Is It Possible for The X-Men To Go Back to Basics?

[Frontier]

I feel humanities fear of mutants is due to the whole “next step in human evolution” thing not so much the powers thing. It’s essentially the whole “Great replacement” nonsense. Others superheroes might get powers by accident, but unless you live nearby that’s not really a threat to you. But mutants represent something way more existential.

Well, that and (somewhat justifiably) how bad Mutant villains can get.

[Devaishwarya]

Yupp. ^
That's yet another perspective that is being shouted by parties other than the mutants themselves.

[Zelena]

Can I just ask....where are people even getting this idea that there's EVER been an era where prejudice wasn't central to the X-Franchise? I keep seeing people reference these good old days where mutants being hated by humans wasn't a big or constant thing and I'm just like.....all due respect, but what books were you reading?

…The time between Giant-Size and the Dark Phoenix saga is literally the closest I can come up to in terms of what people are describing as just regular superheroes with no social commentary, but that honestly wasn't that long of a period? Maybe five years or so, which is kinda still just a blip on the sixty year existence of the X-Men. And even then, anti-mutant prejudices were still present and remarked upon, it played into all the stuff leading up to the Dark Phoenix Saga considering the Hellfire Club actively stoked conflict for their profit (like Shaw being an investor in the Sentinels program).
Again, I'm just wondering....where are people getting this idea that the current era's focus on human/mutant relations has like....an opposite number in some mythical 'good old days' of X-Men stories past? Where mutants were just people with superpowers doing superpowered things and nobody thought twice about it? That's NEVER been the X-Men.

True, I probably read X-men stories during a period when “mutant persecution” wasn’t at all “a thing”. But I understood that Nightcrawler had to hide himself when walking on the streets and that the regular humans were afraid when the X-men showed their powers. I undertsood and the X-men understood it too… They evolved in a universe where plenty of other super-beings existed.

The group ”humans” didn’t exist per se: the X-men met individuals and were considered as individuals too albeit unusual ones not as members of a race. Their families were “human” too. There wasn’t two camps.

Like, with all due respect to anyone who DOES think that there was some past X-Men era where themes of prejudice and oppression weren't present and featured.....

Have you ever considered - especially if you're not someone who experiences these things in real life and thus has no reason to be particularly attuned to them or signs of them on any kind of personal, relatable level - that maybe those themes WERE there all along, and if they simply didn't register with you, escaped your notice, or failed to leave a lasting impression on you.....

That's kinda just....about what you personally came to the X-books for and what you took away from them PERSONALLY....rather than like....actual proof that there was ever some singular era or period where social issues weren't central to the X-Men franchise and its various characters?

Prejudices, yes… oppression, no.

I probably never project a lot of myself in X-men stories but it’s a tribute to the writer when he/she is able to make you feel what exactly he/she wants to tell, I didn’t have to have a blue skin to feel what Nightcrawler felt. It’s the power of fiction to make you live stories you wouldn’t have lived otherwise. I have the impression that a lot of readers had “used” X-men stories to tell other stories.

But it’s right: we haven’t read the same stories and hadn’t the same life. And the X-men weren’t the same people.

[HandofPrometheus]

It's possible but why? Didn't we just come out of a back-to-basic era with X-men Gold, Blue, Red, and that filler era soon after? All were just boring.

[dragon1440]

Can I just ask....where are people even getting this idea that there's EVER been an era where prejudice wasn't central to the X-Franchise? I keep seeing people reference these good old days where mutants being hated by humans wasn't a big or constant thing and I'm just like.....all due respect, but what books were you reading?

Have the X-books at times had STORY ARCS that didn't focus on human/mutant relations and prejudice, and where the X-Men just fought the Brood in space or a sorcerer in the Savage Land? Sure. Of course. But those arcs have always just been sprinkled across the entirety of the X-books' existence, there was never like, some extended period of time where prejudice against mutants was just wholly offscreen or not a big deal.

