Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Kingdom X]

Isn't being mutants enough? They have the X-gene. That links them.

And you don't think it would be good to see mutants and non-mutants achieve some level of peace and unity instead of constantly "oppressing" mutants?

I mean the comics are moving away from mutant oppression with Krakoa and showing them as an empowered group (at least for the time being).

Also how is a never ending comic book series supposed to achieve peace and unity? Spider-Man is always going to be down on his luck. The Avengers are never going to permanently save the world. It's just the nature of comics.

Then why are they oppressed if not everyone hates them?

That's not how oppression works... not everyone in the world needs to dislike a group for them to be oppressed.

I'm aware of that. But at the same time, I'm supposed to believe someone like Angel is marginalized? I can understand Nightcrawler being mistreated, because society in general is still superficial. But someone like Angel, for example, would probably receive the opposite

That's like saying that conventionally attractive white gay men aren't victim to marginalization. Would it be less marginalization than a Queer POC? Yes. Is it irrational and stupid? Yes. Hate is meant to be illogical.

And I already know you're boutta say, "then why not showcase the struggles of actual minorities." Many modern X-writers are highlighting the many minority characters within the X-line. Sometimes the progress takes a bit longer than preferred but it is happening.

[Outburstz]

There are a bunch of problems with using mutants as a metaphor for real life oppression though. For one thing, normal humans are perfectly justified in hating and fearing mutants, since decades of stories have repeatedly demonstrated that mutants are by and large incapable of controlling their powers, and that even those with years of training are liable to just go wild at any time. Not to mention that various groups have not been shy about promoting that mutants are the next stage of evolution and are destined to replace humans through a violent race war.

There's your first mistake in thinking that people hate mutants because they have super powers. That is merely a justification that is used by people who hate mutants as a way to justify their hate. This is touched on during multiple story lines like the Mutant zero tolerance arc. It's a direct mirror of how black people are viewed as just a bunch of gang members and criminals so people are justified in hating them.

Are there mutants who are dangers to society yes. Are there black people who are gang members and criminals yes. Do either of these things means that you should hate the whole group the answer is no.

By and large, the mutant metaphor is just a means for writers to tell stories where the victims of oppression just so happen to all be attractive white people, and no matter how many in-story justifications you make for that, it's difficult to argue that this is a step forward in terms of diversity and inclusion in media. It certainly doesn't help either that the "pretty" mutants tend to treat the ones with more visible mutations basically as subhuman, and the hypocrisy of this is rarely commented on. In fact, all of the depictions of mutant society we've seen have been incredibly stratified and hierarchical, with a fixation on special bloodlines and social status based on power level. Granted you could argue that this would happen inevitably in any system where the biological differences between various groups were so vast, but again it's not really a great look for a story that purports to promote equality.

These are two different things one is about colorism angle between mutants but instead of skin tone it's human vs monster looking. It is clear that pretty mutants (the ones that look human) are the more desirable mutants as apposed to non human passing mutants. That to me is a very important conversation to be told and it was even been talked about in New Mutants in the last few issues.

The second one is about diversity within mutants from the white people vs another races. It's clear that certain fan favorites are white and were grandfathered in during a time were no one wanted to read about darker skinned people. If you want more people of color to get more screen time you will get no arguments from me. (It's one of the main reasons why I didn't like the X-men team) However just because they are white doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense that they are discriminations against. Jewish, Bosnians , Irish, Scots, and Italians have all taken their turns at being degraded even though they are all white.

Personally, I prefer the original idea of the franchise where pretty much anybody could be a mutant and that they have been living among us this entire time and just now starting to reveal themselves. Mutant powers should be portrayed as something to be nurtured and understood, not to be controlled or weaponized, and attempting to create a mutant ethnostate would be folly, as mutation is not a heritable trait isolated to some in-group but rather a universal phenomenon. Humans should be prejudiced against the ugly mutants but would actually show favor toward the pretty and powerful ones, to the point of practically worshipping some of them as gods which would in turn help create conflicts when this inevitably goes to their heads.

