Originally Posted by
zinderel
Then I’d say they need to do a better job of showing it. Prime rule of visual storytelling: Show, don’t tell. Don’t TELL me that most humans are cool with/support mutants right to live. SHOW me. What we are SHOWN is that humans hate and fear mutants and work SUPER HARD to defy all known laws of physics and decency to eradicate them, no matter what the X-Men did or tried. So they’ve stopped trying to make humans happy and are focusing on making their own people safe and happy, and that makes them ‘antagonists’ or ‘fascist cult members’. If Marvel doesn’t want us thinking the worst of 616 Humanity, then they need to stop being so fickle and crappy to the heroes DEMONSTRABLY SAVING THEIR COLLECTIVE BACON on the reg. Show us a GRATEFUL humanity once in a while. Or just...not the WORST examples of human nature, repeatedly. Stop making humanity so awful. We get enough of that in the real world. Give us something uplifting to aspire and escape to. Don’t mirror the WORST parts of the real world in making the 616 ‘the world outside your window’.
Which brings me to your earlier point: It’s not the bitterness in comics that is the problem. The problem is what that bitterness reflects. It’s not that I’m ‘vested’ in the comics. It’s that the bitterness in the fandom and the general s*****ness of mankind on display in America right now is so clearly reflected in the presentation of humanity in comics, and it’s impossible to miss, for me.
Right now, the idea of an oppressed minority uniting and coming together to build a nation for themselves - mistakes and all - has relevance and meaning for a lot of people. Just like seeing Captain America go after the German American Bund and war profiteers when he wasn’t allowed to go after Nazis had relevance and meaning for a lot of people, then. Seeing Krakoa I ironically called some of the things it gets called in and out of universe before it even really has had a chance to show us what it is? That pisses some folks - myself included - off, and makes us wonder what comics the rest of you have been reading that your perspectives are SO different. It makes people wonder how people might feel if ACTUAL minorities stepped up and united and said ‘no more’. It speaks to the concept of privilege. It reflects the way people spoke about REAL minorities rising up and not accepting scraps or targeted violence anymore. It reflects poorly on the REAL world.
I enjoy the escapism of beautiful people in tights fighting giant men in purple skirts as much as anyone! I’m just not blind to the problematic way a LOT of people, real and fictional, are reacting to this era of mutant history, ESPECIALLY given the well known metaphor mutants have represented since their inception.