Mutants being hated and feared was the whole reason the 05 were schooled in secret and Xavier insisted they keep their identities hidden even from other heroes. The time between Giant-Size and the Dark Phoenix saga is literally the closest I can come up to in terms of what people are describing as just regular superheroes with no social commentary, but that honestly wasn't that long of a period? Maybe five years or so, which is kinda still just a blip on the sixty year existence of the X-Men. And even then, anti-mutant prejudices were still present and remarked upon, it played into all the stuff leading up to the Dark Phoenix Saga considering the Hellfire Club actively stoked conflict for their profit (like Shaw being an investor in the Sentinels program).

And since the Dark Phoenix Saga there's literally been no period of time that even comes close to matching that one singular five year period? From there we had Days of Future Past and all its fallout. Being hated and feared was hugely present in the New Mutants' original run and origins. The original X-Factor's premise had them literally posing as mutant HUNTERS as the most effective way to get to mutants in time to help them. Leading into everything with the Right and Cameron Hodge. There were stories in the wake of the Mutant Massacre that had X-characters dealing with the fact that most people flat out didn't care that a group of 'monstrous mutants' got slaughtered. There was the Mutant Registration act, anti-mutant prejudice wa a huge thematic element of things like the Trial of Magneto. We had things like the suicide of Larry Bodine. Stories like LifeDeath literally only happened because of anti-mutant prejudices being the reason the government had Forge coming up with technology specifically aimed at mutant powers. Even when the X-Men moved into the Outback era, that was what debuted the original Genosha stories where mutants were institutionally oppressed in that country. Once the X-teams reunited in Lee and Claremont's relaunch, anti-mutant sentiments were literally the basis of Magneto secluding himself away, the formation of the Acolytes, and central to pretty much every appearance the Acolytes ever MADE from that point on.

Then Bishop came from the future, where mutants were literally put in camps and branded, and thus anti-mutant prejudices were central to the entirety of his mission in the past, to PREVENT his future. The government sponsored version of X-Factor habitually cycled back to stories involving hostile public sentiment towards mutants. Organizations targeting mutants and anti-mutant groups and extremists featured regularly in the original X-Force's missions. Then came the Onslaught era, and hoo boy, were people not loving mutants then. And then there was the Legacy Virus and the public's reaction to that (a mix of 'hope it kills them all' and 'what if we catch it from mutants') and then there was everything with Graydon Creed which led into Operation: Zero Tolerance, and all of these were storylines and eras that recurred or spanned YEARS. Also I can think of maybe like, two Generation-X stories TOTAL, that didn't feature prejudice as a major theme, since a key part of Gen-X's premise was that many of its cast weren't 'the pretty kind of mutant' or had creepy or weird powers and Gen-X leaned heavily on how this affected the way the kids interacted with the rest of society for a lot of its most defining character beats.

Also let's not forget all the stories about Weapon X and Department H since Wolverine's debut, and while it was only post-2000 that they did stuff like Camp Neverland, the entirety of the Weapon X program's history in comics has been about the weaponization and exploitation of mutants, and that's literal dehumanization stemming from the entire program and everyone read into it not seeing mutants as people so much as just tools to be used?

Then around 2000 there was the Revolution era which I guess featured a couple years where SOME of the X-books just focused on regular superhero stuff, like X-Treme X-Men? But even then....not really, considering Vargas and his storylines stemmed from being a counter-measure to 'the mutant threat' and anti-mutant events were a recurring presence in Destiny's Diaries and over in the other X-titles you had stuff like the Purifiers and the London Morlock Massacre and an anti-mutant group literally crucifying mutants like Skin on the Xavier Institute's front lawn.

Oh yeah, and this was also around when E for Extinction hit which umm, people can say "okay but it was Cassandra Nova who wiped out Genosha, not actually humans" all they want (who made Sentinels tho I'm always gonna say. Its not even as simple as 'oh so anyone who makes a gun is responsible for everything people do with that gun, huh?' Because weapons in general are not made with ONE SINGULAR TARGET GROUP in mind. You can't design machines that only exist TO kill mutants and then say oh this has nothing to do with us when someone else sees them as a handy means of killing a group of mutants. BUT I DIGRESS). Even WITHOUT holding anti-mutant sentiment responsible for Genosha, that doesn't change the fact that it was CENTRAL to the FALLOUT of Genosha in the X-books, the way people reacted to the Institute going public, things like District X, the U-Men, etc. Say what you will about the storylines, the point is they were front and central, and that's my point with all of this.

