#mutants are queer allegories

[a-roguish-gambit]

I’m watching season three and they literally gave Kurt an arc about staying in the closet for his own safety versus coming out to stand by his friends. they have him literally masking as a normal human being with an image modifier and he’s arguing with his friends about continuing to use it to avoid persecution or standing by them and supporting them. they really really wanted to make this boy gay oh my god.

[samasmith23]

Viewing Kamala Khan as a mutant through a queer lens

I’ve gotta say, after having read Issue #3 of Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant miniseries yesterday, one of the elements that I’ve really grown to love about this book is how well it functions as a metaphorical coming out narrative for Kamala Khan! In addition to the previous issues showcasing Kamala struggling with the newfound pressures that being a mutant comes with, especially during a time when anti-mutant bigotry is at record levels following Orchis’ genocidal attack on Krakoa, during this issue’s dream sequence we’re introduced to the idea that Kamala’s hesitancy to accept her newfound identity as a mutant and inability to access her new powers is all due to a mental roadblock inside of Kamala’s own psyche. However, when the villains try to force Kamala to accept her mutant powers before she is ready by invading her dreams (as part of a Trojan horse to activate a psychic bomb against other mutants), Kamala refuses her “dream-self’s” offer upon realizing that only she alone can decide when she’s ready to define who she is, countering Orchis false anti-mutant narratives and defining her solely by her latent powers by proudly proclaiming, “It’s not about the powers. It never was. It’s about the why we fight. The who we fight for. My powers don’t define me! They aren’t the testament to who I am, in here! I was afraid that being a mutant meant that I was no longer anything else. But that doesn’t erase any other part of me. It just makes me more… me. Who I am — that’s up to me to decide.”

Kamala’s story has always been one about identity, self-acceptance, and intersectionality. This has been evident since her initial run by G. Willow Wilson & Sana Amanat, where Kamala was at a crossroads in regards to figuring out who she was as Pakistani-American Muslim from an immigrant family who had just obtained Inhuman powers, eventually deciding to embrace the best aspects of each part of her respective identities.

Discovering that she now also happens to be a mutant doesn’t erase those previous aspects of who Kamala is, but simply adds to them. Additionally, several X-Men stories in the past have framed the mutant allegory through a queer lens, and there’s a lot you can read into Kamala’s journey of self-acceptance as a mutant in regards to both queer theory and intersectionality. I’ve mentioned before how the recent spike in anti-mutant bigotry amongst the general public following Orchis’ attack on Krakoa Island bears a lot of real-world parallels to the recent upsurge in homophobic and transphobic legislation by Republican politicians here in the US, and Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #3 further expands these parallels. Similar to how Queer people of color are the groups most severely affected by homophobic and transphobic legislation, Vellani effectively demonstrates how Orchis anti-mutant hate campaign significantly impacts Kamala as a woman of color who just found out that she’s also a latent mutant. Orchis’ attempt to try and play on Kamala’s fears of being rejected by her non-mutant superhero friends while framing mutants as inherently arrogant beings with god-complexes, feels eerily similar to how Republicans have recently tried to push false “groomer” conspiracy narratives in order to frame LGBTQ+ people as inherently “predatory towards children,” further isolating an already vulnerable community by falsely defining them solely through the lens of sex. But similar to how sex & sexuality does NOT entirely define a gay or trans person’s identity as an individual, mutant powers do NOT solely define the sum of Kamala’s identity either. It may be an important aspect of who she is as a person, but it is NOT representative of the whole of her identity. Just like how being a Muslim from an immigrant family is an important facet of her personhood, but it is not the sum total of her personality. People are more complex than the narrow-minded stereotypes that bigots like to falsely project onto them, and Kamal effectively demonstrates this by accepting her newfound status as a mutant as merely another facet of personhood. She’s a mutant, as well as an Inhuman, a Muslim, a woman of color, second-generation Pakistani immigrant, nerdy fan-fiction writer, and a compassionate human being who simply wants to help others in need!

From Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #3 by Iman Vellani, Sabir Pirzada, Carlos Gómez & Adam Gorham.

[anime-villian-irl]

Magneto is constantly throwing his sexuality in other people's faces are you kidding me? He does it all the time.

[nervousyoungcritter]

normalize giving sheltered queer kids the cringe tumblr childhood they deserve. just gave my coworker the whole rundown of gravity falls/steven universe/owl house. i’ve set them down a path they shall never return from

[lovett-the-moon]

Okay, I am coming here to share some Charles and religion thoughts

(Naturally it's late so I'm doing my best thinks)

I really enjoy the idea that Charles was raised Catholic, but he himself is an atheist. (I saw someone else voice this thought, but now I can't think of who. Sorry!) In fact, Catholic atheist is probably how I would describe myself. It sounds contradictory, but it strangely isn't.

Charles 100% does not think God is real. God does not exist to him. However, he lives in the perpetual guilt of sin because of his Catholic background. He has shame cycles like you've never seen - and my friend helpfully pointed out that this would explain the savior complex he has.

Charles Xavier probably lost his faith because of his mutation (which, if this feels like an allegory, good). He was only 9 when it appeared, and it took him three years to realize he wasn't crazy. I think he thought he was being punished for something, but he didn't yet know for what. Also, telepathy is a curse. He probably treats it like a blessing, but he cannot turn his telepathy off and often suffers for it. He probably didn't understand why he was in pain either.

He's not atheist for traditional fictional scientist reasons. I think he is atheist because he believes in fundamental kindness, and God does not seem to believe in fundamental kindness (in Charles's eyes). There is too much suffering, too much pain, too much cruelty in the world for a God that is good to exist. Charles Xavier feels incredibly strongly about religion but likely never voices it. Because at the end of the day, he still feels guilty, wrong, sinful, even. He feels sinful for having a mutation, for wanting anything at all, for being in love.

