mutants because of their troubled situation, or at least mutant black people, but despite the words you said, somehow I think some of the writers think differently:

[BroHomo]

Interesting how that comes from the same series in which non-mutant black people have been seen disapproving of their children being mutant “freaks” and seem to support senator Kelly. I suppose one would think the writers would write non-mutant black people being more supportive of mutants because of their troubled situation, or at least mutant black people, but despite the words you said, somehow I think some of the writers think differently:

None of these images are from Generation X tho. And while id like to think if mutants were real minority groups would be more welcoming than not. Going by the slow AF, dragged kicking and screaming many in the black community have been concerning the LGBTQ community I wouldn't say it's 100%
.Humans are Humans are Humans fact
Buuut what was your point?

[Lucyinthesky]

None of these images are from Generation X tho. And while id like to think if mutants were real minority groups would be more welcoming than not. Going by the slow AF, dragged kicking and screaming many in the black community have been concerning the LGBTQ community I wouldn't say it's 100%
.Humans are Humans are Humans fact
Buuut what was your point?

Agreed, if Anything the X-men stand as a methaphor for minorities and even since Stan Lee before the intention was quite clear they were about being something "other", "different". Yes, not all the writers decide to make stories just about this but the point stays that´s what the X-men represent on the main marvel universe, in fact that´s why Claremont decided to have people of different nationalities for the second generation of X-men.

I think some writers took the methaphor but pushed it even more in really interesting ways, this is Bryan Hill from Fallen Angels:

Bryan Hill: I’ve known Jonathan Hickman for a while, since my book Romulus. IÂ’ve always admired his mind and we’ve been looking for a project. He reached out to me while I was working on Titans, asked me if I would be interested in this next evolution of the X-Men, and I wasÂ… with caveats. I LOVE the X-Men, but I also had walked away from the books for a bit, not because they werenÂ’t great books, but I got lost in the continuity and never felt like I could catch up. Hickman shared his House of X plans with me and I was hooked right back in, I felt fluent again. From there, we talked characters.

Ever since Elizabeth Braddock separated from Kwannon, IÂ’ve been concerned about what would happen to Kwannon. I didn’t want her lost in the shuffle because IÂ’ve always thought she was an underdeveloped and interesting character. I also felt that there was a tremendous injustice in Kwannon being robbed of the agency of her own body. How would she feel part of a mutant community that sheÂ’s never actually known? ThatÂ’s where the conversation started. When I realized that I could have Psylocke, the one I identified with as a kid, then I was inÂ… but I still didnÂ’t want to do something rote. IÂ’m not particularly good at banter–action–banter–joke–action, and right now IÂ’m going through a personal transformation that I think shows up in my work, where my mind is. I told Hickman I wanted to do something that was lyrical, philosophical, and about the role that warriors play in a utopia. I wanted to explore identity and purpose and how peace itself can be an enemy. I also wanted to explore what would happen if mutants left humanity to evolve itself, and what the role of technology would be in that. ThereÂ’s a lot of William Gibson in this. A lot of futurism. From those conversations, I came up with a story and we moved forward.

When I think of the phrase “Fallen Angels,” I think of Lucifer, in a mythological sense. Lucifer the Light-bearer that saw no justice in Heaven and rebelled against it. Lucifer punished by a lake of endless fire, but in a Miltonian sense, reigning in Hell rather than serving Heaven. What does it mean to be of Heaven but also an enemy of Heaven? Mutants leaving the human world behind creates a vacuum in evolution, and what will fill that vacuum? After a mutant exodus to Heaven, what will happen to the world left behind? What “gods” step into that world and how would they shape it? When you are given Heaven, how easy is it to cease to care about the world you’re leaving behind?

Those are all questions I wanted to explore and Marvel gave me an opportunity.

AiPT!: That’s all very fascinating stuff, Bryan! Now, I wanted to follow up on something else you said that I found interesting–in X-Men Monday #25. Regarding Magneto, you said, “When you’re a black kid growing up in Saint Louis and you feel like the world is trying to get you, Magneto makes a WHOLE LOT of sense.” I’m curious, when writing Fallen Angels, are you drawing on anything from your own real-life experiences?