Mutants joining together as a group is a direct result of how they were treated by the people of the world. If people didn't hate them and try to oppress them they wouldn't view themselves as a collective the way they do now. This story beat is again a direct reflection of how African Americans are viewed. Despite their ancestors being from different tribes they were still subject to slavery in the Americas all the same the only unifying factor being their skin color. Same thing with LGBT people as they come from different walks of life but still face oppressions all over the world for their choice of lovers.

Even among these two groups you still have different opinions on that just like mutants have different opinions on Krakoa. Not every mutant lives on Krakoa nor does every mutant view their mutation as the most important thing, but the vast majority do because of how they were treated by their oppression groups.

So you making the assumption that just because some mutants are human passing that they shouldn't be oppressed like the monster mutants is laughable. Since real world oppressions doesn't work like that. There are levels to oppression and just because some might avoid the absolute worse of it because they blend in doesn't mean they don't also get oppressed.

If there was a human passing mutant who wanted to hide their mutation from the rest of the world and just live life among humans in secret that would be their choice but it wouldn't be a great read. Human passing mutants who make it clear to everyone that they are mutants like Storm or Magneto will get that hate as well.

[marhawkman]

The fact that almost all mutants altered by their powers revert back to normal human form when they get depowered or their powers supressed is pretty much proof that they are still biological human at their core.

Even during Decimation, when the editorial mandate seems to have been that all depowered mutants had to be shown suffering, which in part involved showing mutants who got stuck in their transformed state and died from it (interesting it seems that the vast majority of these cases were in Generation-M), most depowered mutants we could see, who were previously "altered" by their powers, were shown to have reverted to a normal healthy human state, with seemingly not even physical damage from their mutated features dissapearing.

Which ranges from animal/insect forms to elemental ones.

And if we take previous cases of mutants who got depowered (the 1999 storyline most prominently) or their powers supressed (collars, proximity to Leech, Rogue's touch), we have largely the same case of mutants miraculously turning into normal humans again, rather than be stuck in their altered state.

The major exceptions are mutants who's still human body got changed as side effect of their powers like Blob who retained his stretched out skin (which in both cases eventualy still shrunk back to normal level naturaly) or Chamber who's powers had caused his chest to be ripped appart with his lower jaw by his powers when they activated.

So i'm pretty sure that statistically when mutants get depowered the vast majority becomes healthy normal humans again physicaly.

If mutants were truely a different race/species from humans, thanks to the way their physical forms had been altered by the X-gene, they shouldn't so easily revert to normal humans as sort of a default form and by such a large amount of methods.

With all of this mutants are clearly still normal humans by default, just with an "add-on" or "bonus" of sort. I'm not even sure we can talk of a "subspecies" here in the regard.

Interesting enough though, small cosmetic alterations via powers like unnatural hair colors, eye shapes or skin tones, do not seem to easily disappear even via depowering as shown with Storm, Lorna or Psylocke.

It gets even weirder when you expand the scope of the inquiry. Kree, Shiar, and Skrull mutants also exist. This is attributed to tinkering by the Celestials for some reason we don't yet understand. Which ALSO suggests that there is some aspect of Human Mutants that is not fully Human. Like this:

That Sentinel registered a KREE as a Mutant.... a KREE. Why? What is the special secret ingredient that makes a Mutant a Mutant whether Kree or Human?

But yeah... all this stuff kinda takes the "oppressed minority" analogies and throws them out the window. It's been used for so many metaphors that it's over-strained to the point of no longer making sense. I mean, there was one story that seemed to use Mutants as part of a sex slave trafficking analogy. Yeah... really. It's not a metaphor for any specific group... of any kind. It's part of so many metaphors for injustice that it's lost coherence.... which might be why it's so amped up in intensity now. Writers are trying to make up for the confused message with massive imminent danger..... but now most of the X-Men's enemies are either off the board or HELPING them.

