What If the X-Men Were Black?

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Orion Martin

An edited image from the series X-Men of Color.

“The X-Men are hated, feared and despised collectively by humanity for no other reason than that they are mutants. So what we have here, intended or not, is a book that is about racism, bigotry and prejudice.”
Longtime X-Men writer Chris Claremont

Imagine a work of fiction that focuses on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s except that in this work, white men have replaced all of the people of color. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X both have white stand-ins and white followers. In fact, almost all of the characters are white men. It may seem bizarre, but this is the X-Men.

The first issue of X-Men was written by Stan Lee and published in 1963. The fictional world, which continues today in the Disney-owned Marvel Universe, featured super-powered teenagers who worked in a group as the X-Men. Unlike other characters that Stan Lee created, these teenagers do not become superheroes through a freak accident, but were instead born with a genetic mutation known as the x-gene that manifests as superpowers (“mutations”) around the time of puberty. They hide their identity as super powered humans for fear that they will be killed by angry mobs.

An image of mob violence from the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko era.

Stan Lee has explained that his main impetus for having the superheroes be mutants was that he wouldn’t have to invent origin stories for every new character. However, he also claims that the comparison to Civil Rights was present from the start. In a recent interview he said, “It not only made them different, but it was a good metaphor for what was happening with the civil rights movement in the country at that time.”
Since the original, largely unpopular episodes written by Stan Lee, dozens of other writers (most of them white men) have built and expanded the world of the X-Men. New characters were added, and the discrimination that mutants like the X-Men face in the Marvel Universe was developed. Over time, the dynamic of the “feared and hated” mutants who nevertheless defend ordinary humans has been used to explore different dynamics of power and privilege*. These include anti-Semitism, racism, and LGBT issues (ableism and sexism, though extremely relevant, are almost never addressed).

Noteworthy X-Men events with social implications include:

—The founding of Genosha, a fictional country where mutants are enslaved – a direct reference to Apartheid.
—A genocide of 16 million mutants.
—The development of a cure for the x-gene mutations, causing a schism in the mutant community.
—The spread of the Legacy Virus, a disease that targeted only mutants. The virus is a clear reference to the AIDS virus and its impact on the LGBT community.

Despite the flexibility of “mutantity” to be a stand in for various aspects of privilege, the Civil Rights movement and racism are topics that come up repeatedly in the X-Men comics and films. Professor X is repeatedly compared to Martin Luther King, and the dream of “peaceful integration.” Magneto, his enemy, advocates for violent mutant revolution and quotes Malcolm X**. Characters in the comic use the fictional slur “mutie” and compare it to racial slurs.

This sequence from God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont shows how Storm and other nonwhite characters are used as props to legitimize the idea that the X-Men are an oppressed minority.

What’s disturbing about the series is that is that all of these issues are played out by a cast of characters dominated by wealthy, straight, cisgender, Christian, able-bodied, white men. The X-Men are the victims of discrimination for their mutant identity, with little or no mention of the huge privileges they enjoy.

Neil Shyminsky argues persuasively that playing out Civil Rights-related struggles with an all white cast allows the white male audience of the comics to appropriate the struggles of marginalized peoples. He concludes that, “While its stated mission is to promote the acceptance of minorities of all kinds, X-Men has not only failed to adequately redress issues of inequality – it actually reinforces inequality.”**

An unedited image from the comics.

I wanted to remix these stories and imagine what they could have been if they had dealt with actual instead of fictional dimensions of privilege. Searching through 50 years of X-Men comics, I selected a half dozen iconic images and scenes relating to discrimination. In these images, I edited the comics so that every mutant had a skin color that was some shade of brown.

In the alternate universe where the all mutants are black, many events in the X-Men history become actual social commentary because they are dealing with real dimensions of power. Reading about black teenagers standing up to a largely white mob is different than reading about white teenagers in the same situation. These images show that when the writers of the X-Men do comment on social issues, the meaning of these comments is hampered and distorted by the translations from reality to fantasy and fantasy back to reality.

Left, the original frames in which Colossus stands up to a mob. Right, the edited version of the same sequence from the project X-Men of Color.

