Do the X-Men still take the place of POC, religious minorities and the LGBTQ?

[Shadowcat]

We need more black, and POC mutants, period.

[Mik]

We need more black, and POC mutants, period.

Yeah, and Avengers too.

No offense to fans of Cyclops, but seeing him as the representative of diversity seems odd. He'd work better as a "white ally"

At least the X-Men do better than the F4 on diversity

[Huntsman Spider]

I agree on the not for lack of trying part. We just saw a bunch of angry bigots assail the American Capitol.

My point was more about the various extinction events X-Men have faced during the last 20 years. If the goal is to represent mistreatment of PoC, I don't feel that's working. There's no discussion of things like intersectionality or privilege.

Plus, I don't feel they really need to do it anymore when PoC can speak for themselves. I wanna see more actual PoC heroes beat bigoted villains!

The Avengers being hands off is a plot hole, but to me it's really due to the nature of keeping X-Men and Avengers comics in separate sub-worlds of the Marvel Universe. It's always been a plot hole, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily the Avengers fault when the real-world division bleeds into the fictional universe.

I will say Avengers do much better with black and mixed representation, both are so-so with Asian representation, and X-Men are better with Native American representation. X-Men also have plenty of female characters but personally I like the female Avengers more.

We need more black, and POC mutants, period.

That would be good, and to speak to Mik's point on intersectionality and privilege . . . mutants as a metaphor for marginalized groups and peoples in the real world has a hard time with traction and legitimacy when the most prominent and promoted mutant characters tend to be conventionally attractive superpowered white people who can also leverage generational wealth to their personal advantage (in the cases of Charles Xavier, Warren Worthington III, and Emma Frost), yet somehow, mutants are still (even more) hated and feared compared to other superhumans in the Marvel Universe.

Yeah, and Avengers too.

No offense to fans of Cyclops, but seeing him as the representative of diversity seems odd. He'd work better as a "white ally"

At least the X-Men do better than the F4 on diversity

Agreed. Loved the impassioned speech he gave post-AvX condemning police brutality (albeit against mutants), but it did feel rather awkward coming from him, to say the least.

[Mik]

That would be good, and to speak to Mik's point on intersectionality and privilege . . . mutants as a metaphor for marginalized groups and peoples in the real world has a hard time with traction and legitimacy when the most prominent and promoted mutant characters tend to be conventionally attractive superpowered white people who can also leverage generational wealth to their personal advantage (in the cases of Charles Xavier, Warren Worthington III, and Emma Frost), yet somehow, mutants are still (even more) hated and feared compared to other superhumans in the Marvel Universe.

You explained it better than I did!

Agreed. Loved the impassioned speech he gave post-AvX condemning police brutality (albeit against mutants), but it did feel rather awkward coming from him, to say the least.

I'd like to see a speech like that against real police brutality!

I'll be honest on where I stand. I don't think we need this metaphor anymore, at least not in place of the real thing. Keep the general theme of acceptance, but none of the cringe stuff anymore

[Rang10]

Cyclops on the high of his whiteness talking about police brutlity was laughable, specially that he is totally pro-killing enemies

Yeah, and Avengers too.

No offense to fans of Cyclops, but seeing him as the representative of diversity seems odd. He'd work better as a "white ally"

At least the X-Men do better than the F4 on diversity

of course they can since the team is mostly a white family from 60s. Really easy to beat that on diversity

[Mik]

My crack about F4 was supposed to be sarcastic.

I kinda feel diversity is partially why F4 aren't as popular anymore.

But back to the topic at hand, I agree about Cyclops, especially with his recent radicalization.

I'm reminded of the scene when Logan compared Sentinels to cross burnings while talking to Luke Cage.

I appreciate the positive intentions, but I feel PoC can speak for themselves. Plus, mutant persecution feels like a bit of an overdone trope anyway, at least to me.

[Huntsman Spider]

You explained it better than I did!





I'd like to see a speech like that against real police brutality!

I'll be honest on where I stand. I don't think we need this metaphor anymore, at least not in place of the real thing. Keep the general theme of acceptance, but none of the cringe stuff anymore

Thanks, and I would like to see that, too. Nighthawk by David Walker was pretty good on real-world police brutality, albeit more through action than words, for the short time it lasted.

My crack about F4 was supposed to be sarcastic.

I kinda feel diversity is partially why F4 aren't as popular anymore.

But back to the topic at hand, I agree about Cyclops, especially with his recent radicalization.

I'm reminded of the scene when Logan compared Sentinels to cross burnings while talking to Luke Cage.