Also he used to think he was the only mutant in the world, and I think that hurt a lot as well. He thought he was destined fo be alone, and maybe even experience this burden as chosen by God. That's a lot for a twelve year old who has just recently realized it's a mutation and not an illness.

I think Charles is baffled by, and jealous of, faith, because he could never have it. He is astonished by people with strong, unshakable faith. It is a comfort he has never had. And if it feels strangely like a middle schooler's struggle with queerness and mental illness in the face of (Christian, specifically) religion and being told to simply give it to God, well. That's merely a coincidence.

I think Charles really wants to understand faith, but no amount of telepathy will ever help. God does not exist, and yet I am a sinner anyway. Perhaps the only person who has ever heard anything close to those thoughts is the one and only Erik Lehnsherr.

[amageish]

Marvel United: A Pride Special #1. Art by Luciano Vechio.

I saw some discussion about this cover and people not recognizing all the characters... so I did the only logical thing and made a reading list. Here's a comic recommendation for every queer character on this cover!

Shela Sexton / Escapade: A trans mutant superheroine figuring out her place in a bigoted world In a subversion of the usual mutant metaphor, Shela's parents accepted her mutanthood wholeheartedly... only to disown her when she came out as transgender. You can read her debut in Marvel Pride 2022.

Natima Ngoza / Beisa: A trans woman born in Mohannda who fled to Wakanda when running away from her judgemental family. She's a love interest for T'Challa and a take on the Catwoman archetype. Read all about her in the underrated 2023 Black Panther run!

Cooper Coen / Web-Weaver: A Spider-hero from Earth-71490, Cooper Ceon saved his classmate/crush Peter Parker from a spider bite on a high school field trip... only to be bitten himself. You can read about an adventure of his on Fire Island in Marvel's Voices: Spiderverse.

Gwen Poole / Gwenpool: An aroace Marvel Comics superfan iseaki'd into the Marvel Universe. With the power of meta knowledge, she will find her own place in the canon she loves so much. You can read her realizing she's aroace in ARomancing of Gwendolyn Poole (get it?), part of the Love Unlimited Infinity Comic.

Jean-Paul Beaubier / Northstar: Gay French-Canadian mutant sports superstar and Marvel's first textually gay superhero. You can read about him taking on anti-mutant bigotry in his home country in Alpha Flight (2023).

Rachel Summers / Askani: The sapphic daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from the Days of Future Past timeline. You can read about her and her girlfriend fighting bigots in the British wizarding community (I wonder what THAT could be an allegory for) in Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain.

David Alleyne / Prodigy: Bisexual mutant supergenius. New Mutant, Young Avenger, X-Men, and most recently a professor at Empire State University. You can read about him and his boyfriend in the Young Avengers arc of the Marvel's Voices Infinity Comic.

Bobby Drake / Iceman: Founding X-Men and jokester who realized he was gay later in life. Bobby... He's gay! You can read about him bringing Rogue home as a fake girlfriend to meet his bigoted parents in Uncanny X-Men #319. While this story is before he came out, I think it is an EXCELLENT showcase of his character.

Xuân Cao Mạnh / Karma: Lesbian mutant hero and founding member of the New Mutants. Depending on how you define "superhero," she's arguably Marvel's first lesbian hero. You can read about her relationship troubles, as well as her reunion with her once-lost brother, in Karma in Love, part of the Love Unlimited Infinity Comic.

Charlie Webber / Sun-Spider: A pansexual Spider-hero with EDS. Originally a fan-submitted Spider-sona, she's grown in relevance and even had a speaking cameo in Across the Spiderverse! You can read her story in Edge of Spiderverse #4.

Logan Lewis / Nightshade: Sapphic teen genius and legacy hero to the original Nightshade, a redeemed supervillain. You can read her solo adventures as part of the Marvel's Voices Infinity Comic.

Billy Kaplan / Wiccan: The gay son of the Scarlet Witch... to grossly oversimplify the situation. He also may kind of be God? Good for him! Read about him in Young Avengers (2013).

Teddy Altman / Hulkling: The gay son of Captain Mar-Vell and Skrull princess Anelle. A Skrull/Kree hybrid, he was sent to live on earth for his protection - y'know, Superman stuff. Read about his wedding to his husband Hulkling in Empyre!

Ms America Chavez: The multiverse-travelling latina lesbian of the Young Avengers, Ultimates, and West Coast Avengers. Read about her helping her CLOSE PLATONIC FEMALE FRIEND Kate Bishop raise the baby landshark Jeff in It's Jeff! Yes, that is my America recommendation. I also love her role in Ultimates, but this is funnier.

Aaron Fischer / Captain America: An unhoused gay man and champion of the marginalized, selected by Steve Rogers to have the title of Captain America. You can read about him in Avengers Academy.

Justin Jin / Kid Juggernaut: The Korean-Canadian gay himbo grandson of Jin Moon-Ho, the original Juggernaut who Cain Marko took the name/powers of. Read about him summoning Doctor Strange to ask him about PreP (yes, that happens explicitly on-panel - it is awesome) among other things in Avengers Academy.

Raven Darkhölme / Mystique: The shapeshifting sometimes-nemesis and sometimes-ally of the X-Men. While she may not care about things like "human lives" and "the law," she does harbor a lot of love for wife Destiny - as well as their adopted daughter Rogue and biological son Nightcrawler. There's a lot I could suggest here, but I'm going to pick Marvel's Voices: X-Men as I ADORE the Mystique/Destiny flashback story in that.