Hill: Growing up in the ’90s, in the Midwest, I did feel “different” and judged a bit because of that difference. Magneto represented a ferocity, a certainty that you deserved to exist, to gain power and thrive and if someone or something stood in your way, you could take it head on. Magneto wasn’t afraid of being considered a “villain” because his existence threatened the status quo. Those things spoke to me. My father died when I was a kid so I think I also looked for father figures in fiction, for better or worse. As far as Fallen Angels is concerned, yeah, there’s a lot of “me” in it. I am a martial artist and I study Bushido daily. I’m not a particularly good martial artist, but I try to apply what I think are the ethical elements of Bushido into my daily life. Funnily enough, I’ve never studied much of the Japanese arts. I studied Korean Tae Kwon Do and a bit of Chinese boxing, just a touch of Shotokan Karate and Judo, but not very much of it. I have a rudimentary understanding of Japanese martial arts, but philosophically, I have gravitated toward ideas present in Bushido, Shinkendo and even Ninjitsu. Psylocke is a character that was raised with almost an ancient system of ethics, a POV that would be considered extreme and even dangerous by today’s standards. There’s also me in Laura (X-23) and young Cable. This book is about adolescence in a lot of ways, about that fury you have inside when you’re trying to figure out your purpose and your capability. A lot of my adolescent pain lives in this story, not uncommon for writers, I think.

This writer covers a lot of themes that I think Hickman is invoking:

The X-men finding their promised land but still looking into the world they leave behind.

Mutant as a metaphor for minorities but also adolscence and growing up.

Mutants fighting injustice

[Devaishwarya]

We have seen instances of "real life" discrimination in the XM/MU...so it clearly does exist.
But...the fact remains, in the XM/MU discrimination against all mutants (whether Black, White, Asian, Gay etc.) is one of the overarching concepts/themes.

That's why it more of an analogy rather than a direct metaphor...as it doesn't only deal with minority discrimination.

[Zelena]

Agreed, if Anything the X-men stand as a methaphor for minorities and even since Stan Lee before the intention was quite clear they were about being something "other", "different". Yes, not all the writers decide to make stories just about this but the point stays that´s what the X-men represent on the main marvel universe, in fact that´s why Claremont decided to have people of different nationalities for the second generation of X-men.

I think some writers took the methaphor but pushed it even more in really interesting ways, this is Bryan Hill from Fallen Angels:

This writer covers a lot of themes that I think Hickman is invoking:

The X-men finding their promised land but still looking into the world they leave behind.

Mutant as a metaphor for minorities but also adolscence and growing up.

Mutants fighting injustice

The question is less what the X-men and the mutants could to do, want to do to the others but more how human minorities (or majorities) can find themselves in them?
No only they have awesome super-powers, now they live in a paradisiac island and they are practically immortal. Never the gap has been wider.
(By the way, I think Marvel has, shamelessly, been dividing people for a long time.)

Well, yes, people like Claremont have made humanistic stories, showed what is like to be a human as well as what it is like to be a mutant but it was before…
Now I feel that their reality has no more anything to do with ours. So being a metaphor…

[Lucyinthesky]

The question is less what the X-men and the mutants could to do, want to do to the others but more how human minorities (or majorities) can find themselves in them?
No only they have awesome super-powers, now they live in a paradisiac island and they are practically immortal. Never the gap has been wider.
(By the way, I think Marvel has, shamelessly, been dividing people for a long time.)

That´s why I put Bryan Hill take, those mutants that live on that paradisiac island were used to be persecuted for a long time just because for who they were, they used to live in a metaphorical hell according to him, in a way they have come to their promised land, their heaven, and Hill wants to explore what those people that have suffered so much would do now that they have a choice to do good in the world they leave behind. Imo that´s a very interesting story, what would all those wronged people would be capable of doing not just for themselves but the entire world if they were given a chance to thrive and live beyond basic survival.

Hickman also alluded to this during Hox: Those people were never given a chance until now

This doesn´t come without problem given most of the X-men were trained young to fight, now they are showing signs of being deppressed, ptsd, alcohol, etc because now they have to learn to live in a place in peace when they were used to fight all the time since a young age, that´s compelling and understable to me imo.

