Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Castle]

On the part in bold, I agree entirely.

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion from fans, but why was Bobby made queer when for decades he had a major jones for Lorna and he and Havok fought for her love. Additionally why is Storm still arguably their most beloved female superhero even when they had introduced more POC Mutants and other marvel POC characters. There seem to be something about the modern era that is not clicking as much.

[davetvs]

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion from fans, but why was Bobby made queer when for decades he had a major jones for Lorna and he and Havok fought for her love. Additionally why is Storm still arguably their most beloved female superhero even when they had introduced more POC Mutants and other marvel POC characters. There seem to be something about the modern era that is not clicking as much.

Because there are a lot of gay people who lived seemingly heterosexual lives and had heterosexual relationships while they were closeted? The subtext with Bobby was there for decades, there are so many scenes that prove it.

[Outburstz]

Remember that time when Wolverine told Luke Cage, a black man who had been wrongfully incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit and was experimented on while in prison, that Luke knew nothing of what it felt like to be oppressed? How about when Kitty Pryde, under the pen of the vaunted Mr. Claremont, compared being called a mutie to being called the n-word? Or the fact that Xavier and Magneto are frequently compared to Dr. King and Malcolm X, despite them only matching the superficial images of what people think the two men were like?

Little surprise that people focus on skin color when the X-Men's metaphor primarily appropriates the experiences of people of color who face prejudice.

You make it sound as if they only borrow from black experience in America when they take from many different stories of oppression from all over the global. From the child soldier angle of Schism, organ harvesting , concentration camps, conversion therapy, ethnic cleansing, religious subjection, disrupting mutant births, and more. The reason black experience was used the most is because this is an American medium and thus most people get those references, but make no mistake they use everyone.

So for people to be mad that white mutants are used to talk about these issues is very short sighted since mutants can be anyone not just POCs. That does not mean there doesn't need to be more POC mutants, but in universe white mutants are a minority.

[PwrdOn]

Third, you're doing the typically American thing- and sorry, of course some non-Americans do it, but 99% of the time I see someone doing this, is an American- of assuming that the only minorities that exist are based on skin color and the only form of prejudice is racism. Magneto is a freakin' HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR and he doesn't know what oppression is? Or the guy in a wheelchair (well, most of the time) doesn't understand what's like being looked down upon? That's just non-sense.

Even if you look outside of America, the most heinous and egregious examples of oppression largely come at the hands of white Europeans against various darker skinned peoples, but naturally the few examples where whites were the victims get spotlighted over and over again. Everyone knows about the Irish potato famine, but around the same time period India suffered a major famine just about every decade while under British rule, which lead to by one estimate 1.8 BILLION avoidable deaths. Yes, being stuck in a wheelchair sucks too, but being a rich white dude kind of makes up for that, not to mention that whole part of being able to mind control people and what not, and who really is asking for a guy like that to go around lecturing people of color on how he's hated and feared just for being different?

You could make the argument that the mostly white readership of the X-Men comics can only really relate to these stories if they starred white protagonists, but even that is a tough claim. If that were indeed the case, then you would expect to see plenty of fans who came to X-Men comics expecting superhero acting and leaving with a profound understanding and appreciation for the struggle of oppressed people, that they carried into their every day lives, and there just isn't any evidence that has happened on an appreciable scale.

[CosmiComic]

Allegories don't have to be one-to-one. However, they do have to be analogous. The X-Men, at least as they are often written, are only that in the most superficial sense at best.

As for being heavy-handed, the X-Men are this to a T. They just do this while also often being very tone deaf.



Remember that time when Wolverine told Luke Cage, a black man who had been wrongfully incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit and was experimented on while in prison, that Luke knew nothing of what it felt like to be oppressed? How about when Kitty Pryde, under the pen of the vaunted Mr. Claremont, compared being called a mutie to being called the n-word? Or the fact that Xavier and Magneto are frequently compared to Dr. King and Malcolm X, despite them only matching the superficial images of what people think the two men were like?

Little surprise that people focus on skin color when the X-Men's metaphor primarily appropriates the experiences of people of color who face prejudice.