Kate "Kitty" Pryde: The original new teenager on the block, Kitty Pryde has had a LONG road to embracing her bisexuality. After literal decades of queercoding, you can finally read her dating a woman textually in the currently ongoing Exceptional X-Men (aka the best current X-book).

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

4-5 I have been having a lot of thoughts about the franchise lately, tbh, mainly in line with

"Where is the leftist activism in their universe?"

"Where are the disability advocates talking about how people are dehumanizing people with mutations, or how all adaptation is s double sided coin or how being socially disabled is still a disability"

"Where is the Autistic mutant alliance?"

"Where is the Queers for mutant rights advocacy groups?"

"Where's the intersex mutant alliance groups?"

"Where are the people pointing out that the x gene is by far not the only human mutation that causes both symptoms and sometimes different abilities, and that maybe these are not issues we can separate?"

"Where are the people trying to point out that framing it as mutant vs human instead of human vs human is like when we let them start calling anti-fascism 'antifa' to sound scary?"

We always see either mobs coded as republican and American Christians of the worst sort or hate groups to the far right, but does leftism not exist in their universe, we hardly ever see a non mutant individual speak out publicly in their favour at all. I know the left is full of infighting and mutants would make terf's heads explode, but like... Where is the intersectionality?

And Magneto... My biggest gripe with him is how he never mentions the disabled or queer in the same breath as mutants, and it comes across like mutations with powers are the only ones he cares about... It comes off like eugenics which I feel like super would not realistically be his bit.

I have so many... Notes. Especially about a modern 2024 take on the x-men...

So like yeah I am invested in the franchise to a fairly high degree, but a lot of it is demanding they get better cooks. I am attached to these characters now and I want to see them written better.

You were never going to be palatable to the political right, unless they lack all media literacy at all. Stop tiptoeing.

Before kicking off a project I want to gauge what the heat will be like here so do me a favor and answer honestly on a scale of 1 (complete apathy) to 5 (devout enthusiasm):

[hisui555]

Thought about the "Nightcrawler's origins" 2023 retcon

Maybe I'm gonna draw the ire of many people, but my main issue here isn't the "two women as bio parents" thing, it's that it makes very few to zero sense considering who they all are : it's just to fill a 'queerness' quota and to me it's obvious the writers painted themselves in a corner in that regard.

To start with, X-Men has always been about "otherness" and naturally, tolerance : mutants are an allegory for being different in multiple ways, ranging from LGBTQ+ to disabled, passing by ethnicity, origins, gender, neurodivergences, and even those "puberty changes your body" coming-of-age stories. Queerness ain't new here : there's non-binary Morph in the 97 show now, Bobby Drake has been rewritten as gay, Mystique and Destiny are a couple since the beginning, and in-comics are together since a century. They also have children, adopted or not - Rogue and Kurt are two out of many (yeah, Mystique really knows her way around, whether it's alternate universes or not). Pretty neat ! Well, if you forget they're both kinda psychopaths using their own kids for their schemes most times (especially Mystique).

But lemme explain why the "Kurt being Destiny and Mystique's biological child with just Azazel's genes" retcon kinda falls flat, for me. Adding to it, the "Azazel is Kurt's bio father" and "Mystique is Kurt's bio mother" were ALSO retcons originally, but it makes more sense in terms of how things became to be the way they are concerning Nightcrawler, again at least to me.

First of all, while it does explain the blue fur/skin and solid yellowish eyes (Kurt gets it from Mystique), it has zero explanation on Nightcrawler's overall appearance at all - the tail ? The unique hands and feet ? The pointy ears ? The general demonic appearance ? Conveniently, Mystique in the 2023 retcon would have transformed into Azazel to conceive Kurt with Destiny... which is actually Destiny's idea. Destiny wanted a child (legit wish), Mystique obliged - and then in a move that absolutely baffles me agrees to Destiny's idea to transform into Azazel of all people, who, by all accounts, is an ex Mystique had a fling with, and has nothing to do with Destiny at all.

It's explained by Destiny having a vision of Azazel becoming problematic later and only be surpassed by a child of his own, hence the two women taking it upon themselves to make sure Kurt technically qualifies as Azazel's kid in the new retcon and raise him to oppose his 'father' later... except they 1) lose and abandon the kid later to escape and make no move of trying to get him back, flat-out asking Xavier to make them forget - pretty bad and illogical if you wanna stop a demonic conqueror, especially for people as ruthless and pragmatic as those two - and 2) Mystique can copy appearances, but not powers, so, not mutations, nor producing what they produce. Which means she kinda-sorta can't copy nor produce genetic material, aka, you know, one of the two things needed to make a baby from the male party in the whole conundrum. Also 3) they abandon Kurt because he was "too blue" and can't hide his mutations like them... y'know, the same appearance he got from the exact one they had the brilliant idea took the genetic template of... and you'd think the lady with literal precognitive powers would've seen that coming.

Which begs the question : why choose Azazel as a basis (aka the one who will make your child look like a literal demon, or a Nephayem - old mutants-looking-like-demons branch of mutants), and IF Mystique can copy and produce genetic material (or else she just would be able to copy Wolverine's whole adamantium skeleton, not just claws poking out like makeover props), why not just turn into simply a male version of herself ? Plus, the classic "oh by the way, previous how-things-went was a big fat lie" is kinda sigh-inducing - we know you have to make it gel with the previous continuity, but c'mon, that stunt has been pulled enough times already.

