The recent behavior of the X-Men: right or wrong?

[From The Shadows]

Eh. Magneto is fiction. Real life people don't want to hear it, they rather complain about the injustices the oppressors are facing in fiction than those they themselves try to oppress in real life and then bicariously live through that as a way to vent those feelings they have about what they would feel like if minorities took it to the next level in real life. *Shrugs* like daring to say their lives matter.

Well, I actually take real life racism seriously and homophobia, sexism, classism etc. If I see someone saying something racist etc. I usually say something. I'm usually the socialist commie pinko meathead to some in RL and the net. But since this is fiction and there are no mutants in real life I still say its open for analysis.

[jwatson]

Pretty much. All this handwringing about Krakoans committing anti-human pogroms and massacres, if not flat-out genocide against humans, really amounts to the fear many of those same people have of answering someday for the role they themselves may have played, even if only by virtue of "staying neutral," in the continued oppression and marginalization of others in the real world that human society's oppression and marginalization of mutants parallels, albeit imperfectly. "The chickens coming home to roost," as it were.

Another way of putting it, to paraphrase some great civil rights activists and advocates, would be that if you are neutral in situations of injustice and oppression, that is much the same as siding with those that commit injustice. After all, if an elephant is stepping on a mouse's tail and you choose to do nothing to help either, it's not like the mouse will appreciate your neutrality, as you've only left that elephant in a position where it may continue doing harm to that mouse unabated.

To relate this back to the current situation with mutants, humans, and Krakoa, while mutants may be more powerful as individuals, as a socio-politically, economically, and culturally marginalized group, they are at far greater risk of unpunished systemic harm or violence inflicted upon them. Humans will of course be defended by the likes of the law, and where that fails, the Avengers or the Fantastic Four or other miscellaneous heroes. On the other hand, who stands up to defend mutants when they are not only failed, but actively targeted for wholesale sanction and even extermination, by the law? That's why Krakoa exists, whether any of us like it or not; it is, to reiterate my earlier point in this discussion, an indictment of human bigotry towards mutants and human (as well as superhuman) indifference to mutant lives.

Exactly. And in truth just like mutants there is no way to know who among humanity is truly there to support you and who are really just stirring the pot. In X-men #4 we saw Xavier go into a meeting with every intent of having a civil conversation and what exactly happened, there were two assassination teams there waiting to take the mutants out, mutants who have not once attacked one of their "allies" who took the deal. IMO not doing anything while others suffer and always trying to be the voice of "reason" when one knows they have done nothing and turned a blind eye while smiling in someones face is far worse than those actually committing the crimes of injustice because they embolden them and that is what the state of the MU is. Superheroes and regular humans alike have stood back and watched mutants be persecuted to extinction and now want to sit on their high horse and be all "Well what is this doing to the world" because it's always up to the other to feel they should just take what they are given and not rock the masses to support the few. Well too bad. This is the bed the humans of the MU made for themselves by continuously thinking you can starve a person of their rights and not expect a reaction at some point.

[jwatson]

Well, I actually take real life racism seriously and homophobia, sexism, classism etc. If I see someone saying something racist etc. I usually say something. I'm usually the socialist commie pinko meathead to some in RL and the net. But since this is fiction and there are no mutants in real life I still say its open for analysis.

I never said who, i was speaking in general. In truth there is no way for me to know who those people are because people can present themselves as many things but one thing i do know is those people know who they are and exactly what they are doing. Just like davos knows.

[From The Shadows]

I never said who, i was speaking in general. In truth there is no way for me to know who those people are because people can present themselves as many things but one thing i do know is those people know who they are and exactly what they are doing. Just like davos knows.

I apologize then. I didn't mean to imply you did.

[Killerbee911]

Eh. Magneto is fiction. Real life people don't want to hear it, they rather complain about the injustices the oppressors are facing in fiction than those they themselves try to oppress in real life and then bicariously live through that as a way to vent those feelings they have about what they would feel like if minorities took it to the next level in real life. *Shrugs* like daring to say their lives matter.