Well, yes, people like Claremont have made humanistic stories, showed what is like to be a human as well as what it is like to be a mutant but it was before…
Now I feel that their reality has no more anything to do with ours. So being a metaphor…

imo they are reflecting reality but from a different pov, what if the people wronged in the world joined, made something totally new and different and found ways to make better their lives and others?

Hill: New thematics are always interesting. Analogies to the civil rights movement can only get you so far. Once, that was cutting edge in and of itself, but identity has shifted in society. There are nesting dolls of identity and prejudice, so I appreciate the world evolving past “Mutie Go Home” and exploring what an evolutionary response to prejudice would be. There’s also a bit of fascism in what Xavier is doing, a danger in it, and that raises the stakes of the actions of the characters in the story, how they react to the existence and power of Krakoa. There’s a lot here to mine.

Krakoa is also a different response to perjuice, what if wronged people go beyond asking to be accepted and try to make something completely new by themselves? by their own means? an active response to perjuice instead of a passive one. Yes, there´s a danger they can repeat the problem in Krakoa but that´s part of the stakes they are fighting, to make something new.

[Electricmastro]

Agreed, if Anything the X-men stand as a methaphor for minorities and even since Stan Lee before the intention was quite clear they were about being something "other", "different". Yes, not all the writers decide to make stories just about this but the point stays that´s what the X-men represent on the main marvel universe, in fact that´s why Claremont decided to have people of different nationalities for the second generation of X-men.

Well in speaking of Stan Lee’s, as well as Jack Kirby’s, original intentions with the X-Men, it also came to my attention that it’s definitely likely that Lee and Kirby were inspired by previous reading material such as 1953's Children of the Atom, though the main inspiration seems to be from the article in question which is the Otto Binder article "How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race," also published in 1953, 10 years before the X-Men was first published, and may actually serve as an unofficial explanation for what fuels the humans' fear and hatred towards mutants, specifically early cases such as Bolivar Trask's initial distrust of them in X-Men #14. It's really this sort of foundation that Lee and Kirby built on that we seem to be dealing with:







Source: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/how-n...ange-our-race/

This, combined with the evolution/replacement propaganda that have been present in the Marvel universe if Marvels is anything to go by, is to me what may be the biggest culprit in regards to what fuels the fire of prejudice/indifference towards mutants in the Marvel universe.

My point is not to justify prejudice in explaining what may provoke the humans, but that the point I ultimately want to make is realizing that if prejudice can be compared to fire, in that fire moves irrationally while not caring who gets hurt, then in that case, it may help to academically analyze the fuel sources of prejudice so as to better understand what needs to be done in the present and future, not to say that all prejudice will easily disappear tomorrow, but to better understand the actions that need to be taken to build bridges between different flesh and blood peoples to the best of one’s ability. Because again, this isn’t to claim that prejudice doesn’t exist today, but that it’s very much possible to build bridges which can noticeably help increase an oppressed group’s quality of life in the present, considering the bridges people like Martin Luther King helped build and have lasted to this day in spite of all the bad events that have happened since his assassination (lest one should say that black people should take certain drastic measures instead of living in the bad nation the USA can be said to be). If that can’t be applied to mutants since mutants are fiction and people like Martin Luther King aren’t, then fine, that’s the understanding one should sensibly come to then, but in the case the predicament of mutants can very much be applied to the predicament that black people face in real life today, then, as is I’m sure is reasonable to say, that just as there’s a good time and good place to show the bad, that there’s also a good time and good place to show the good, and that one aspect shouldn’t make the other look less important to focus on either.

[Steel Inquisitor]

May I bring up an issue of Generation X (issue 36 or 38) the team went through a portal and ran/walked past racists. Who saw Angelo & Chamber. They did not touch them. Synch comes out later-gets a beat down.
They saw that black skin before that uniform with the X.


How has blending in helped Black folks? Who can't sit in stores, walk home, read books, take out the trash, eat, shop in Wal-mart, write their OWN comics, get jobs, get an education or LEAVE the WHITE HOUSE without harassment. Folks that can tear down a building like the NORMAL looking Firestar, Iceman, Logan and others can do.