And of course, we all know that era eventually culminated in M-Day and the Decimation, and the 'mutants are hated and feared' storylines have been everpresent at every single point since then.

Its just, all I'm saying is....they were everpresent THE WHOLE TIME BEFORE THAT TOO.

Scattered story arcs interspersed among all the stories about prejudice and oppression doesn't denote mass periods of the X-Men just being regular old superheroes no different from any other superhero group. And when at best you can only point to ONE SINGLE PERIOD of a mere five years out of the entire 60 year history of the franchise, where it wasn't consistently front and center (and to be honest, my recollection of the stories between Giant-Size and DPS is hazy as I haven't read them in awhile, so I'm not actually convinced that they were any less present even in that period, its simply that this is the one and only period I can think of that comes CLOSE to fitting the premise 'an extended point in X-Men history where prejudice wasn't a focal story point)....

Again, I'm just wondering....where are people getting this idea that the current era's focus on human/mutant relations has like....an opposite number in some mythical 'good old days' of X-Men stories past? Where mutants were just people with superpowers doing superpowered things and nobody thought twice about it? That's NEVER been the X-Men.

Like, with all due respect to anyone who DOES think that there was some past X-Men era where themes of prejudice and oppression weren't present and featured.....

Have you ever considered - especially if you're not someone who experiences these things in real life and thus has no reason to be particularly attuned to them or signs of them on any kind of personal, relatable level - that maybe those themes WERE there all along, and if they simply didn't register with you, escaped your notice, or failed to leave a lasting impression on you.....

That's kinda just....about what you personally came to the X-books for and what you took away from them PERSONALLY....rather than like....actual proof that there was ever some singular era or period where social issues weren't central to the X-Men franchise and its various characters?

THANK YOU for the breakdown and pointing out all the truth, including it might be more the persons real world lack of prejudice that made the themes hidden vs what is actually there!

[marhawkman]

Reminds me of how Senator Kelly's speech in the original DOFP story talked about other superhumans as well, not just mutants.

Granted, the difference between humans and mutants is that mutants are widely known to be the ''next step in evolution'' while superhumans are just ordinary humans empowered by various circumstances. Also, in the Marvel Universe, enhanced humans are feared - it just so happens that the two major superhuman groups - Fantastic Four and the Avengers - have excellent PR that sort of helps the wider superhuman community.

Also it's about how the general public might trust certain Mutants. 'cause part of the thing with the PR of the FF is the idea that the public can trust them personally... not super-powered individuals in general. So someone who trusts Cyclops... wouldn't trust Solarr... and for good reason. Solarr is a supervillain.

[dragon1440]

Not sure if age would make a difference. Then again, I don't think anti-mutant sentiment can be so directly equated to real-world ''bigotry'' either. Not sure if having an existential fear of a race that might (and claims to be) the next step in human evolution and collectively has the power to end life as you know it is quiet the same thing as bigotry.

So been thinking about this for a few days. And this sounds much like replacement theory. The theory believed by white supremacist that Black people are replacing white people and that it is some big conspiracy that it is being done intentionally. If you don't know much about replacement theory and how sick it is, and how similar it is to the hate mutants. That in the view of 616, are replacing normal everyday people. Once again proving that the metphor of bigotry still carries over to this day.

[Alan2099]

So been thinking about this for a few days. And this sounds much like replacement theory. The theory believed by white supremacist that Black people are replacing white people and that it is some big conspiracy that it is being done intentionally. If you don't know much about replacement theory and how sick it is, and how similar it is to the hate mutants. That in the view of 616, are replacing normal everyday people. Once again proving that the metphor of bigotry still carries over to this day.