Recent stories have lost the nuance that made the old ones good. For example: in the "Fall of Avalon" story arc, several Acolytes died, and their orbital base not only gets destroyed but gets knocked out of orbit. But, the story isn't written to say "they deserved it for being bad guys". no... it's written to show it as a tragedy that befell the enemies of the Xmen, and one the Xmen did their best to help with. More recent stuff tends to be less.... shades of grey I guess? It's weird because nowadays characters temporarily wear black or white hats, and change hats, but.... there's always a black hat.

[PwrdOn]

There's your first mistake in thinking that people hate mutants because they have super powers. That is merely a justification that is used by people who hate mutants as a way to justify their hate. This is touched on during multiple story lines like the Mutant zero tolerance arc. It's a direct mirror of how black people are viewed as just a bunch of gang members and criminals so people are justified in hating them.

Are there mutants who are dangers to society yes. Are there black people who are gang members and criminals yes. Do either of these things means that you should hate the whole group the answer is no.

These are two different things one is about colorism angle between mutants but instead of skin tone it's human vs monster looking. It is clear that pretty mutants (the ones that look human) are the more desirable mutants as apposed to non human passing mutants. That to me is a very important conversation to be told and it was even been talked about in New Mutants in the last few issues.

The second one is about diversity within mutants from the white people vs another races. It's clear that certain fan favorites are white and were grandfathered in during a time were no one wanted to read about darker skinned people. If you want more people of color to get more screen time you will get no arguments from me. (It's one of the main reasons why I didn't like the X-men team) However just because they are white doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense that they are discriminations against. Jewish, Bosnians , Irish, Scots, and Italians have all taken their turns at being degraded even though they are all white.





Mutants joining together as a group is a direct result of how they were treated by the people of the world. If people didn't hate them and try to oppress them they wouldn't view themselves as a collective the way they do now. This story beat is again a direct reflection of how African Americans are viewed. Despite their ancestors being from different tribes they were still subject to slavery in the Americas all the same the only unifying factor being their skin color. Same thing with LGBT people as they come from different walks of life but still face oppressions all over the world for their choice of lovers.

Even among these two groups you still have different opinions on that just like mutants have different opinions on Krakoa. Not every mutant lives on Krakoa nor does every mutant view their mutation as the most important thing, but the vast majority do because of how they were treated by their oppression groups.

So you making the assumption that just because some mutants are human passing that they shouldn't be oppressed like the monster mutants is laughable. Since real world oppressions doesn't work like that. There are levels to oppression and just because some might avoid the absolute worse of it because they blend in doesn't mean they don't also get oppressed.

If there was a human passing mutant who wanted to hide their mutation from the rest of the world and just live life among humans in secret that would be their choice but it wouldn't be a great read. Human passing mutants who make it clear to everyone that they are mutants like Storm or Magneto will get that hate as well.

The idea of humans hating all mutants just because is sort of based on this very facile understanding of prejudice as coming from these ignorant and intractable bigots who just hate others for being different, and that's just not how it works. Bigotry in real life largely stems from people advancing their own material interests, which often depend on exploiting other groups and therefore requires inventing tortured justifications as to why they need to be kept down. It has never been made clear in the X-Men comics how exactly humanity benefits from oppressing mutants, aside from the angle of mutants being destined to replace humans evolutionarily, in which case it would absolutely be perfectly rational and justified for humans to exterminate mutants by any means necessary, because their survival as a species would depend on it. But given that this "great replacement" idea is kind of based on an extremely faulty understanding of how evolution and cross-species interaction actually work, and veers dangerously close to real world fascist ideas about a future race war, it's probably best to just leave it by the wayside.

[Covetous_One]

It gets even weirder when you expand the scope of the inquiry. Kree, Shiar, and Skrull mutants also exist. This is attributed to tinkering by the Celestials for some reason we don't yet understand. Which ALSO suggests that there is some aspect of Human Mutants that is not fully Human. Like this:

That Sentinel registered a KREE as a Mutant.... a KREE. Why? What is the special secret ingredient that makes a Mutant a Mutant whether Kree or Human?