Secundo : it doesn't explain Kurt's powers and ties to the brimstone dimension (aka HELL), which he passes through between two Bamfs. This makes no sense if Destiny is his bio mom, and Mystique cannot carry powers over, it's a fact. Azazel, however, is either a full or partial demon with the same teleporting power hailing from Hell, or a Nephayem that got banished there by angel-looking mutants, which he claims makes for inspiration in demon and angel folklore as we know them. As in, bleeping CENTURIES ago. The fact that he's got a literal Ars Goetia name helps the thematic demon ties - Nightcrawler is always connected to Hell in one way or another. It's also one of the keystones of his character : a human man looking like a demon, often being persecuted as one, having ties to a demonic realm, yet being every bit the kind, open-minded and gentle soul he is that contrasts everything his appearance and origins bring to the table. Kurt Wagner is "don't judge a book by its cover" and "your origins don't make who you are" incarnate. This guy demonstrates at every turn that you make your own path in life, and for yourself and your loved ones. He has beef with his dad Azazel, who is villainous. He has beef with his moms, Mystique and Destiny, who are villainous and/or manipulative self-centered psychos not unwilling to use children for their own gain (case in point : Rogue). He has beef with his siblings, like with Graydon Creed, a raging jackass hellbent on destroying mutants, or Stefan, who he had to kill. His sister Rogue used to be an enemy and can still slip down the slippery slope at times because of her own trauma - but she's one of the best things that came out of the whole mess that is their tangled family tree (and it's a miracle the guy is still fucking sane). A core thing is that Nightcrawler is a child of many worlds at once, and living proof that you can live with all those differences, plus still be tolerant.

You can't scrap that part of Kurt Wagner, because you'd have to completely rework either his personality, his iconic appearance, and his iconic powers. So they went with a shaky detour trying to justify it in a way that sadly doesn't add up. A for effort though, could've certainly been worse.

Third point : X-Men also always has put a lot of emphasis that family, as long as you chose it, no matter if it's blood or not, is still legit, valid family. So what if he isn't Irene/Destiny's bio child ? Doesn't undermine the wish for family she had (and they got Rogue too) and that she legit saw him as her son. The reason Kurt cuts ties with Mystique (depending on continuity) is that she's an awful person to begin with. The reason Kurt considers Rogue his sister no ands ifs or buts is because they have the same mom, and despite Mystique being Mystique, he's absolutely elated to have Rogue. He also deeply loves the Szardos family that took him in. If absolutely wanting a biological bond between Kurt and Destiny is to make it more "real" and fill an inclusion quota, it's kinda insulting to every single adopting or adoptee character in the rest of the works - not to mention IRL ones - starting with tanking down Rogue and Kurt's relationship as "fake" siblings (unlike with Amanda, who's Kurt sister-by-adoption too but they see each other as lovers even if family the same way your spouse is, Rogue and Kurt definitively acknowledge each other as siblings). I don't think it's the writers' intention at all, but it's one of the unfortunate consequences.

Also, additional question : if Mystique and Destiny are both the bio moms, where does the "Wagner" name factor in, in all that ? Granted, if Azazel's the bio dad, that same question can be asked. Except Mystique also had a thing with the Baron Wagner at the time they all were in his mansion, since she was married to him as part of a ploy with Irene and the child was thought his illegitimate son. The Szardos finding Kurt and giving him his patronym since he technically comes from the Wagner mansion, without truly knowing what went on, can be a honest mistake indeed - Kurt Wagner grew with the patronym and it stuck. So that solves the name problem at least.

So, conclusion; where does that leave us ? Well, as I've developed here, to me it's a blatant case of "hey let's make it inclusive, but wait, shit, we can't touch the characters' appearance, powers, or personality, as they're all super-iconic as they are and the fandom will have our throats ripped". So basically, another case where making up new characters with the inclusive background you want to give them is way better than changing an established (and already very packed) one to fill a quota at risk of it making no sense anymore. Bobby Drake turning out to be gay makes sense : it explains why none of his relationships with girls worked out. Morph being non-binary in the 97 show ? Also makes sense for them, and not just in the "shapeshifter-is-automatically-genderfluid/N-B" way : they are someone non-conforming without that already, and with their own character getting fleshed out thanks to that, it became part of them ! It gives more to a character we used to see less.

I mean, introduce a new person who happens to have two bio moms, it'll be awesome ! Or take a less-developed character to give them that, heck why not ! But for fuck's sake, if you chose the latter, make it make sense.

"Azazel being the biological dad" and "Irene being one of Kurt's moms" isn't mutually exclusive, dammit. Won't make it any less queer, and it makes the situation even more interesting : who says they didn't resolved to stick it up to Azazel - because he needed Kurt for his rise to power - while wanting to raise the kid as their own ? And then sadly it didn't worked out ? And maybe they think Kurt died ? And maybe it's Irene who asks for her memory to be wiped, because the pain is too much (since she's the one who wanted a family in the first place - which means she'll also still have visions, but of someone she doesn't recognize, so not hampering her own power while still keeping Kurt in them) ? And maybe Xavier actually doesn't intervene to retrieve Kurt right away because since the boy has been found, and maybe it's less of a mess this way, chosing to simply wait and tying in to the point where Kurt joins the X-Men once grown up ? And Rogue can still be his sister later without any problems ?

Marvel retcons a lot of stuff, or pulls the "it's all a dream/alternate reality !" card in case things contradict each other. Or powers being inconsistent, and so on. I mean, practical : that way everything is canon and everyone is happy ! But with this one, well... they kinda wrote themselves in a corner, and it shows.