Don't worry about I understand why we are having these convos. The person who is telling you should connect with the humans and not the mutants in metaphor. Is the same person if you ask so then you feel responsible for the atrocities committed against mutants will probably tell you no those are the bad humans. Thus they have responsibilitless fiction where you can come boards and just dismiss the actions of mutants as evil and hey heroes should be better and always do the right thing. Not everything mutants are doing are justifiable but easy to understand their overall actions once you understand what they have been through. It is easy to say hey it should be done this way,when you can just ignore the cost of inaction.

The fiction is literally telling people even with a superpowerful mutant nation that is threat to destroy whole nations that humans are still abusing mutants openly. Think about how much worse it was without Krakoa around for mutants?(We saw it in Uncanny) But as real life minority you already the know the answer to that. I am not mutant but I know what it is like to be hate and fear because of who I am. My people don't have super powers but you would swear that Black Skin is weapon and a superpower because police certainly do shoot a lot of us of unarmed. We know what happens when you build a Krakoa in real life and it is hilarious as people on forums tell us what the mutants are doing things wrong. As if we haven't seen what happens when a group of people build peaceful integrated community in a world that hate and fears them. Krakoa might not be all the way right but we have to wonder what would happen if Black Wall Street had militia to protect it . Yeah sure we are suppose to connect with the humans who are abusing the minorities or are ignoring minorities get abuse in the fiction. I know who I am in the metaphor

[RachelGrey]

Right > 60.61%
Wrong > 11.11%
Both > 9.09%
Neither-it's complicated > 19.19%

These statistics are quite revealing about where people stand on the forum. 60% feel the X-Men are right, 11 % wrong, 9% feel both wrong and right at the same time, and 19% for the situation is politically complicated.

This is one of the reasons that the Dawn of X comics are selling well, because at minimum 60% like the new direction for the books.

A minority race fighting against oppression and genocide to form their own nation is actually a fight against entrenched racism! I am just going to say that for all of the potential pitfalls I think the mutants are doing the right thing in forming their own country and standing on the world stage as equals to humanity. Of course humans resist change to their entrenched racist status quo, they "great racist fear" is that someday the people you oppressed will eventually have the strength to defeat you. All oppressors have that great fear. You see it in the US right now when it's predicted that by 2040 the majority of the United States will be made up of African Americans, Latin Americans, and other minorities and that Caucasian people will be in the minority. The great Caucasian fear is that the political conversation of the United States will be driven by the very people they have oppressed for nearly 300 years now! The great Caucasian fear that future presidents of the United States will reflect the people they govern and tend to be either African American or Latin American descent going forward into the future.

People see this reflected in the comics with a mutant nation rising up on the political stage and using economic and political clout to encourage the majority of the nations of the world to sign trace and peace treaties that result in also accepting that mutants have equal rights with humans, at least politically. It galls the racists that they have to accept these dirty mutants, and allow them to come to political conferences, to have trade meetings with them, and to be forced to be careful in dealing with them because the human nations fear that the mutant nation might actually put sanctions in place and stop selling their products to belligerent countries. These damn dirty mutants thinking they can sit at the same table as a human and dictate political and economic policy, how dare they. How dare these dirty mutants think they have equal rights with good old God fearing humans!

[KangMiRae]

I don’t think the sample size from this poll is large enough to make a conclusion like that.

[Huntsman Spider]

Don't worry about I understand why we are having these convos. The person who is telling you should connect with the humans and not the mutants in metaphor. Is the same person if you ask so then you feel responsible for the atrocities committed against mutants will probably tell you no those are the bad humans. Thus they have responsibilitless fiction where you can come boards and just dismiss the actions of mutants as evil and hey heroes should be better and always do the right thing. Not everything mutants are doing are justifiable but easy to understand their overall actions once you understand what they have been through. It is easy to say hey it should be done this way,when you can just ignore the cost of inaction.

