Minorities In Comics and Related Media

[skyvolt2000]

It says a lot about how the US teaches history that few can see how insulting it is to both figures, especially Malcolm.

I know of no school district that teaches Malcolm X and MLK together. It's mainly been MLK. Unless a teacher decides to teach about Malcolm X.

Man who is the first person to put forward the dumb ass idea Prof X and Magneto are analogous to MLK and Brother Malcom. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and knowck the pencil out of their hand.

They do that because those are the only two who had different ideas to get peace and we have to treat mutants as minorities. Yeah if you are talking about Beast & Nightcrawler. Sotrm & Prodigy can't hide their blackness.

[Overhazard]

I feel the same way. I think the first time I noticed it was in was Wizard related thing when I was slowly starting to get back into comics. Then I started seeing it more and more on the internet.

I used to think along those lines, then I grew up and realized how dumb that analogy was. I think that's what it must be like to be a student among the X-Men. All they really do is teach those kids how to fight, and that's it.

[skyvolt2000]

If Singer can't find one in Hollywodd, he can go to Africa and Kenya and check with their young local black actresses. He should be able to find one there.

Maybe they are using the casting agency that the Power Rangers used. They sure had trouble finding a dark skinned black girl after Power Rangers Time Force.

Man I hope the new movie is a financial flop so Marvel can require the rights. Not that I care anymore. I'm all up on that Onhuman train.

Down with the X, bring on what's next!

Hurting the pocket book is the only thing they understand. I mean how does Sunspot, Storm & Jason Rusch go from being dark skinned in books for years to light skin in movies and tv?

[ZeonsSilverStar]

It says a lot about how the US teaches history that few can see how insulting it is to both figures, especially Malcolm.

Even if history were taught better people would still find any flimsy pretext to make a comparison.

Anyway with the Storm casting I don't expect her Cyke or Jean to get much action. I recall it being said a little while back that Magneto and Mystique would be the focus. Now while I am a fan of Fassbender as Magneto I think it would be kind of a waste of a movie to have him as the focus again. Charles, Hank, and Logan recruiting and training the young mutants would have been a better movie to me.

[ExcelsiorPrime]

oops, almost forgot why i checked in.

if you make claims of being misquoted, make sure you're telling the truth, otherwise, just take the L

roll the tape

Anthony Mackie unfairly blames theGrio for ‘dreadlock’ backlash, so here is the video unedited

oopsie.

Man who is the first person to put forward the dumb ass idea Prof X and Magneto are analogous to MLK and Brother Malcom. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and knowck the pencil out of their hand.

It is always best to hide ones sources. That way no one will make a direct correlation.

[Vic Vega]

Man who is the first person to put forward the dumb ass idea Prof X and Magneto are analogous to MLK and Brother Malcom. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and knowck the pencil out of their hand.

It sounds good on the surface but breaks down went you think about it for any length of time. But this is comics, so nobody was thinking about it for any length of time. Most comic tropes fall apart the instant you thing about them. The closest thing to a real world analogue to the insurrestionist Brotherhood in the 60's would have been the Weather Underground, not the Nation.

But long as the writers, editors and readers can feel like the material is more weighty than it really is, the goofy metaphor is useful for them.

It doesn't help any that the Average American doesn't even understand what MLK stood for (let alone Malcom) to being with. They seem to think that he gave the "I have a dream" speech and that was all he ever did.

[Smoov-E]

It sounds good on the surface but breaks down went you think about it for any length of time. But this is comics, so nobody was thinking about it for any length of time. Most comic tropes fall apart the instant you thing about them. The closest thing to a real world analogue to the insurrestionist Brotherhood in the 60's would have been the Weather Underground, not the Nation.

But long as the writers, editors and readers can feel like the material is more weighty than it really is, the goofy metaphor is useful for them.

It doesn't help any that the Average American doesn't even understand what MLK stood for (let alone Malcom) to being with. They seem to think that he gave the "I have a dream" speech and that was all he ever did.