Kurt Wagner is a man of many contradictions and impossibilities, managing to balance them all with an all-encompassing piratey smile. But making him the bio son of Destiny doesn't add anything : worse, it removes, since it directly contradicts many aspects and themes X-Men works with - that family doesn't care about nor needs blood, that even the ones with the worst origins can be the kindest people, that even a root-rotten tree can bear beautiful fruits even if some are bruised, and that even villains can feel the joy of being granted a child despite the odds, and feel unbearable pain losing said child.

X-Men is about humans, and humanity. Not quotas or checklists.

[riddle-on-the-milk-carton]

My ideal x men film adaptation would be kinda low budget and campy looking, I want as many practical effects as possible, there’s a running gag where Wolverine keeps sleeping with people left and right and his clothes always rip sexily, there’s so much gay shit because come on y’all it’s x men, morph looks a wet little snail the way god intended, we get origin episodes focusing on all the individual characters, Charles and Erik never kiss or have sex but what they have so much homoerotic tension it can rival Hannigram

I think what I don’t like about newer avengers films too is that they lack heart and they contain to much action and bland, marketing friendly quips that the characters are flanderized and watered down so hard they make hospital apple juice taste like cheap beer

I’d want to do the opposite of that where we’ll get a cop-out in the first episode, where it’s set up like a regular marvel spin off but then someone drops and f-bomb and gets into a petty argument over who is sleeping with who and it quickly devolves into bickering and tomfoolery, I don’t want it to be edgy or AT ALL like the boys, like the swearing isn’t constant nor is the sexual jokes or violence (that’s what dp is for)

But it is a little more out of pocket and a lot more character focused and campy, I think it should be one with humor and lighter slower moments so you take your guard down while just watching their weird little found family bond

but then serious moments will hit like a character reliving their past or fear of who they are, or the “should mutants REALLY have rights thing” and like i want to go further into things like systematic oppresion and the whole “mutant as an allegory for being queer”

because being in the queer community in my experience at least is a lot like that, it’s full of drama and silly parts, but it’s also scary,

and I’d want some parts goin more into that a a lot deeper than just the regular “magneto was right/wrong” or “mutant —— becomes a villain bc they were oppressed for thei mutant abilities” I’d wanna go into those too just not have them be the main focus

I don’t want Deadpool to take up a lot of space in it but I think he’s be there for gags and background shenanigans, and then he could be a deaux ex machina at some point just standing on a roof handing them something they need before jumping off a 20 foot ledge, he’s always doing weird shit off in the background

[samanthaember]

I've been rereading Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-men run, and this time, I decided to read The New Mutants along with it. Reading them today is like reading Queer, Period-pieces of drastically different genres.

Uncanny X-men: an 80s Sci-fi/Punk, Soap Opera, that serves as a queer allegory of fighting for/living in a society that constantly hates and fears you. Relatable!

New Mutants: Starts as 'X-men, but teenagers' except about 18 issues in, it evolves into an exploration into the psyche of young mutants, fighting psychological-horrors and eldritch aberrations, that are literal manifestations of their fears and insecurities, brought upon them by society's fears/hatred for them. Also a queer allegory, and also relatable!

What I'm trying to say is Claremont & Sienkiewicz were cooking back then, and if you had any interest in reading his Claremont's X-men run, I highly recommend reading New Mutants as well.

[lexcellence]

When I heard Gerry Duggan get asked on Cerebro, white boy to white boy, about the unfortunate optics of announcing and then immediately murdering the least white team of X-Men in years, I knew we'd be in for some shit. Man, did he deliver - after some evasive waffling about how ORCHIS is meant to be fascist, and how the story's point is to put the collective back of mutantkind even more against the wall than it was any of the last six times something like this has happened.

And, honestly? That's fair! This year's Hellfire Gala is ultimately the first part of a larger story, and history shows it's not going to last forever — hell, does anyone remember what the status quo was immediately before HoXPoX? At least this time most of the characters have implicitly just been sucked into Mother Righteous's magical Poké Ball, rather than outright killed; if anything, that's an improvement. I was fully content to just think "hey, not for me," and get back to ignoring everything beyond Immortal and Sabertooth, secure in the knowledge that certain topics are bound to be handled poorly when almost everyone in the room is white, when Duggan said three words that stopped me in my tracks:

"Keep the faith."

See, that struck me, because for a lot of us, this entire era of comics has been about nothing but faith. I've been reading X-Men, and engaging with fans since I was eight, and I've never seen the kind of collective buy-in from other marginalized readers that I have with Krakoa. X-Twitter (or, I suppose, X-X) has been Blacker, queerer, more disabled, less homogeneous than the fandom has ever been, all of us buying in to the implicit promise that this time things would be different. Sure, the line was headed by a presumably straight white guy, but there were other voices in the room for a change, and it really felt like they were going to be listened to. We thought we'd moved past clunky metaphor, past queerbaitimg and awkward racial gaffes. Storm and Kwannon were getting to do stuff, Arakko was full of amazing characters of color, Cyclops and Wolverine were probably fucking, we were hooked, and we turned out.

It's hard to overemphasize just how wild this was to see in real time. X-Men has always been allegory, sure, but it's traditionally allegory by and for the majority. For years, the readers who might really feel that resonance, those of us who have been hated and feared for the unforgivable crime of being who we are, we were afterthoughts, tolerated at best. We got scraps, "representation" from creators who seemed to be offended by the implication that we would ever want something other than being fetishized tokens. We were, as Hickman so succinctly put it, told that we were less when we knew we were more. And then, out of nowhere, Krakoa made us inescapable.

The two biggest X-Men podcasts, X-Plain the X-Men and Cerebro, are hosted by queer people. X of Words has been rocking the Black, queer experience like no one's business, Mutant Watch has been a joy to listen to and to be on. Not just podcasts, either, in everything from criticism to fanart to cosplay, voices have been elevated that were previously silent. I mean, hell, I've gotten paid to talk about comics, that shit never would have happened four years ago.