The fiction is literally telling people even with a superpowerful mutant nation that is threat to destroy whole nations that humans are still abusing mutants openly. Think about how much worse it was without Krakoa around for mutants?(We saw it in Uncanny) But as real life minority you already the know the answer to that. I am not mutant but I know what it is like to be hate and fear because of who I am. My people don't have super powers but you would swear that Black Skin is weapon and a superpower because police certainly do shoot a lot of us of unarmed. We know what happens when you build a Krakoa in real life and it is hilarious as people on forums tell us what the mutants are doing things wrong. As if we haven't seen what happens when a group of people build peaceful integrated community in a world that hate and fears them. Krakoa might not be all the way right but we have to wonder what would happen if Black Wall Street had militia to protect it . Yeah sure we are suppose to connect with the humans who are abusing the minorities or are ignoring minorities get abuse in the fiction. I know who I am in the metaphor

Have you seen HBO's Watchmen, by any chance? I ask because if it accomplished anything at all in its first season, it was enlightening so many people to the existence and destruction of Black Wall Street, something so many didn't know about despite being one of the worst atrocities ever committed on American soil, by and against Americans. Indeed, if there had been a militant force ready to protect black enclaves "by any means necessary" . . . well, we kind of already have an example with the real-life Black Panther Party and what was the result? The strategy by the FBI and other law enforcement bodies to ultimately neutralize civil rights/black liberation activists and advocates, often via outright violence and assassinations when more subtle means of coercion, intimidation, and subversion of those activists and advocates failed, called COINTELPRO. The only reason the same thing hasn't been done to the X-Men/Krakoa is that now the X-Men/Krakoa are a nation unto themselves, with all the rights and powers of a nation, so anyone trying to sabotage Krakoa from within or attack its people and/or leaders from without . . . well, that can be considered a declaration of war against a sovereign nation, not merely a "police" or "law enforcement" action against non-state "rogues."

Right > 60.61%
Wrong > 11.11%
Both > 9.09%
Neither-it's complicated > 19.19%

These statistics are quite revealing about where people stand on the forum. 60% feel the X-Men are right, 11 % wrong, 9% feel both wrong and right at the same time, and 19% for the situation is politically complicated.

This is one of the reasons that the Dawn of X comics are selling well, because at minimum 60% like the new direction for the books.

A minority race fighting against oppression and genocide to form their own nation is actually a fight against entrenched racism! I am just going to say that for all of the potential pitfalls I think the mutants are doing the right thing in forming their own country and standing on the world stage as equals to humanity. Of course humans resist change to their entrenched racist status quo, they "great racist fear" is that someday the people you oppressed will eventually have the strength to defeat you. All oppressors have that great fear. You see it in the US right now when it's predicted that by 2040 the majority of the United States will be made up of African Americans, Latin Americans, and other minorities and that Caucasian people will be in the minority. The great Caucasian fear is that the political conversation of the United States will be driven by the very people they have oppressed for nearly 300 years now! The great Caucasian fear that future presidents of the United States will reflect the people they govern and tend to be either African American or Latin American descent going forward into the future.

People see this reflected in the comics with a mutant nation rising up on the political stage and using economic and political clout to encourage the majority of the nations of the world to sign trace and peace treaties that result in also accepting that mutants have equal rights with humans, at least politically. It galls the racists that they have to accept these dirty mutants, and allow them to come to political conferences, to have trade meetings with them, and to be forced to be careful in dealing with them because the human nations fear that the mutant nation might actually put sanctions in place and stop selling their products to belligerent countries. These damn dirty mutants thinking they can sit at the same table as a human and dictate political and economic policy, how dare they. How dare these dirty mutants think they have equal rights with good old God fearing humans!

Pretty much this.

[Astroman]

If that's the kind of story you are interested in, I highly recommend reading Immortal Hulk. Its doing exactly that kind of story and addressing those exact things, but in a way I'm finding sooooooo much more compelling. Its also not afraid to take a step back and realize the flaws in its characters and their reasoning.