Re-coloring the X-Men so that all mutants are people of color not only makes the themes of discrimination more relevant, it also introduces hundreds of non-white characters who are complex and fully realized. This is something that’s lacking from the current Marvel Universe. Why is Psylocke not only an Asian person of British descent, but also a ninja? Why is Storm not simply a mutant of color, but an African witch-priestess? As comics great Dwayne McDuffie said, “You only had two types of characters available for children. You had the stupid angry brute and the he’s-smart-but-he’s-black characters.” There’s certainly more roles for a non-white characters now than when he said that in 1993, but most super hero comics are written about characters that were invented decades ago. By recoloring the comics, we can grandfather characters into the Marvel Universe who are not defined by their race.

Before and after comparison of Emma Frost.

Simply changing the skin color of the mutants obviously doesn’t address all of the issues around privilege in the Marvel Universe. The visual and narrative sexism that permeates superhero comics remains intact. Some characteristics of white characters also become negative stereotypes when applied to non-white characters. Wolverine is a symbol of wild, untamed, white male power, but when I recolor his skin to imagine him as a person of color, his snarling, predatory aggression reads as a stereotype of wild black men. This is a great demonstration of the way that white male characters are free to inhabit any role, whereas centuries of accumulated stereotypes shape the way we understand people of color in fiction***.

An edited image from the series X-Men of Color.

Promoters of the X-Men have spent years trying to convince audiences that these white characters are tapping into the struggle of black Americans. Strange as the substitution of white men for black activists may seem, it’s not unique. Fantasy universes often comment on social issues through the veil of imaginary prejudices****. My goal is that by looking at these images people will question whether an invented minority is really the best way to understand our country’s history and practice of race-based violence.

You can find a few more images at my website.)

Other resources related to this issue:
More NonSense: No More Mutants by Michael Buntag http://nonsensicalwords.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-nonsense-no-more-mutants.html
We Have The Power To Change MARVEL and DC Comics: Support Diversity, Support Miles! by Jay Deitcher http://www.unleashthefanboy.com/editorial/we-have-the-power-to-change-marvel-and-dc-comics-support-diversity-support-miles/44986

* The most appropriate metaphor for the original Stan Lee comics is probably invisible dimensions of power such as LGBT issues or religion. In the original comics, the X-Men hide their mutations in order to pass as humans (Angel uses belts to strap his wings down under a suit coat). In later generations, some of the mutants are visibly mutated to the point they could never pass as humans.
** Shyminsky also notes that recent generations of X-Men writers have reacted to the politics of appropriation in the series’ history. He cites Grant Morrison’s U-Men as an example.
***I think it’s interesting that the same characteristics that make Wolverine a white male icon are also regressive stereotypes of black men.
****I often think of house-elf slavery in Harry Potter, but it actually starts much earlier:

Born This Way

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Chris Gavaler

“Who’s your favorite mutant, professor?”

If you’re going to teach a college course on superheroes, it’s a question you should be ready to answer. I wasn’t. My first thought was Lady Gaga. Artpop wasn’t out yet, so I must have been thinking about the human-motorbike cyborg of Born This Way. But instead I rattled off something about Magneto (his rare, bookworm incarnation adorns my blog). Now I’ve got a better answer. My favorite mutant was the first of them all:

The Night Wind.

Never heard of him? You’re in good company. He stopped adventuring in 1919, three years before his out-of-work creator shot himself. He premiered forty years before Stan Lee first and most famously attached the biological term (already an evolutionary staple of post-Hiroshima scifi) to the world of superheroes.

In fact, “mutant” is so Marvel, I’m hesitant to use it outside their multiverse. I remember the narrative nausea my adolescent self felt when DC buckled under the popularity of X-Men and shoehorned their first “mutant” into Teen Titans. It was 1984, and Ex-Marvel writer-editor Marv Wolfman must have forgotten he’d switched employers (again). It didn’t help that the character was a joke, a mute mutant (is that a pun?). I had to google his name (Jericho) and his powers (mind control?), but remembered his dorky blonde curls all too well.