All of that was based on faith.

Faith that we were being celebrated, for once, instead of just used. Faith that for whatever growing pains there might be, things were going to be better.

And let's not fuck around here, there were growing pains. In the first year alone we dealt with everything from blatant whitewashing, to queerbaiting — any Sunspot fan can go into detail there, assuming you can get one of us to stop crying for long enough. While that was going on, we watched Bryan Edward Hill (the only non-white writer in that initial wave) put out a book that was, let's face it, at worst aggressively mid, only to be excoriated by certain portions of the fandom, and dropped by the office, while significantly worse books managed to hold fast — er, hold on. Not to say that Fallen Angels was without sin, mind you, the book was packed with enough orientalism to make Chris Claremont blush. But, at the same time, Wolverine's first year ended with him doing what he does best: trying so hard to be Japanese that I had to check to make sure he wasn't Marvel's editor in chief.

Through all of that, we kept the faith.

Things didn't really get much better, of course. Arakko was a fascinating concept, and felt like it damn near doubled Marvel's characters of color. And yeah, the ending of X-Factor was one of the most poorly handled racist messes I've seen this side of… well, any given day on Twitter. Sure, the whitewashing has never stopped, to the point where everything from X-Corp to this week's Hellfire Gala has had to be hastily edited between previews and release. Maybe we keep dealing with stuff like butchered AAVE, even more queerbaiting, Kate Pryde's funeral, the genocide of almost all of those Arraki characters, and whatever the hell was going on with Lost in Way of X. Maybe there's a very real argument to be made that there's something insidious about three straight years of voting to determine if characters like Monet (who, by the by, has been retooled from "basically Superman" to "Black woman with anger powers") deserve the honor of being written by a white man who's stayed writing with his foot in his mouth. I mean, hey! All my white friends in the scene say he's nice, just like Williams, or Howard, or any number of other crusty crackers who are still proud of tripping over the bar Claremont left on the floor in the 80's!

And dammit, we kept the faith!

Even before the issue dropped, the Fall of X has had a lot of us wary. After all, all of the promotion leading up to it has been white guys saying the minority allegory has had it too good for too long, which, whatever, press copy. We all know they've gotta sell books — they, in this case, being the almost exclusively white, almost exclusively male creative teams attached to all of the books in the line. Sure, as Duggan said, the 616 has a fascism problem, but it’s hard not to see this as a deliberate step back from the almost double digit number of non-white creators these past few years — almost as if Marvel has realized they can make space for a fourth ongoing by their favorite white boy if they just throw out a Voices special every couple of months as a containment zone for the darkies. And, hey, considering how good ol’ C.B. got his foot in the door, I can’t even fake surprise. At this point, it’s a minor miracle any time a person of color is tapped for anything that’s expected to last beyond one issue.

In this issue, as a reward for keeping the faith, we got to see something astounding, something that'd bring a tear to the eye of even the most cynical reader — a team that was only half white. My god. And sure, their brutal murder in favor of a team with Kate "Hard-Arrr" Pryde and the Kingpin(????) was only a pit-stop between the resurrection of the suddenly ashy Ms. Marvel and Lourdes Chantel being killed off for the sake of a white woman's angst yet afuckinggain, but ain't that the dream that Malcolm Ten or whoever died for?

The Krakoan era, ultimately, has been the same as every other. Empty promises by white men who show us time and again that there was never any point in expecting anything better. Any meaning we've found, everything of worth, has been what we've made for ourselves.

We've spent years keeping the faith, Gerry, while you and yours have continued to let us down. What the hell do we have to show for it?

[biblioflyer]

Genosha allegories: constructive reads and hot takes.

Anger is an appropriate response to Genosha, not hopelessness.

This is Part 2 in a 5 part essay on the implicit pessimism of X-Men as a setting.

Part 1 lays out the core assumptions of the setting.

I think X-Men ‘97 is the smartest Marvel offering since Captain America: Civil War brought us the debates over the Sokovia Accords. There are a lot of crappy discussions about the ethics of Magneto’s Blackout and the broader question of whether Xavier is as corrupt, infantile, and naive as he’s accused of both by other characters and the audience. 

However, people really do need to be mindful of the hard wired setting conceits that ensure that the X-Men’s world is one in which there is an unhappy median that wobbles back and forth from slightly better to a lot worse and this itself is not (I hope) the actual message of the setting.

There are some real life parallels that I see that may validate a pessimistic reading, but other metrics like the number and acceptability of interracial, interreligious, and same sex marriages in the United States have improved by staggering degrees. We have not achieved true equality or safety for people who have traditionally struggled for full acceptance, but if we don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, we can see that positive change is possible.

Whether positive change is truly lasting and able to be expanded upon is a more nebulous question, I’m not one to buy into “end of history” narratives so I would never say that we cannot go backwards, I often worry we’re on the cusp of doing just that, history is often, to borrow a Dan Carlinism, like a stock ticker, but we’ve had a pretty good run of adding more freedoms for more people. 

Although obviously different groups of people are at different places in their struggle to achieve safety, acceptance, and equity and thus their gains are less entrenched and more subject to backsliding. 

Sprinkled in amongst the narrative of progress are setbacks and atrocities: Genosha could stand in for the likes of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, the Stonewall raid, the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1880s in the Russian Empire, or the brutal suppression of Arab nationalists by European empires under the mandate system. 

Magneto surely would not want us to forget these things when he says the first priority of Mutants should be to look after their own and trust of Humans should come slowly, but probably never.