Immortal Hulk and the X-Books are the only Marvel books I buy on a regular basis. And Immortal Hulk is one of the best horror comics out there today in my opinion.

[Astroman]

I don’t think the sample size from this poll is large enough to make a conclusion like that.

If the reports from comic stores, sales charts, and professional reviews are any indication the percent who are loving what the new direction is (and its not hard to infer that they also agree with the way their 'heroes' are acting otherwise they'd be dropping the books) is even higher than 60%.

[Vishop_]

They won't adapt this into live action because it would only be something acceptable or make sense given a long continuity and historical experience of the prior failed status quos. So this as a starting point for mutants on screen would be "bananas".

The way I see it, Hickman's Avengers has played a great part in the world building of MCU. I think that will be the same case for X-Men but they will introduce them first. I don't think this is the right place to debate about this therefore I am gonna skip this.

As for your final sentence who is "them"?

The whole worldbuilding of HiX-Men.

[pkingdom]

Do we have updated sales data for the last couple of issues? Someone posted something for the first and second issue of DoX but I haven't seen anything else.

HoXPoX is a critical darling, but from what I've seen the response to DoX has been mixed. At least my local comic books store is overflowing with unsold issues of Fallen Angels.

[From The Shadows]

That's a pretty interesting question; I know Magneto's appeared to have cast off his Jewishness, regarding religion as a 'human' matter...which is especially interesting considering that's a major part of his history and what informs his beliefs, having being a prisoner of the Nazi concentration camps. Kitty on the other hand was seen to have still been practicing as recently as last year's Christmas annual and, not long before that, made mention of how it was still an important part of her identity. She even had a Rabbi to perform at her wedding.

Dust we haven't seen yet; Shan still has a prosthetic leg, so there's at least one disabled mutant about, but we have yet to see any invisibly-disabled mutants (neurodiverse and the like...that, ya know, isn't played as evil.) Dani still appears to be wearing Cheyenne inspired dress but...considering how disparagingly she was talking of 'human institutions' and such...it's hard to say if she still embraces that as an important part of her anymore.

I wouldn't have thought race would ever have been a problem amongst the X-Men though. I mean Sinister's worked with Nazi's, like, but that is Sinister...he doesn't care so long as the genes are perfect.

I remember in the early days of New Mutants that would have been subtly "white institutions," under Claremont. As you said Magneto doesn't relate to the holocaust the same way he used to and Dani doesn't mention the demonization of her people much anymore. And her people used to mean the natives. That is sort of what I meant as they no longer see themselves as humans even the humans that are minorities themselves. The X-Men have of course accepted poc and gays etc. Storm, Sunspot,Bishop, Northstar etc and the above mentioned Dani and Dust and more but do they even see a black women? (Storm) An asian girl? (Jubilee). Most likely they just see mutants. I remember when the New Mutants still missed their families and would tell humans that they were just as human as they are and that they just have a gift. Ororos father was a Journalist from Harlem and I'm sure he has his own story to tell about a black man breaking into media journalism or maybe even police brutality. So if Marvel really wants to go all out I'd like to see a story where there is an X-Man who is actually racist poc since Marvel has no problem writing minorities hating on other minorities : Human poc vs. mutants. It could be interesting to see how the X-Men deal with it. Gay women and men who are black or Jewish usually don't stop identifying as them even when/if they are shunned by their families or communities. It also might be interesting to see an X-Man say that they they relate to disabled/black etc. first before they do a mutant instead of them all having the same opinion about their plight at the same time. Since now more than ever minorities are including each other and speaking out for each other the mutants are wrapped up in their own world to mention or even think of anyone else outside their group. At least that's how they are written now. We could have a story of a black person just receiving powers and using his abilities to stop police brutality etc and making headlines. Maybe having a mixture of the people being saved repulsed/fearful and others thinking mutant powers are a good thing and maybe wishing they had their own to defend themselves.

[KangMiRae]

Do we have updated sales data for the last couple of issues? Someone posted something for the first and second issue of DoX but I haven't seen anything else.