While those two panels are isolated incidents, they are emblematic of the tone-deafness, as is comparing Xavier and Magneto to Dr. King and Malcom X. To put it bluntly, it's very White. Logan of all guys whitesplaining racism, to Luke Cage of all guys, is utmost cringe

And you're right about X-Men being heavy handed, without even being direct. So when people say "real racism is too preachy," why don't they notice how the metaphorical prejudice is just as preachy if not more so?

You make it sound as if they only borrow from black experience in America when they take from many different stories of oppression from all over the global. From the child soldier angle of Schism, organ harvesting , concentration camps, conversion therapy, ethnic cleansing, religious subjection, disrupting mutant births, and more. The reason black experience was used the most is because this is an American medium and thus most people get those references, but make no mistake they use everyone.

So for people to be mad that white mutants are used to talk about these issues is very short sighted since mutants can be anyone not just POCs. That does not mean there doesn't need to be more POC mutants, but in universe white mutants are a minority.

Yeah, they appropriated other minorities. No one is disputing that. But that's not the comparison they always talk about, is it?

And you still don't get why using majority heroes to represent minorities is problematic? Really?

Even if you look outside of America, the most heinous and egregious examples of oppression largely come at the hands of white Europeans against various darker skinned peoples, but naturally the few examples where whites were the victims get spotlighted over and over again. Everyone knows about the Irish potato famine, but around the same time period India suffered a major famine just about every decade while under British rule, which lead to by one estimate 1.8 BILLION avoidable deaths. Yes, being stuck in a wheelchair sucks too, but being a rich white dude kind of makes up for that, not to mention that whole part of being able to mind control people and what not, and who really is asking for a guy like that to go around lecturing people of color on how he's hated and feared just for being different?

You could make the argument that the mostly white readership of the X-Men comics can only really relate to these stories if they starred white protagonists, but even that is a tough claim. If that were indeed the case, then you would expect to see plenty of fans who came to X-Men comics expecting superhero acting and leaving with a profound understanding and appreciation for the struggle of oppressed people, that they carried into their every day lives, and there just isn't any evidence that has happened on an appreciable scale.

This is another problem. It allows people from majority backgrounds to pat themselves on the back and say "I understand oppression" when they clearly don't get all the nuances of how each minority demographic experiences oppression in all its forms. And why should the minority experience still be filtered through majority lens in this day and age?

[Outburstz]

Yeah, they appropriated other minorities. No one is disputing that. But that's not the comparison they always talk about, is it?

And you still don't get why using majority heroes to represent minorities is problematic? Really?

White LGBT people are a minority, White Muslims are a minority, white mutants in canon are a minority.

The issues he talked about above were not problematic because a white person was talking about oppression. They were problematic because they made it seem like Luke didn't know about oppression. Kate was problematic because she was using a slur of a minority group that she isn't a part of. If a human character used mutie that would be offensive just like if Storm used a jewish slur it would be offensive.

I don't view the comparison to Malcom X and MLK as a bad thing

[Castle]

Because there are a lot of gay people who lived seemingly heterosexual lives and had heterosexual relationships while they were closeted? The subtext with Bobby was there for decades, there are so many scenes that prove it.

I never got that calling from Bobby. I think Bobby been gay is when marvel started to go ''woke''. You know when you take an established character and just changed them to something to make a political statement only. Bobby been gay became a huge deal but never felt the impact was authentic.

So for people to be mad that white mutants are used to talk about these issues is very short sighted since mutants can be anyone not just POCs. That does not mean there doesn't need to be more POC mutants, but in universe white mutants are a minority.

Actually never got the sense, people are actually mad, from my experience and discussion here, the people that seem mad, were usually marvel movie fans who took it an issue, when some xmen fans just pointed out an obvious that they worried about how the themes of xmen will be addressed in mcu movies because Disney liked their movies to be light hearted.

This is actually where the whole issue of xmen should not be about discrimination anymore started from my experience her on this forum. it was more about trying to make xmen fit marvel movies style of just been more about fun and action, but that is now way too late. 50 years too late if you ask me. Even if you never read xmen comics, their cartoons , especially X-MEN Evolution has already cover that ground and with many some black characters like Magma and Spyke.

So for people to be mad that white mutants are used to talk about these issues is very short sighted since mutants can be anyone not just POCs

It boils down to how well to tell the story of the fictional characters in spite of their color. You can swap the entire characters in the DOFP movie to only black and jewish character alone and in the end. Marvel will still not be able to make that movie as Fox made it or as Claremont wrote it in 1981.