There again, I do think it is possible to hold multiple thoughts: that progress is often not uninterrupted or linear but it is possible and, at least in the United States context, significant progress has been made given how bleak conditions were for women, non-Europeans, queer people, and even the wrong kind of European at various points in history. 

Right or wrong, I think this is the history that Xavier is temperamentally oriented towards, but then it is easier for him as a child of privilege and someone who is not visibly a Mutant.

The next part will go into greater detail about the allegories behind X-Men and why the X-Men setting is hardwired for doom by intent.

[electricneonbat]

What's cool about Marceline is that she lives in a world populated by mutants and magic and monsters and she's still the kind of monster that just can't fit in

She's a demon, she's the antichrist, a vampire, a shapeshifter, a werewolf, a magic user, and yet she's still a human and she's known horrors that the world no longer remembers

She's a rockstar because she wants the world to accept her and embrace her but it can only ever be surface level because no one can ever get close enough to see what she is at her core without running away

Except she's got people that look at her and say "I don't need to understand, I love you anyway"

It's an allegory for queerness, for transness, for mental illness, neurodivergence, and religious struggle

[a-roguish-gambit]

An Evo take on Reverend William Stryker (arguably the X-Men's best villain)?

Oh god..... Yeah i wish they had gotten to that. I did a doodle of him in my turn of the century au

I wanna do something with him there because there was a HUGE religious divide at the time between catholics and protestants. Like. Xenophobic rhetoric towards catholics from american protestant, as well as any other religious group. So i think it would be something interesting to play with.

In regular evo time line, i feel like making him a westboro Baptist parallel would be apt. Him and his followers protesting Xavier's school, and bayville highschool for that matter, for letting mutants attend, hateful religious signs and all. It would have been an interesting if controversial rabbit hole to go down, especially considering kurt as an allegory for a religious queer kid struggling between his identity and his faith. I know evolution did not really touch oh his faith but i still think it could have been a great road to look at.

[amageish]

So, I have more Illyana thoughts... I apologize for rambling again, but this is apparently how my brain works now...

The next episode of X-Men '97 is Motendo / Lifedeath Part 1, an episode I have been eagerly anticipating since the reveal of this key art related to it.

There she is! There's Magik! It's my girl!

Now, it is possible she's just in the art because Morph transformed into her in Episode 3. The fact Storm is in her original '92 design and not her punk attire makes me think this art is not literally reflective of the episode's contents... but if Magik is in it, I am curious what role she may take in it... Let's baselessly speculate! Spoilers for the two comic book storylines we know this episode is drawing from after the cut.

So this episode will be adapting parts of Lifedeath, the iconic Forge/Storm romance arc, and the Abscissa arc with Jubilee. This makes me think this episode is likely to be a three-pronged exploration of what mutants do to gain social status in a world that hates and fears them.

Storm and Forge's arc is about Forge reconsidering his job working with the American government and realizing how has literally created the tools used to oppress his fellow mutants. Storm, meanwhile, has chosen to embrace counter-culturalism openly through her new punk identity, not really caring what the white male flatscan majority thinks about her anymore; Forge's perspective is challenged by her as they begin their romance.

Jubilee's arc is about her encountering a future version of herself who is a slave to Mojo in the Mojoverse and taking actions to ensure that future never comes to pass.

Sunspot's arc in '97 has been about him hiding his mutant gifts, afraid that his parents will not accept him as a mutant. He also self-identified as "one of the good ones" in the first episode. Lot of model minority stuff going on here, as well as some allegorical queer closeted stuff going on here. I am guessing this is the episode where he decides to join the X-Men and come out properly.

With all that in mind... What is Illyana going to be up to, if she is indeed in this episode?

My guess is she would be a foil to Sunspot, as someone who has made it through the emotional journey he is in the middle of. She not only has a mutant gift she is scared about, but she has a literal demonic side. If she has learned to accept herself for who she is and to embrace her demonic powers as a way of protecting herself and those she loves, then maybe Sunspot can do the same with his powers.

This would be casually implying all of Magik's character growth happened off-screen, but this show has a lot of protagonists already and I don't know if they'd have time to delve into the lore of Limbo - and it also may be difficult to do that in a show that is still, nominally at least, for kids...

If they wanted to be really bold, Illyana could also be in a queer relationship that is a foil to the Jubilee/Sunspot relationship - making the "We're hiding this from my parents as I don't want them to know I am a mutant" queer allegory a little more obvious by showing Illyana in a loving queer relationship of which her brother approves. With the episode inspired by the Pryde of the X-Men arcade game, I think it'd be a good place for Pryde to appear if they wanted to make Katyana canon... but Illyana/Dani or Illyana/Xuan also feel possible to me... or, hell, they've said non-mutant characters will cameo like they did in the original cartoon, so maybe they could do Illyana/Nico Minoru or Illyana/Leah. I'd like Illyana/Pryde the most, but honestly I will take anything that makes Sapphik Magik canon.

ANYWAY. That's my unsolicited Magik thoughts for the day. I am trying to keep my expectations low - I think it's very possible that Morph appearance is all we get - but I do think there's ways to get some really good Magik content in only a few minutes of screentime given what appears to be the theme of the next episode...

[misscammiedawn]

Intersectional Community Cooperation in X-Men 97

The discussion around X-Men 97 has died down and I've not really seen a lot of ongoing discussion about it, which is a true shame as it actually managed to update the queer community allegory for the franchise to the mainstream.

I say mainstream as, despite a recent return to status quo, X-Men comics have understood that the formula is essentially about managing intersectional in-fighting in marginalized communities for some time.