I appreciate the positive intentions, but I feel PoC can speak for themselves. Plus, mutant persecution feels like a bit of an overdone trope anyway, at least to me.

I think there's always going to be room for ordinary, non-superpowered humans to distrust, fear, and even loathe superpowered people, but mutants shouldn't be taking the brunt of that anymore when non-mutant superhumans are just as powerful and (potentially) dangerous to normal humans overall, nor should they be used as a means to dodge addressing real-world bigotries and prejudices. I personally thought Marvel's original Civil War had a good idea going in the sense of having normal humans turn on all superpowered people and demand that anyone with powers be registered and/or controlled after a superhero team comprised mostly of non-mutants was held responsible for hundreds of casualties after a botched attempt at catching supervillains in a civilian neighborhood. That makes more sense than just having a select group of superhumans be targeted as an increasingly awkward metaphor or allegory for racial injustice while everyone else with powers gets off mostly scot-free.

[BroHomo]

My point was more about the various extinction events X-Men have faced during the last 20 years. If the goal is to represent mistreatment of PoC, I don't feel that's working. There's no discussion of things like intersectionality or privilege.

the X-Men represent the otherness in person/people


Seems like Emma's calling out privilege here Mutants come from everywhere and anywhere in various colors and temperaments. Hero's usually share similar type A personality traits

Plus, I don't feel they really need to do it anymore when PoC can speak for themselves. I wanna see more actual PoC heroes beat bigoted villains!

Huh? The Xmen shouldn't fight Human racists??Also teams like Avengers fight straight up villains why /how would the villains bigotry be exposed make it thst much more important to them?

I will say Avengers do much better with black and mixed representation, both are so-so with Asian representation, and X-Men are better with Native American representation.

Eh do they? As evident in? I don't think looking at the last 9 years of a series and declaring it 'much better' than decades of storylines and chars is that accurate.

No offense to fans of Cyclops, but seeing him as the representative of diversity seems odd. He'd work better as a "white ally"

Not sure too many if his fans would either lok
[QUOTE=Huntsman Spider;5409983]That would be good, and to speak to Mik's point on intersectionality and privilege . . . mutants as a metaphor for marginalized groups and peoples in the real world has a hard time with traction and legitimacy when the most prominent and promoted mutant characters tend to be conventionally attractive superpowered white people who can also leverage generational wealth to their personal advantage (in the cases of Charles Xavier, Warren Worthington III, and Emma Frost), yet somehow, mutants are still (even more) hated and feared compared to other superhumans in the Marvel Universe.[QUOTE=Huntsman Spider;5409983]
Uh who are the most prominent Avengers? Are they not mostly wealthy white dudes?

Agreed. Loved the impassioned speech he gave post-AvX condemning police brutality (albeit against mutants), but it did feel rather awkward coming from him, to say the least.

Why? Unless it's difficult to get that mutants are a persecuted within the 616. The villians/situations they find themselves in opposition of is because of hatred/fear that's waiting for them as soon as they're born This could take many forms from rabid anger to heartless apathy. Avengers for the most part wouldn't be on the radar of many villians if they'd wear normal clothes and stay the eFF home

We need more black, and POC mutants, period.

Yes Yes Yes Lawd

[Krakoa]

The X-Men have never taken the place of those groups. They are a metaphor for those groups and otherness in general, and in a time when comics couldn’t talk about those issues directly, a metaphor was all we could get.

Now they still work just as well as a metaphor, but get to be a metaphor that can include actual characters of irl marginalized groups and explore deeper issues around intersectionality as characters can be othered both as mutants and for being a part of an irl minority group.

[Mik]

I think the Avengers never help because of editorial mandates. It's a plot hole but it does make the Avengers look bad, I agree.

About otherness: I don't mind the general sense of it in X-Men, because it's just that, general. I don't think it's a sufficient substitute for that.

The Avengers leaders have been mostly white men, that's true. I'm say they're doing a better job of incorporating real diversity now. The successors to Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Nova and Miss Marvel, for instance, are all ethnically diverse and that actually factors into their stories.

I know X-Men are historically diverse, but that hasn't obscured some of it's tone deaf moments. Neither is it true for the Avengers either

[Huntsman Spider]

[QUOTE=BroHomo;5410137]the X-Men represent the otherness in person/people


Seems like Emma's calling out privilege here Mutants come from everywhere and anywhere in various colors and temperaments. Hero's usually share similar type A personality traits

Huh? The Xmen shouldn't fight Human racists??Also teams like Avengers fight straight up villains why /how would the villains bigotry be exposed make it thst much more important to them?