What about the Asians-the AMERICAN born ones. Who are being made the poster child for a virus.

What about the Muslim and Arabs who have been the whipping boy for EVERYTHING since 9-11. To the point a Ms Marvel book fuels a hate movement in comics.

Do we even need to discuss Native Americans? LGBTQ?

The mutants who are in these groups can't escape harassment. In fact as mutants of color (ESPECIALLY black skin) they are a green light for those groups to really go off all POC. Maybe that is why bl;ack male mutants seem to be an endanger species.

In the X-books real racism tends to be ignored in favour of metaphor racism against mutants, it's a subject which should have bigger implications but usually isn't given the spotlight it should. It's why mutants like Bishop, or Betsy was in Kwannon's body, rarely gets any stories about their skin colour opposed to whenever they use their powers the mobs spring up. When Betsy was in Kwannon's bey she may as well have been written as a white lady, that's how little racism discrimination she received over the years and they haven't established how she'd see herself in Kwannon's body from a non-white perspective. Which is we get comments I was responding to about not blending in like the Morlocks, rather than Black men like Synch. The X-men definitely have an issue which has white people being able to do more than other minorities in their books, as well.

[Lucyinthesky]

Well in speaking of Stan Lee’s, as well as Jack Kirby’s, original intentions with the X-Men, it also came to my attention that it’s definitely likely that Lee and Kirby were inspired by previous reading material such as 1953's Children of the Atom, though the main inspiration seems to be from the article in question which is the Otto Binder article "How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race," also published in 1953, 10 years before the X-Men was first published, and may actually serve as an unofficial explanation for what fuels the humans' fear and hatred towards mutants, specifically early cases such as Bolivar Trask's initial distrust of them in X-Men #14. It's really this sort of foundation that Lee and Kirby built on that we seem to be dealing with

Well that´s why they are called "Children of the Atom", Xavier´s father used to work for the goverment and made experiments on mutants as well as nuclear energy, this original theme proposed by Stan Lee has been actually part of the X-men for years, Claremont´s proposal to add "civil rights" added to the whole theme of the X-men, in both cases they are people who are perjuiced agaist because they are seen as "Other", "different" and this has been a phrase used often with the X-men too "People hate and fear what they don´t know"

This, combined with the evolution/replacement propaganda that have been present in the Marvel universe if Marvels is anything to go by, is to me what may be the biggest culprit in regards to what fuels the fire of prejudice/indifference towards mutants in the Marvel universe.

Agreed, this is also a call back to some people fear of minorities growing in numbers enough so they stop being minorities, this in fact has been a situation that has been repeated across the world in different cultures.

My point is not to justify prejudice in explaining what may provoke the humans, but that the point I ultimately want to make is realizing that if prejudice can be compared to fire, in that fire moves irrationally while not caring who gets hurt, then in that case, it may help to academically analyze the fuel sources of prejudice so as to better understand what needs to be done in the present and future, not to say that all prejudice will easily disappear tomorrow, but to better understand the actions that need to be take to build bridges between different flesh and bloods peoples to the best of one’s ability. Because again, this isn’t to claim that prejudice doesn’t exist today, but that it’s very much possible to build bridges which can noticeably help increase an oppressed group’s quality of life in the present, considering the bridges people like Martin Luther King helped build and have lasted to this day in spite of all the bad events that have happened since his assassination (lest one should say that black people should take certain drastic measures instead of living in the bad nation the USA can be said to be).

I agree completely that bridges can and should be made to keep off a violent confrontation between people but a bridge needs to be build from both sides, not just one, for it to have a strong foundation, not just from the group oppresed, also you can build bridges but also do your best to make sure your comunity as a whole gets better oportunities, those two concepts are not mutually exclusive, both things can be made at the same time.

If that can’t be applied to mutants since mutants are fiction and people like Martin Luther King aren’t, then fine, that’s the understand one could come to then, but in the case the predicament of mutants can very much be applied to the predicament that black people face in real life today, then, as is I’m sure is reasonable to say, that just as there’s a good time and good place to show the bad, that there’s also a good time and good place to show the good, and that one aspect shouldn’t make the other look less important to focus on either.

I agree it would be interesting to see the good as well as the bad being reflected on the books.