If you ever found yourself asking "Why does Krakoa have [insert villain here] at the table?" then it's important to understand that the allegories have by necessity updated to discuss the fact that there are multiple minorities who are all excluded, hated and resisted by the dominant culture under a single banner. The anti-mutant bigots of 616 view Jean Gray, Scott Summers and Charles Xavier as "dirty muties" as much as Erik Lehnsherr, Nathan Essex and En Sabah Nur.

All sects of the mutant community need to unite and fight for their rights under a single banner because Mutant prejudice is not over until The Morlocks can walk in the sun and for the most part. Though individual writers and a worrying number of fans do not understand this fact, it is still the core DNA of modern X-Men.

I think X-Men 97 did a good job bringing the mainstream friendly 90s Cartoon up to date with that in their own way and by adapting 90s storylines, too. I'm impressed.

Especially as I did not trust them to pull it off. In fact we very much were prepared for the typical fumbling of the ball that comes with Disney-Marvel stories on nuanced topics.

In way of demonstrating the lack of faith, after the first episode of the final 3-part arc I (for certain values of "I", these posts do not read like my prose) had written on a forum (edited for conciseness):

Thoughts on today's ep though: Whatcha expect? They have amazing villainous parallels to real world atrocities on oppressed minorities at a time where all the talk of using apathy and overloading empathy bandwidth hits too dang true-- then they cut to what amounts to "punch the bad guy real hard" after 8 episodes of getting the audience to understand bad guy and kinda root for him! Previous ep had Hank framed between fallen statues of Charles and Erik and after walking towards Charles he ends the scene walking to Erik due to his leftist bigot love interest's ignorance-- like they had the makings for emotional complexity that they brewed carefully over a season-- in my heart I knew it would end with "hit Magneto really hard" but like-- it didn't have to y'know?

Turns out, though, the ending was not hit Magneto really hard as we had feared.

It was deal with the internalized self-prejudice of Bastion. I read it as internalized homophobia, particularly as Bastion's journey is played to parallel Charles and Erik's but it's about internalized prejudice that was instilled into him by his bigot parents.

For all the show glossed over Bastion's origins, they did a good job sticking the landing with the allegory. After the genocide in Genosha they all but had Rogue say the pissed-off cockroach motherfuckers tweet at General Ross and we are shown the natural evolution of the cockroach queer, the curly moustache man himself, Mag-Fucking-Neto.

The final conflict between Charles and Erik relives the moment that the pair discovered the other was queer a mutant. The scene, in a bar, has Charles vaguely graze the topic and feel out for safety. Erik, accustomed to hatred, rebukes Charles and tells him that if he were gay a mutant then outing himself would lead to invite violence to be acted upon him. Erik knows the violence that man can and will enact upon marginalized communities.

Where I had worried the fight would amount to "punch Magneto really hard" for endangering the Earth it actually ended up with his ex-boyfriend accepting the sheer amount of pain that he felt and acknowledging that the agony the world had inflicted upon him was consuming him via a literal ocean of agony, the only ship above the tides of despair being his family. It wasn't even choosing love over hate, it was accepting community and the mere idea that life could be anything more than eternal torment and pain. Erik had been conditioned to ONLY expect heartbreak, rejection and prejudice and Genosha proved all his darkest fears true. Magneto was incapable of believing in a world outside of pain and Charles had to reach him and tell him there will always be those who will keep him afloat.

Meanwhile Bastion, with all his self-loathing, has decided to try and exterminate all mutants, a population he himself is a member of. He views himself as an abomination.

If Magneto hates the world that has hurt him so many times, Bastion hates himself for not being what the world considers normal. His hatred of mutants is so strong that it consumes him entirely.

He completely overpowers the X-Men, taking punishment from all the team at their peak of desperation and after his health bar depletes enough to activate a cutscene he mocks "You call yourself a team--- a family? But a family that can't save itself merely works together to die alone."

Hearing that is the turning point in which Cyclops orders the team to stop fighting and embrace him. They extend an olive branch, explaining the prejudice was learned from his mother and that he is still a welcome member of their community.

He resists and fights, unwilling to take them at their word. Insults them, mocks them for allowing him to massacre their people. He notes that humanity is going extinct, being "replaced" by the mutant population. Jean responds that more humans are being born every day and yes some will be queer mutants but that just means coexisting will become more necessary.

The hearty debate is ended when Bastion notices that the USA have launched nukes at the Meteor.

I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

I also do like that President Kelly, Steve Rogers (who was shown refusing to "get involved" in mutant affairs earlier in the season) and Tony Stark are all shown in the war room nervously watching after having sent nukes to destroy Meteor M. Allies until the chips are down because they're not brave enough to stand for the marginalized themselves.

Given how ungenerous I had felt while watching the lead-up to this final episode, I really do think that the writers understood that infighting within vulnerable communities will always lead to circumstances where we cannot stand up to oppression.

And the massacre of Genosha was committed because they had established an inclusive community. One that included everyone. Their leadership round table had villains and heroes alike, Pryor, Frost, Shaw and Magneto sat alongside Worthington, and even (as far as we currently know in this canon) human Moira McTaggert. Mutants were learning to stand together and erase the self-inflicted barriers between mutant communities. The Morlocks were in Genosha. All were equal.

That was a threat. It needed to be destroyed.

-

Anyway. I just wanted to praise X-Men 97 for the plea for all those living in a world that hates us to link hands and find love, family, growth and healing in one another and together. We do not have to be swallowed by our pain or try to limit ourselves to be accepted by a world indifferent to our attempts at assimilation.

I legitimately cannot wait for one of those lovely English major queers with free time and a platform to tackle this topic because my uneducated butt is just seeing outlines of a thesis.