I also always gives this an example, before Hermione Granger was played by a black women on Broadway, can anyone really argue here, you don't feel Hemione pain when Draco calls her a mudblood? because she is white? X-Men has some uncanny similarities to Harry Potter.



This is the equivalent of what people like Mik, who I have on ignore but can still see their post because other users have it on re-qoute. However this is what Mik will be tying to imply and all of this is to because they want to make X-MEN fit a MCU formula that it never belonged in the first place and will unfairly get watered down? I am sorry but that is not how story telling works in a fictional world, lol.

[PwrdOn]

White LGBT people are a minority, White Muslims are a minority, white mutants in canon are a minority.

The issues he talked about above were not problematic because a white person was talking about oppression. They were problematic because they made it seem like Luke didn't know about oppression. Kate was problematic because she was using a slur of a minority group that she isn't a part of. If a human character used mutie that would be offensive just like if Storm used a jewish slur it would be offensive.

I don't view the comparison to Malcom X and MLK as a bad thing

I feel like you're still just insisting that mutants are a meaningful metaphor for real life minorities because the books say that they are, and that's just automatic like you make it out to be. To be a meaningful allegory, a story needs to treat these subjects thoughtfully, respectfully, and in a way that the audience can relate to and sympathize with, and while there may be some people for whom X-Men was their gateway to understanding the civil rights struggle, I would wager that for far more people, it's just the thing that has the claw guy.

[Kingdom X]

I never got that calling from Bobby. I think Bobby been gay is when marvel started to go ''woke''. You know when you take an established character and just changed them to something to make a political statement only. Bobby been gay became a huge deal but never felt the impact was authentic.

Because Bobby's has a plethora of functioning heterosexual relationships to prove that he's straight... oh wait literally none of them worked out and he never had a character defining relationship like ScottxJean, WarrenxBetsy, etc. Matter of fact Austen confirmed that Lorna and Bobby never had sex.

Both this X-Men Monday and the following thread have panels and examples of hints that Bobby was gay going back to quite a while ago https://community.cbr.com/showthread...men-Monday-122

Also Bobby didn't really "change" he's still the same goofball with confidence issues that he always was. His last straight romantic relationship was with Kitty and that was super lackluster, so I don't think any of the characters story potential has been lost.

[Zelena]

The issue here now is, how many writers in 2021 have the talent Claremont had? Do comics even still care about good writing or writers or are comics just another advert tool for movies?

What had Claremont was more than talent: it was a dedication to the characters, all the characters, an attention to details… He wanted to understand the motivations of the characters, why they acted the way they did. (He gave a background to Magneto: he wasn’t satisfied with “He’s evil because.”) A lot of people were living in his head before they appeared on paper. It was an in-depth work, well, more than a work, a passion…

Third, you're doing the typically American thing- and sorry, of course some non-Americans do it, but 99% of the time I see someone doing this, is an American- of assuming that the only minorities that exist are based on skin color and the only form of prejudice is racism. Magneto is a freakin' HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR and he doesn't know what oppression is? Or the guy in a wheelchair (well, most of the time) doesn't understand what's like being looked down upon? That's just non-sense.

Charles Xavier can hardly say being in a chair is “oppression”, more “de facto ostracization” or marginalization… How many people try to communicate with deaf people? Make the effort to learn their language? What the X-men could have always said is that they were people on the margin, a thing we can all understand.

[cranger]

I never got that calling from Bobby. I think Bobby been gay is when marvel started to go ''woke''. You know when you take an established character and just changed them to something to make a political statement only. Bobby been gay became a huge deal but never felt the impact was authentic.

The few 'proof' panels are so out of context or ignoring the subtle (not so subtle) use of calling someone gay as an insult back in the 90s. In one panel, Bobby is just hoping Jean was reading his mind so he did not have to actually ask her for help about a problem he had that was already explicitly stated in the comic, there was no question of what he hoped she knew, and Emma is quite simply attacking his masculinity/manhood. But yeah, people making gay jokes as far back the 90s is proof that the meme character is actually coded gay. You can't discuss it with them because most of them were not even reading comics, they just get everything off someone's Twitter or whatever. It is the reason as soon as I see someone just grab one single panel as proof anything in comics I usually just skip out of the conversation.