But yeah... all this stuff kinda takes the "oppressed minority" analogies and throws them out the window. It's been used for so many metaphors that it's over-strained to the point of no longer making sense. I mean, there was one story that seemed to use Mutants as part of a sex slave trafficking analogy. Yeah... really. It's not a metaphor for any specific group... of any kind. It's part of so many metaphors for injustice that it's lost coherence.... which might be why it's so amped up in intensity now. Writers are trying to make up for the confused message with massive imminent danger..... but now most of the X-Men's enemies are either off the board or HELPING them.

Recent stories have lost the nuance that made the old ones good. For example: in the "Fall of Avalon" story arc, several Acolytes died, and their orbital base not only gets destroyed but gets knocked out of orbit. But, the story isn't written to say "they deserved it for being bad guys". no... it's written to show it as a tragedy that befell the enemies of the Xmen, and one the Xmen did their best to help with. More recent stuff tends to be less.... shades of grey I guess? It's weird because nowadays characters temporarily wear black or white hats, and change hats, but.... there's always a black hat.

The origin is that Celestials went to different worlds and experimented on that planets dominate sentient species. Which to me in my opinion makes mutants no different from mutates cause both are the results of experimentation or those born with powers that are non mutants such as natural born magic users.

[cranger]

The idea of humans hating all mutants just because is sort of based on this very facile understanding of prejudice as coming from these ignorant and intractable bigots who just hate others for being different, and that's just not how it works. Bigotry in real life largely stems from people advancing their own material interests, which often depend on exploiting other groups and therefore requires inventing tortured justifications as to why they need to be kept down. It has never been made clear in the X-Men comics how exactly humanity benefits from oppressing mutants, aside from the angle of mutants being destined to replace humans evolutionarily, in which case it would absolutely be perfectly rational and justified for humans to exterminate mutants by any means necessary, because their survival as a species would depend on it. But given that this "great replacement" idea is kind of based on an extremely faulty understanding of how evolution and cross-species interaction actually work, and veers dangerously close to real world fascist ideas about a future race war, it's probably best to just leave it by the wayside.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you would look at it like I do in that there would be some people, either individually or collectively, that would hate mutants based such reasons, whether it was motivated by greed (mutants are a competitor) or revenge (a mutant battle wiped out my village) or ideals (a religious view that mutants are blasphemous) but there would not be one overall prevailing attitude of hate. This is sort of the way I saw how the X-Men existed in the MU for many, many years with them often encountering 'common people' of all views in every day life, sometimes those people being used to portray maybe the efforts of some antagonist to create fear and sometimes to reflect the fallout from the X-Men's own actions.

[Outburstz]

Isn't being mutants enough? They have the X-gene. That links them.

And you don't think it would be good to see mutants and non-mutants achieve some level of peace and unity instead of constantly "oppressing" mutants?



Then why are they oppressed if not everyone hates them?

I really hope this is a joke. Everyone doesn't need to hate mutants in order for them to be oppressed. In apartheid South Africa the white minority was oppressing the larger black population. Despite that there were still mixed couples during this time period having mixed kids.

Humans having power and exerting that power over mutants in various ways is how they oppress mutants or discriminate. You have this notion that mutants and humans should just get along is a notion that many minority groups have been asking themselves for hundreds of years.

If mutants suddenly don't face any oppress or discrimination what so ever there is no point in mutants existing as a concept because it loses the deeper meaning of it and why they became popular in the first place.

I'm aware of that. But at the same time, I'm supposed to believe someone like Angel is marginalized? I can understand Nightcrawler being mistreated, because society in general is still superficial. But someone like Angel, for example, would probably receive the opposite

As I said with the other post mutants are hated for being mutants. Someone like Angel who is pretty and less monster looking then most will still get hate and marginalized.