HoXPoX is a critical darling, but from what I've seen the response to DoX has been mixed. At least my local comic books store is overflowing with unsold issues of Fallen Angels.

I think that's the weakest of the bunch, people were speculating it was going to get the axe first, and from what I'm seeing it did(?)

There are tons of variables for why DoX Phase 1 is doing so well, and they can change so I don't think it's fair to make the previous conclusion. We should see how it floats into Phase 2.

Different creative teams may not hold the same amount of sales.
The books may not be as enticing to buy 'cause of the characters chosen.
Wolverine is getting a solo and he may end up stunting the other books' numbers if it's decent enough 'cause why take a chance on, possibly, another Fallen Angels type when I can read a Wolverine book? I have to buy these things.
Comparatively, how well is the Kid Cable book going to be?
Or, what if the Wolverine book sucks AND the Cable book does, too. That's two books down and the sales go lower.

Not to mention, like you said, DoX Phase 1 may have these numbers 'cause of the HoX & PoX wave.

[Electricmastro]

Or its the Darwinism. When mutants are educating humans that mutants are the next stage of human evolution and telling people they are the future, well, I already said the word, thats like telling people they are cavemen in comparison. You see some of those documenterys with humans with horns or an extra nose and they are classified as defects but when modern comics started introducing more strange looking mutants - Not Nightcrawler strange - but close to RL well... do you know where I'm going with this? Circus sideshows had some of them, Kurt grew up with them but see he's a different kind of mutant. No one wants to be that old lady with the horns and she's not saying shes the future. I'm sorry when you have the power of a god and have access to fancy alien tech, fancy jets and mansions it puts it in some perspective and on top of that you have the much more educated and, ahem... polite explanation of mutants it puts things in perspective. I'm not saying its ok to treat anyone badly for being different. Things like DoFP, GLMK and The Extinction Agenda are horrible things that humans have done to mutants and those things should be condemned.

No person worth paying attention to is saying the mutant genocides shouldn't be condemned. Thinking back, the evolution concept is probably the very concept, along with Days of Future Past, that led to many writers being encouraged to write mutant atrocities and mutant genocides in the first place in the 90s and beyond.

Right > 60.61%
Wrong > 11.11%
Both > 9.09%
Neither-it's complicated > 19.19%

These statistics are quite revealing about where people stand on the forum. 60% feel the X-Men are right, 11 % wrong, 9% feel both wrong and right at the same time, and 19% for the situation is politically complicated.

This is one of the reasons that the Dawn of X comics are selling well, because at minimum 60% like the new direction for the books.

A minority race fighting against oppression and genocide to form their own nation is actually a fight against entrenched racism! I am just going to say that for all of the potential pitfalls I think the mutants are doing the right thing in forming their own country and standing on the world stage as equals to humanity. Of course humans resist change to their entrenched racist status quo, they "great racist fear" is that someday the people you oppressed will eventually have the strength to defeat you. All oppressors have that great fear. You see it in the US right now when it's predicted that by 2040 the majority of the United States will be made up of African Americans, Latin Americans, and other minorities and that Caucasian people will be in the minority. The great Caucasian fear is that the political conversation of the United States will be driven by the very people they have oppressed for nearly 300 years now! The great Caucasian fear that future presidents of the United States will reflect the people they govern and tend to be either African American or Latin American descent going forward into the future.

People see this reflected in the comics with a mutant nation rising up on the political stage and using economic and political clout to encourage the majority of the nations of the world to sign trace and peace treaties that result in also accepting that mutants have equal rights with humans, at least politically. It galls the racists that they have to accept these dirty mutants, and allow them to come to political conferences, to have trade meetings with them, and to be forced to be careful in dealing with them because the human nations fear that the mutant nation might actually put sanctions in place and stop selling their products to belligerent countries. These damn dirty mutants thinking they can sit at the same table as a human and dictate political and economic policy, how dare they. How dare these dirty mutants think they have equal rights with good old God fearing humans!

Somehow, I get the feeling it's more complicated than how you're describing it...