In the Marvel Universe, mutants have openly stated on many occasional that they are eventually going to replace non-powered humans. It's not a metaphor in this case.

Also let's not forget all the stories about Weapon X and Department H since Wolverine's debut, and while it was only post-2000 that they did stuff like Camp Neverland, the entirety of the Weapon X program's history in comics has been about the weaponization and exploitation of mutants, and that's literal dehumanization stemming from the entire program and everyone read into it not seeing mutants as people so much as just tools to be used?

Not the entirety of it, no. For the majority of time, it was just some nasty thing that had been done to Wolverine in particular, not because he was a mutant but because he was useful. In fact a lot of the early Weapon X candidates weren't even known to be mutants. The original story even shows they weren't ready for Logan's particular abilities.
There's also Wade Wilson, Garrison Kane, Cyber, and I'm not sure if they ever revealed whether or not Silver Fox, Mastadon, and Wraith were actually mutants or not.

Oh yeah, and this was also around when E for Extinction hit which umm, people can say "okay but it was Cassandra Nova who wiped out Genosha, not actually humans" all they want (who made Sentinels tho I'm always gonna say. Its not even as simple as 'oh so anyone who makes a gun is responsible for everything people do with that gun, huh?' Because weapons in general are not made with ONE SINGULAR TARGET GROUP in mind. You can't design machines that only exist TO kill mutants and then say oh this has nothing to do with us when someone else sees them as a handy means of killing a group of mutants. BUT I DIGRESS).

You left out the fact that the sentinels were shut down, broken apart, hidden in the middle of nowhere, and required a person that didn't even know they existed and had no way to get there to activate them. Them being used is 100% Cassandra.

[dragon1440]

In the Marvel Universe, mutants have openly stated on many occasional that they are eventually going to replace non-powered humans. It's not a metaphor in this case.
.

The mutants only saying it very few times doesnt solve the issue of universal thoughts. It has been ingrained in the mind and in society that they are the replacement. Because others have said it not just mutants. Enough people say something is true it leads to the general populace starts to accept it as fact. Look how many people STILL think that Biden "STOLE" in real life for a great example of this. And so the metaphor holds.

[Rev9]

The mutants only saying it very few times doesnt solve the issue of universal thoughts. It has been ingrained in the mind and in society that they are the replacement. Because others have said it not just mutants. Enough people say something is true it leads to the general populace starts to accept it as fact. Look how many people STILL think that Biden "STOLE" in real life for a great example of this. And so the metaphor holds.

I get your point ,but I think it always sinks in and takes true hold from the 'horse's mouth' .If others say it, anyone can retort like it's hearsay..the moment mutants are like 'yeah all that you hear is true and we stand behind and approve this message' it carries more weight.

[Zelena]

In the Marvel Universe, mutants have openly stated on many occasional that they are eventually going to replace non-powered humans. It's not a metaphor in this case.

Magneto never made an public announcement saying his beliefs have changed and now he is a part of the government of Krakoa.

The least one can say is that nothing has been done to appease the humans.

[Rev9]

Magneto never made an public announcement saying his beliefs have changed and now he is a part of the government of Krakoa.

The least one can say is that nothing has been done to appease the humans.

Well his Davos meeting in X-Men #4 was either a 'gentleman's agreement' with the dignitaries or a matter of public record. Either way, because Krakoa's drugs are not a secret then yeah we could say they are an appeasement if we are being diplomatic. I say this because the normal order would be to offer them in exchange for recognition of mutant sovereignty in a free and fair GA election. Seems like Emma influenced the GA election and so yeah now the drugs are definitely lucrative leverage.

[Icefanatic]

True, I probably read X-men stories during a period when “mutant persecution” wasn’t at all “a thing”. But I understood that Nightcrawler had to hide himself when walking on the streets and that the regular humans were afraid when the X-men showed their powers. I undertsood and the X-men understood it too… They evolved in a universe where plenty of other super-beings existed.