That is a direct parallel to someone who is dark skinned vs light skinned.

I'm not looking at from only one angle, ok? I'm looking at it from all angles, not just the "keep mutants oppressed as metaphor" angle. If I want to see other aspects of discrimination discussed, I'd actually want to see that be discussed. Not a fictionalized version dated decades ago



But they do only cover 1: mutant oppression

I've already talked about multiple different story lines that focused on many aspect for mutant story telling but if you want to ignore all of those just because they are not the actual people that's more on you and less on the writers who are telling those stories.

Maybe I need to break it down a bit more. A prime example is nationalism vs ethnic identity. Mikhail Rasputin cares more about his Russian background than his mutant one. Some like Exodus cares more about his mutant background. While Dani Moonstar sees no reason to choose between the two. This has nothing to do with oppression and everything to do with how the characters feel about their personal id an coming to terms with the mutantdom

Because it's not a great metaphor. It reduces the variety of experiences of every minority demographic into one easily digestible, simplistic version mainly featuring heroes ironically from majority backgrounds. Wakanda is more of a "What if an African nation survived colonization?" They're not remotely comparable. And fans acting like they are is cringeworthy to me.

If you want more mutants of color that is fine but to say it falls a part because there are not a lot of popular mutants of color is faulty. You say that Wakanda is a what if story but I can easily say the same about mutants being a what if an oppressed group had powers. You seem to be dancing around it but you just view Wakanda as more valid because they are African even though they are just as fictional as mutants.

Blaming the Avengers is nonsense IMO. That's like blaming the X-Men for not helping real minorities. The Avengers don't intervene because there would be no X-Men comics. It doesn't make sense in the MU to me either, but that's Marvel's mandate, not something the Avengers writers thought of. And even fans here and in other threads say "Keep Avengers on their side". So which is it? You can't have it both ways.

I want the Avengers to stay out of X books but just because you can explain out of canon why the Avengers don't help mutants more doesn't change the fact that they don't in canon. In canon the mutants have every right to be mad at Avengers for their lack of help. Personally I think the conflict is good story telling and shows the struggles of mutants.

And you point out CM not understanding the mutant plight, but when have the X-Men ever show they understand any other minority group?

.......The mutants are a minority group. Not just that but they are also made up of mutants who come from different minority groups. You really think Synch doesn't understand black problems with police, Dani seeing native woman disappear , Dust seeing people judge those who wear hijab, or Kate with jewish problems.

The thing that comes first however is mutants because that is what the stories are about.

[Covetous_One]

I really hope this is a joke. Everyone doesn't need to hate mutants in order for them to be oppressed. In apartheid South Africa the white minority was oppressing the larger black population. Despite that there were still mixed couples during this time period having mixed kids.

Humans having power and exerting that power over mutants in various ways is how they oppress mutants or discriminate. You have this notion that mutants and humans should just get along is a notion that many minority groups have been asking themselves for hundreds of years.

If mutants suddenly don't face any oppress or discrimination what so ever there is no point in mutants existing as a concept because it loses the deeper meaning of it and why they became popular in the first place.


As I said with the other post mutants are hated for being mutants. Someone like Angel who is pretty and less monster looking then most will still get hate and marginalized.

That is a direct parallel to someone who is dark skinned vs light skinned.





I've already talked about multiple different story lines that focused on many aspect for mutant story telling but if you want to ignore all of those just because they are not the actual people that's more on you and less on the writers who are telling those stories.

Maybe I need to break it down a bit more. A prime example is nationalism vs ethnic identity. Mikhail Rasputin cares more about his Russian background than his mutant one. Some like Exodus cares more about his mutant background. While Dani Moonstar sees no reason to choose between the two. This has nothing to do with oppression and everything to do with how the characters feel about their personal id an coming to terms with the mutantdom




If you want more mutants of color that is fine but to say it falls a part because there are not a lot of popular mutants of color is faulty. You say that Wakanda is a what if story but I can easily say the same about mutants being a what if an oppressed group had powers. You seem to be dancing around it but you just view Wakanda as more valid because they are African even though they are just as fictional as mutants.