Eh do they? As evident in? I don't think looking at the last 9 years of a series and declaring it 'much better' than decades of storylines and chars is that accurate.

Not sure too many if his fans would either lok
[QUOTE=Huntsman Spider;5409983]That would be good, and to speak to Mik's point on intersectionality and privilege . . . mutants as a metaphor for marginalized groups and peoples in the real world has a hard time with traction and legitimacy when the most prominent and promoted mutant characters tend to be conventionally attractive superpowered white people who can also leverage generational wealth to their personal advantage (in the cases of Charles Xavier, Warren Worthington III, and Emma Frost), yet somehow, mutants are still (even more) hated and feared compared to other superhumans in the Marvel Universe.

Uh who are the most prominent Avengers? Are they not mostly wealthy white dudes?



Why? Unless it's difficult to get that mutants are a persecuted within the 616. The villians/situations they find themselves in opposition of is because of hatred/fear that's waiting for them as soon as they're born This could take many forms from rabid anger to heartless apathy. Avengers for the most part wouldn't be on the radar of many villians if they'd wear normal clothes and stay the eFF home
Yes Yes Yes Lawd

Hmm, those are good points as well, I'll admit. The X-Men definitely have done a lot more to address issues of structural inequity and systemic marginalization compared to the Avengers, who as you point out also have wealthy white people in their ranks, one in particular being a founding member whose motivation to "hero up" was experiencing the consequences of his past apathy and lack of regard for who was winding up on the receiving end of the weapons he made and sold. As for the issue of Cyclops and his anti-police brutality speech after AvX, I suppose I was a bit more hung up on the optics of the character as he would appear in real life compared to his story within the context of the comics themselves, and I apologize for that oversight. On that note, it's an especially good point bringing up Emma Frost's brutal (and deservedly so) response to Carol Danvers in Marvel's original Civil War, given that wealth in real life hasn't insulated minorities from continuing to be targets of bigotry and prejudice and in many cases has even put targets on their backs from those jealous of their financial success. My take, though, is that X-Men stories as a whole have become kind of a crutch for discussing matters of justice for marginalized others in society without necessarily addressing in full who those marginalized others would be in the real world, which is why the metaphor or allegory could stand to be freshened up or reinvented, and thankfully the current X-Men run is doing that.

[Jewel Runner]

the X-Men represent the otherness in person/people


Seems like Emma's calling out privilege here Mutants come from everywhere and anywhere in various colors and temperaments. Hero's usually share similar type A personality traits

Funny how this is meant to call out Carol and it accomplishes nothing but making Emma look even more terrible than she already is, of course that's not hard since Emma is a garbage person but still.
I sure as hell don't see Emma lining up to help the Avengers everytime they have a crisis, and given the fact X-Men have previously housed and protected the person who ruined Carol's life the fact she's even talking to them is amazing to me.

[Mik]

Funny how this is meant to call out Carol and it accomplishes nothing but making Emma look even more terrible than she already is, of course that's not hard since Emma is a garbage person but still.
I sure as hell don't see Emma lining up to help the Avengers everytime they have a crisis, and given the fact X-Men have previously housed and protected the person who ruined Carol's life the fact she's even talking to them is amazing to me.

Yeah, you have a point. Neither side really helps the other. Plus the X-Men seem to be ok with working with magneto,

[Killerbee911]

Funny how this is meant to call out Carol and it accomplishes nothing but making Emma look even more terrible than she already is, of course that's not hard since Emma is a garbage person but still.
I sure as hell don't see Emma lining up to help the Avengers everytime they have a crisis, and given the fact X-Men have previously housed and protected the person who ruined Carol's life the fact she's even talking to them is amazing to me.

Yeah, you have a point. Neither side really helps the other. Plus the X-Men seem to be ok with working with magneto,

X-men fought against the Frost Giants with the Avengers( while mutants were being hunted by humans racist at the time)
X-men fought the Alien Invaders in Empire
X-men fought against Symbiotes with the Avengers

No the X-men jump in help the world mightest heroes a lot when they are in crisis

PS- Given the fact the X-men took care of Carol after she was raped and force in relationship with her rapist and the Avengers allowed it happen there is a clear reason why she talks to the X-men

[Mik]

The Avengers mistreatment of Carol was wrong. You have a good point there.

I think the Avengers have come a long way, but that's a pretty black mark.

The thing is, though, would X-Men fans be ok with Avengers saving the day?

Also, what do you mean by racist?