The group ”humans” didn’t exist per se: the X-men met individuals and were considered as individuals too albeit unusual ones not as members of a race. Their families were “human” too. There wasn’t two camps.


Prejudices, yes… oppression, no.

I probably never project a lot of myself in X-men stories but it’s a tribute to the writer when he/she is able to make you feel what exactly he/she wants to tell, I didn’t have to have a blue skin to feel what Nightcrawler felt. It’s the power of fiction to make you live stories you wouldn’t have lived otherwise. I have the impression that a lot of readers had “used” X-men stories to tell other stories.

But it’s right: we haven’t read the same stories and hadn’t the same life. And the X-men weren’t the same people.

Personally, I started reading the X-Men in the early 80's and the focus to me from then through the 90's was 'protecting a world that hates and fears them'(to the point that exact phrase was used at times in almost every issue in the 90's). The X-Men's primary focus seemed to be on fighting 'evil' mutants not only to protect the world from them but to try to prevent their actions from prejudicing humans against all mutants.

Since then, mutants have become increasingly godlike in power, increasingly removed from human life, and increasingly representing a potential threat to all life on Earth. Mutants, including the X-Men, have become more embracing of 'the future is mutant'(akin to some feminists adopting 'the future is female' slogan in the wake of scientists predicting the eventual demise of the male 'Y' chromosome) seeming to veer between wanting to subjugate humans or simply supplant them.

I look at the X-Men of the current comics and I see Mutants supremacists. Some already there and embracing it in all but name, some well along the path to it but not even seeing they are on a path, and others taking those first doomed steps on it. In the current era I have found myself no longer identifying with the X-Men as I have for decades but the humans who fear them. I think a lot of fans are in that boat whether they admit it or not.

For all the complaints about out-of-character behavior across wide swaths of the characters and seeming non-stop continuity errors, I think that change is the hardest for many fans to take.

Where have our heroes gone?

[Omega Alpha]

Personally, I started reading the X-Men in the early 80's and the focus to me from then through the 90's was 'protecting a world that hates and fears them'(to the point that exact phrase was used at times in almost every issue in the 90's). The X-Men's primary focus seemed to be on fighting 'evil' mutants not only to protect the world from them but to try to prevent their actions from prejudicing humans against all mutants.

Since then, mutants have become increasingly godlike in power, increasingly removed from human life, and increasingly representing a potential threat to all life on Earth. Mutants, including the X-Men, have become more embracing of 'the future is mutant'(akin to some feminists adopting 'the future is female' slogan in the wake of scientists predicting the eventual demise of the male 'Y' chromosome) seeming to veer between wanting to subjugate humans or simply supplant them.

I look at the X-Men of the current comics and I see Mutants supremacists. Some already there and embracing it in all but name, some well along the path to it but not even seeing they are on a path, and others taking those first doomed steps on it. In the current era I have found myself no longer identifying with the X-Men as I have for decades but the humans who fear them. I think a lot of fans are in that boat whether they admit it or not.

For all the complaints about out-of-character behavior across wide swaths of the characters and seeming non-stop continuity errors, I think that change is the hardest for many fans to take.

Where have our heroes gone?

They are still fighting and sacrificing their lives to save fellow humans and mutants. The end goal of ORCHIS is eradicate mutant AND human life, even if not all it's members are aware of it, and they are still punishing mutants that do get out of line, like Sabretooth, even if much less than they should, as well as fighting threats to the entire planet. Even terraforming Mars was a way to help both humans and mutants. There's no reason to think most X-men aren't as heroic now as they were in, say, 1992, with a few exceptions (Beast most notably)

And the change in attitudes is a reflection of two things:

1) Xavier's dream was an undeniable FAILURE, the X-men before House of X weren't one step closer to be fully integrated with regular human society, or even other superheroes, than they were in X-men #1 in 1963. Now, of course you can argue that in the MU not all that long passed since mutantkind existence became widely known, about 15 years, but still, readers are understandably tired of it after 60 years, and even the characters too;

2) As importantly, and even more so, what people longing for the good old days want is a return to the X-men trying to the X-men model of trying to be the model minority, trying their best to look non-threatening and useful to regular people so they can be accepted just like one of them- so, why don't you go to any other minority (gays, trans, women, blacks, people of minority religions and nationalities,etc) and tell them that's what they should want?
You won't because you will receive very not-so-polite answers. Minorities want to live their lives and have their place without having to depend on validation of so called "regular people" or having to play nice and be kind to people who want them dead. One doesn't think all humans are evil when, say, Mole Man attacks NY, why should the X-men have to redeem all mutants after Selene does the same? That applies in real life too.