I want the Avengers to stay out of X books but just because you can explain out of canon why the Avengers don't help mutants more doesn't change the fact that they don't in canon. In canon the mutants have every right to be mad at Avengers for their lack of help. Personally I think the conflict is good story telling and shows the struggles of mutants.



.......The mutants are a minority group. Not just that but they are also made up of mutants who come from different minority groups. You really think Synch doesn't understand black problems with police, Dani seeing native woman disappear , Dust seeing people judge those who wear hijab, or Kate with jewish problems.

The thing that comes first however is mutants because that is what the stories are about.

Mutants can still have stories without having to involve social commentary. Claremont did his take with that and it was useful but know it’s gotten to appoint with an us vs them mentality that’s not healthy for any social group, race, ethnicity, etc. to have. Keeping two teams mad at each other doesn’t make for good story telling it just makes for unnecessary bs between fans that Marvel likes to keep going with.

[Cyke]

Hoo-boy, there are unpopular or controversial opinions in this thread, sure, but there's some real ugly ones rearing in, too.

.......The mutants are a minority group. Not just that but they are also made up of mutants who come from different minority groups. You really think Synch doesn't understand black problems with police, Dani seeing native woman disappear , Dust seeing people judge those who wear hijab, or Kate with jewish problems.

The thing that comes first however is mutants because that is what the stories are about.

To reinforce this point, it's foolish to think a person can't be multiple minorities at once, e.g. Asian and disabled or Black and gay. And frankly, these types of oversights create gigantic gaps with long range damage that create the need for a variety of equitable solutions, but it also shows that a "one size fits all" approach rarely works. Heck, proudly claiming to be color blind means you're proudly ignoring the unique situations and challenges that each minority faces.

But to bring it back, I have to say the recent Marvel Identity anthology books have been pretty great about showing how these various identities (including several X-Men) intersect and the unique experiences that come from it. Plus, it's not like it came from a vacuum: as Outburstz pointed out, Kate has had to talk about the intersections of her Jewish identity with her mutant identity since way back in Claremont's run, and even X-Men: TAS in the 90s had a moment about not just (alt-reality) Storm being a Black woman, but in the episode a Black woman in a public, visible white-interracial relationship. It may not be perfect by any means, and sometimes the writers are clumsy about it, but they've had the X-Men talking from and about the perspective of other minority groups for decades now.

[CosmiComic]

I mean the comics are moving away from mutant oppression with Krakoa and showing them as an empowered group (at least for the time being).

Also how is a never ending comic book series supposed to achieve peace and unity? Spider-Man is always going to be down on his luck. The Avengers are never going to permanently save the world. It's just the nature of comics.

I'm not asking for a permanent end. That seems to be to much. Just some permanent progress, for all of these guys. Otherwise, why should I care?

And Avengers saving the world isn't quite the same thing IMO

That's not how oppression works... not everyone in the world needs to dislike a group for them to be oppressed.

I'm aware of that. But I don't Marvel has ever fully justified anti-mutant oppression to the extent it's portrayed

That's like saying that conventionally attractive white gay men aren't victim to marginalization. Would it be less marginalization than a Queer POC? Yes. Is it irrational and stupid? Yes. Hate is meant to be illogical.

When did I ever say that? I already know hate is illogical. But Angel isn't in that demographic, is he?

And I already know you're boutta say, "then why not showcase the struggles of actual minorities." Many modern X-writers are highlighting the many minority characters within the X-line. Sometimes the progress takes a bit longer than preferred but it is happening.