[CosmiComic]

White LGBT people are a minority, White Muslims are a minority, white mutants in canon are a minority.

Again, they're not oppressed because they're White

The issues he talked about above were not problematic because a white person was talking about oppression. They were problematic because they made it seem like Luke didn't know about oppression. Kate was problematic because she was using a slur of a minority group that she isn't a part of. If a human character used mutie that would be offensive just like if Storm used a jewish slur it would be offensive.

Correct. That is why it's wrong, but it comes from a very White point of view.

And using mutie will never be as offensive as actual racial slurs, which offend minorities in the real world who'd be reading these comics.

I don't view the comparison to Malcom X and MLK as a bad thing

I think it is because I don't recall Malcom X calling for genocide. I know he had questionable tactics, but he wasn't as villainous as Magneto.

As for MLK, he didn't come from a life of privilege like Xavier did

This is the equivalent of what people like Mik, who I have on ignore but can still see their post because other users have it on re-qoute. However this is what Mik will be tying to imply and all of this is to because they want to make X-MEN fit a MCU formula that it never belonged in the first place and will unfairly get watered down? I am sorry but that is not how story telling works in a fictional world, lol.

Harry Potter is basically X-Men replacing X-gene with magic.

And you complain about "watering it down" yet if the MCU X-Men dealt with actual bigotry, you'd complain it was too "woke". This is what I don't get. People saying "real issues are preachy/forced/on the nose" is the kind of comments angry regressive alt-right guys say online. That's why the metaphor was started: because being too authentic offends fragile majority individuals. Why keep capitulating to their reactionary beliefs?

I feel like you're still just insisting that mutants are a meaningful metaphor for real life minorities because the books say that they are, and that's just automatic like you make it out to be. To be a meaningful allegory, a story needs to treat these subjects thoughtfully, respectfully, and in a way that the audience can relate to and sympathize with, and while there may be some people for whom X-Men was their gateway to understanding the civil rights struggle, I would wager that for far more people, it's just the thing that has the claw guy.

I won't discount any person feeling represented by the X-Men. Their hearts were mostly in the right place, so it's still a win in some ways to me. But as you point out, it's only an allegory because it's said to be. That's not enough, and IMO not being nuanced and thoughtful enough also makes it a loss

[Castle]

Because Bobby's has a plethora of functioning heterosexual relationships to prove that he's straight... oh wait literally none of them worked out and he never had a character defining relationship like ScottxJean, WarrenxBetsy, etc. Matter of fact Austen confirmed that Lorna and Bobby never had sex.

Both this X-Men Monday and the following thread have panels and examples of hints that Bobby was gay going back to quite a while ago https://community.cbr.com/showthread...men-Monday-122

Also Bobby didn't really "change" he's still the same goofball with confidence issues that he always was. His last straight romantic relationship was with Kitty and that was super lackluster, so I don't think any of the characters story potential has been lost.

Sometimes, I really don't like it when movies begin to influence comics. If this had not happened in X2. I don't think Bobby will be queer in the comics. this was the starting point.



Lastly I will not trust Austen. these writers just goes with the flow of the moment.

[PwrdOn]

Sometimes, I really don't like it when movies begin to influence comics. If this had not happened in X2. I don't think Bobby will be queer in the comics. this was the starting point.



Lastly I will not trust Austen. these writers just goes with the flow of the moment.

Ironically, this was probably the best executed scene in the entire franchise as far as conveying the mutant metaphor in a way that would resonate and stick with audiences. This idea that mutants are all around us and some are just hiding out of fear, but that mutant powers aren't something to be ashamed of but rather should be celebrated and embraced, and the real tragedy is that even close family members can't overcome their prejudices. It doesn't hit you over the head with high strung speeches about tolerance or whatever, but the message gets across just the same.

[Kingdom X]

Sometimes, I really don't like it when movies begin to influence comics. If this had not happened in X2. I don't think Bobby will be queer in the comics. this was the starting point.



Lastly I will not trust Austen. these writers just goes with the flow of the moment.

So now the movies that you normally praise up and down shouldn’t have that scene because it gave someone the idea to make Bobby gay?

You still haven’t said what the problem with him being gay is. Were you particularly attached to one of his straight romances (again none of which worked out)? Otherwise the character is literally the same.