Aka the Santa Claus-ification of MLK

[ed2962]

I used to think along those lines, then I grew up and realized how dumb that analogy was. I think that's what it must be like to be a student among the X-Men. All they really do is teach those kids how to fight, and that's it.

Thing is, Stan and Jack never intended the X-men to be a metaphor for anything. That line of thinking didn't start until years later. I seriously think it's because there's a few mid-late 80's comics where Prof X's "dream" is mentioned and someone thought, "Oh, that's kinda like MLK, therefore Mags must be Malcolm!" It's a little like adding 2 + 3 and getting 9.

[Vic Vega]

Aka the Santa Claus-ification of MLK

I call it the Time/Life summary syndrome.

The Civil Rights Guys get one chapter. The Anti Viet Nam Guys get another. They don't give any space to explaining how some of those guys were both. Because if you went into all that you'd have less space for the British Invasion chapter or the Women's Lib chapter.

[Malvolio]

High schools in America teach basically three things about MLK: 1.Selma, 2."I have a dream." 3.Assassinated in 1968. They don't go into anything that happened in between those three events. They hardly even mention the cause that MLK was fighting for when he was murdered.

[Froggy]

If anything, Id compare magneto to Marcus Garvey, and even then jokingly, also due to him making a mutant homeland

[Froggy]

Man who is the first person to put forward the dumb ass idea Prof X and Magneto are analogous to MLK and Brother Malcom. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and knowck the pencil out of their hand.

I now picture a time haters scenario going on. Who do we hit next silky?

[George Caltsoudas]

I'm pretty sure I've read numerous times that Stan Lee himself said that Professor X and Magneto were inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X.
And I don't think he needs a history lesson on them as he lived through that and invented the mutants as result of the civil rights movement.

[ed2962]

I'm pretty sure I've read numerous times that Stan Lee himself said that Professor X and Magneto were inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X.
And I don't think he needs a history lesson on them as he lived through that and invented the mutants as result of the civil rights movement.

And I've seen Stan say on camera that he wasn't thinking of anything political when he created X-men beyond not to hate people cuz their different. I've read the books he wrote back in the 70's about the creation of several characters ( Origins of Marvel Comics, Son of Origins, etc) and the civil rights movement in relation to mutants was never mentioned. If you read the comics that came out in the early 60's and know what was going on in the news, the analogy doesn't even make sense. Mags was assaulting military bases and attacking the White House, despite the misquoted "by any means neccessary" phrase Malcolm wasn't arranging armed revolt. Martin directly challenged unjust laws, Charles trained his kids to fight other mutants and to hide their conditions when in public.

What Stan did do in response to the civil rights movement was to put actual black people in the comics. When Robbie Robertson joined the cast of Spiderman, he wasn't an analogue for anything, he was an actual minority. When the Avengers fought the Sons of the Serpent is wasn't a metaphor about racism, it was the team fighting racists. Now, some of those stories might be dated by today's standards, but Stan wasn't beating around the bush, he took on the subject directly.

I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but Stan kinda has a tendency to go long with whats going on in the room sometimes when it comes to some questions fans ask him. He's admitted that back in the day some college students asked if he studied ancient cultures to prepare for Dr Strange and Stan implied yes cuz he didn't have the heart to tell them he was just making up gibberish. And for decades he's kinda joked about how terrible his memory is...

[ExcelsiorPrime]

I'm pretty sure I've read numerous times that Stan Lee himself said that Professor X and Magneto were inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X.
And I don't think he needs a history lesson on them as he lived through that and invented the mutants as result of the civil rights movement.

And there was nothing wrong with the parallel.

Until recently. The lack of Minority males (specifically African Americans) is striking in a series that leaned so heavily on the civil rights allegory.
Having Cyclops kill the Professor pretty much cut all ties. IMHO : The X-men aren't about inclusion, or integration as much as they used to be--i tend to read more Mutant nationalism/w a slight lean towards supremacy
in the themes.

Magneto's Philosophy reigns supreme, and the X -men have more former terrorists on its rosters than doves.