You know what I'm going to say, yet you made that previous statement? Anyway, it's good to hear that's happening, but it could be done better

[CosmiComic]

The idea of humans hating all mutants just because is sort of based on this very facile understanding of prejudice as coming from these ignorant and intractable bigots who just hate others for being different, and that's just not how it works. Bigotry in real life largely stems from people advancing their own material interests, which often depend on exploiting other groups and therefore requires inventing tortured justifications as to why they need to be kept down. It has never been made clear in the X-Men comics how exactly humanity benefits from oppressing mutants, aside from the angle of mutants being destined to replace humans evolutionarily, in which case it would absolutely be perfectly rational and justified for humans to exterminate mutants by any means necessary, because their survival as a species would depend on it. But given that this "great replacement" idea is kind of based on an extremely faulty understanding of how evolution and cross-species interaction actually work, and veers dangerously close to real world fascist ideas about a future race war, it's probably best to just leave it by the wayside.

That's one of the things missing here. Prejudice is partially born out of ignorance and fear but also malice and selfishness. Minorities are actively demonized because majorities want something from them

[CosmiComic]

I really hope this is a joke. Everyone doesn't need to hate mutants in order for them to be oppressed. In apartheid South Africa the white minority was oppressing the larger black population. Despite that there were still mixed couples during this time period having mixed kids.

I'm aware of that.

Humans having power and exerting that power over mutants in various ways is how they oppress mutants or discriminate. You have this notion that mutants and humans should just get along is a notion that many minority groups have been asking themselves for hundreds of years.

Mutants aren't a real minority, though. The same ideas don't apply despite writers and fans insisting otherwise

If mutants suddenly don't face any oppress or discrimination what so ever there is no point in mutants existing as a concept because it loses the deeper meaning of it and why they became popular in the first place.

That's not why mutants were made in the first place. You really think mutants are so devoid of story potential they're useless without an outdated metaphor?

As I said with the other post mutants are hated for being mutants. Someone like Angel who is pretty and less monster looking then most will still get hate and marginalized.

That is a direct parallel to someone who is dark skinned vs light skinned.

It's an insufficient parallel. Why not actually deal with colorism?

I've already talked about multiple different story lines that focused on many aspect for mutant story telling but if you want to ignore all of those just because they are not the actual people that's more on you and less on the writers who are telling those stories.

Maybe I need to break it down a bit more. A prime example is nationalism vs ethnic identity. Mikhail Rasputin cares more about his Russian background than his mutant one. Some like Exodus cares more about his mutant background. While Dani Moonstar sees no reason to choose between the two. This has nothing to do with oppression and everything to do with how the characters feel about their personal id an coming to terms with the mutantdom

What does that have to do with what I said?

If you want more mutants of color that is fine but to say it falls a part because there are not a lot of popular mutants of color is faulty. You say that Wakanda is a what if story but I can easily say the same about mutants being a what if an oppressed group had powers. You seem to be dancing around it but you just view Wakanda as more valid because they are African even though they are just as fictional as mutants.

I'm not dancing around anything. I stated my position outright. And it does fall apart because using White guys like Cyclops, Wolverine and Xavier does nothing for visible representation for actual non-White heroes. The same is true of other minorities

I want the Avengers to stay out of X books but just because you can explain out of canon why the Avengers don't help mutants more doesn't change the fact that they don't in canon. In canon the mutants have every right to be mad at Avengers for their lack of help. Personally I think the conflict is good story telling and shows the struggles of mutants.

It's a stupid complaint IMO. It's wanting your cake and eating it too. Don't bash the Avengers because of what Marvel makes happen, especially if you want it.

.......The mutants are a minority group. Not just that but they are also made up of mutants who come from different minority groups. You really think Synch doesn't understand black problems with police, Dani seeing native woman disappear , Dust seeing people judge those who wear hijab, or Kate with jewish problems.

The thing that comes first however is mutants because that is what the stories are about.

X-Men comics don't actually deal with this stuff that much from what I've seen, though. That's my problem. Just saying "they're mutants so they get it" isn't near enough

Mutants can still have stories without having to involve social commentary. Claremont did his take with that and it was useful but know it’s gotten to appoint with an us vs them mentality that’s not healthy for any social group, race, ethnicity, etc. to have. Keeping two teams mad at each other doesn’t make for good story telling it just makes for unnecessary bs between fans that Marvel likes to keep going with.