[Zelena]

They are still fighting and sacrificing their lives to save fellow humans and mutants. The end goal of ORCHIS is eradicate mutant AND human life, even if not all it's members are aware of it, and they are still punishing mutants that do get out of line, like Sabretooth, even if much less than they should, as well as fighting threats to the entire planet. Even terraforming Mars was a way to help both humans and mutants. There's no reason to think most X-men aren't as heroic now as they were in, say, 1992, with a few exceptions (Beast most notably)

And the change in attitudes is a reflection of two things:

1) Xavier's dream was an undeniable FAILURE, the X-men before House of X weren't one step closer to be fully integrated with regular human society, or even other superheroes, than they were in X-men #1 in 1963. Now, of course you can argue that in the MU not all that long passed since mutantkind existence became widely known, about 15 years, but still, readers are understandably tired of it after 60 years, and even the characters too;

2) As importantly, and even more so, what people longing for the good old days want is a return to the X-men trying to the X-men model of trying to be the model minority, trying their best to look non-threatening and useful to regular people so they can be accepted just like one of them- so, why don't you go to any other minority (gays, trans, women, blacks, people of minority religions and nationalities,etc) and tell them that's what they should want?
You won't because you will receive very not-so-polite answers. Minorities want to live their lives and have their place without having to depend on validation of so called "regular people" or having to play nice and be kind to people who want them dead. One doesn't think all humans are evil when, say, Mole Man attacks NY, why should the X-men have to redeem all mutants after Selene does the same? That applies in real life too.

I didn’t want to argue with you about the number of times the X-men saved humans. The biggest change for me is in X-men’s hearts and in the role the authors want to them to play: the X-men didn’t feel like a minority to me when I read their stories. They didn’t feel like representatives of a group separate from the humans: they evolved in a world of people with a lot of super-powered beings and they were a part of them. They had the same problems as Spider-man, the Ghost Rider and so on… People were afraid of an unusual apparence and/or astounding powers. And rightly so… I mean I’m human and I understand it. I recall the time when I entered a post office and saw this woman all in red with stilettos and horns… I backed off instinctively before remembering it was Halloween. And you don’t need to experiment it to imagine what it would be if some humans started to cast dangerous rays from their eyes or read your most secret thoughts and you don’t know who they are in the streets… When I read X-men stories, nothing how the other humans without powers did felt like the result of a hateful behaviour.

It was then and it is now: nowadays want the X-men representatives of a minority, the mutants. Before, the X-men were a bridge between the reader and otherness in all its forms. They brought people together, now they divide. They didn’t accept the fact they were separate from humanity and didn’t let the others define them. Now they embrace it. Well, as a reader, I wish “them” good luck on Krakoa, on other worlds but what they “do” now has nothing to do with me. Claremont said that he wrote stories the reader could relate with, it’s not the case anymore for me. I’ve come to understand that it’s not the case for other readers: the X-men of this era mean something to them. It never ceases to amaze me… You can read these stories as entertaining fiction, right… but now the X-men feel so alien. If any reader meets one of them in real life, what would be their conversation? Before, they felt like friends and not like people with a patronising attitude. They die? They resuscitate. They are on a far remote island and not anymore with us. And we should be happy they still save humans?

You say something, I say something, it’s how boards function. You enjoy these “new X-men“, fine. It still surprises me but I accept it. I wonder what it means for times we are living in, if it means something. Our heroes are very different. They tell different stories. Yours are not mine. But maybe I experiment another kind of otherness…