Yeah, how exactly does this commentary match what's happening to any real minority? Oppressed groups in the real world aren't leaving for an island.

And pitting two groups against each other is just unnecessary drama. I thought fans were tired of that

Hoo-boy, there are unpopular or controversial opinions in this thread, sure, but there's some real ugly ones rearing in, too.



To reinforce this point, it's foolish to think a person can't be multiple minorities at once, e.g. Asian and disabled or Black and gay. And frankly, these types of oversights create gigantic gaps with long range damage that create the need for a variety of equitable solutions, but it also shows that a "one size fits all" approach rarely works. Heck, proudly claiming to be color blind means you're proudly ignoring the unique situations and challenges that each minority faces.

But to bring it back, I have to say the recent Marvel Identity anthology books have been pretty great about showing how these various identities (including several X-Men) intersect and the unique experiences that come from it. Plus, it's not like it came from a vacuum: as Outburstz pointed out, Kate has had to talk about the intersections of her Jewish identity with her mutant identity since way back in Claremont's run, and even X-Men: TAS in the 90s had a moment about not just (alt-reality) Storm being a Black woman, but in the episode a Black woman in a public, visible white-interracial relationship. It may not be perfect by any means, and sometimes the writers are clumsy about it, but they've had the X-Men talking from and about the perspective of other minority groups for decades now.

I'm not sure about your point here, but those recent books actual dealt with real minorities. Not fake ones using majority heroes. And reading the one about Native American heroes really pointed out to me how far removed the whole metaphor is from the actual problems just those groups alone face. Like asking a Native American hero to move to Krakoa instead of staying in the USA and fighting for their homeland

I agree "one size fits all" doesn't work, but that's why I'm critical of the metaphor

[Kingdom X]

You know what I'm going to say, yet you made that previous statement? Anyway, it's good to hear that's happening, but it could be done better

Ok explain how… you constantly have complaints about a franchise (that you don’t seem to read too much of) so I’d like to hear what solutions you have.

You seem to have this belief that all X-books are constantly talking about mutant oppression and nothing else. In the past month I’ve read about mutants being global heroes, explorers in space, CIA agents, murder investigators, a ragtag group of damaged people trying to better themselves, and the list goes on. People aren’t constantly being banged over the head with the metaphor and 5 out of the 6 books I mentioned featured minorities (racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation) in leading roles.

Also are you this critical about every fictional grouping? Should people not sympathize with the Air Nomad genocide in Avatar because it’s not a real ethnic group? It’s fiction, it’s meant to take us into a new world where anything is possible.

[Covetous_One]

Ok explain how… you constantly have complaints about a franchise (that you don’t seem to read too much of) so I’d like to hear what solutions you have.

You seem to have this belief that all X-books are constantly talking about mutant oppression and nothing else. In the past month I’ve read about mutants being global heroes, explorers in space, CIA agents, murder investigators, a ragtag group of damaged people trying to better themselves, and the list goes on. People aren’t constantly being banged over the head with the metaphor and 5 out of the 6 books I mentioned featured minorities (racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation) in leading roles.

Also are you this critical about every fictional grouping? Should people not sympathize with the Air Nomad genocide in Avatar because it’s not a real ethnic group? It’s fiction, it’s meant to take us into a new world where anything is possible.

Don’t forget to add government authorized mind control of a country. Even if it was Beast and Sage who did it, Xavier was extremely naive to give Hank so much leeway it borders on being complacent.

[Kingdom X]

Don’t forget to add government authorized mind control of a country. Even if it was Beast and Sage who did it, Xavier was extremely naive to give Hank so much leeway it borders on being complacent.

Oh Beast is some trash and Krakoa is by no means a perfect nation, but that’s a whole different discussion.