Not that Stan Lee’s first use of the term was impressive either. Two years cranking out his silver age pantheon (Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Dr. Strange), he hit his limit for origin stories. So the 1963 X-Men, “The Strangest Super-heroes of All!,” were all Born That Way like Lady Gaga.

As Professor Xavier professed in the first issue: “You, Miss Grey, like the other four students at this most exclusive school, are a MUTANT! You possess an EXTRA power . . . one which ordinary humans do NOT! That is why I call my students . . . X-MEN, for EX-tra power!”(Lee had one more origin story in him: Daredevil was hit by a radioactive truck the following year. Which pretty much proves the point about creative exhaustion.)

Alias “The Night Wind” crawled out of the primordial pulp goo of The Cavalier magazine way back in 1913, six months after Tarzan of the Apes set the new standard for superhuman adventuring. Like Superman, Bing Harvard, A.K.A. the Night Wind, had no problem tying “bow-knots in crowbars.” But instead of crashlanding from Krypton to be reared by mid-western farmers, or shipwrecked from aristocratic England to be reared by anthropoid apes, Bing was a foundling reared by an American banker.

He also possesses “a wonderful, God-given strength,” which was his “birthright,” what “his unknown father and mother had bestowed upon him as an inheritance.”

Peter Coogan terms him an “anomaly.” That’s a pretty good synonym for “mutant,” but the superhero scholar is talking genre tropes, few of which the character fits. I photocopied an excerpt for my class, and someone said it read like a supervillain origin story. Hard-working orphan framed for embezzlement turns his powers against the powers that be.

It’s true, Bing breaks the wrists of any cop who tries to arrest him, but after he clears his name (with the help of a lady cop who later marries him), he settles happily into law-abiding domesticity. The truly anomalous gene in the series is the never-solved mystery introduced in its opening chapters:

Who are Bing’s parents?

Jericho, it turns out, is the son of the villainous Deathstroke, his powers the product of biological experimentation done on his father. All those Marvel mutants can be traced back to Celestial tampering in the gene pool millions of years ago. But Bing? Frederick Van Rensselaer Dey (writing as his alter ego Varick Vanardy) didn’t care. Dey had cranked out Nick Carter dime novels for decades, but the Night Wind peters at four. The fact is frustrating, but even if I could sit down with Frederick over coffee in Dr. Doom’s time-travel machine, I’m not sure I would steer him any differently.

Bing’s real superheroism is only visible when you step out of the time machine and wander the nineteen-teens awhile. As a historical researcher, my first mistake is always the same. I assume past cultures are just like us, only in funny clothes. But immerse yourself in the period (I recommend the New York Times online database) and you realize you’re looking at a planet more alien than Krypton.

I always give my Superhero students a crash course in eugenics, a term, for those who’ve ever heard it, they associate with Nazi Germany not homegrown America. Where did the idea of killing the genetically unfit come from? Forget Auschwitz. The American Breeders Association of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island recommended installing a gas chamber in every town in America.

This was 1911. Two years before the Night Wind started snapping police wrists. The Breeders’ other recommendations (immigration restrictions, racial segregation, interracial marriage ban, sterilization) became law as Dey was writing. Back then everyone simply knew the human race would devolve if Aryan supremacy wasn’t maintained. That was just common sense. That was the alien air everyone was breathing.

So if you were a recent immigrant, if your parents weren’t Anglo-Saxon, if you weren’t from good reliable Protestant stock, you were probably unfit. Genetic traits in those days included just about anything: poverty, promiscuity, feeblemindedness, criminality. Your parentage defined you. The cop who frames Bing says it all:

“Who are you, anyhow, I’d like to know? It ain’t nothin’ out uh the way that you should be a thief. I guess you inherited it all right. It’s more’n likely that his dad is doin’ time right now, in one uh the prisons, an’ his mother, too, maybe. It’s the way uh that sort. He don’t know who his antecedents was.”

Who was Bing? Who were his parents? Dey didn’t care. His hero was just born that way. And Dey blesses him for it. Literally. He declares his powers “God-given.” They’re not the result of eugenics movement’s so-called scientific breeding. He’s an accident, a genetic anomaly. He’s homo superior. Not the well-born superman eugenicists were obsessed with, but an up-from-the-muck mutant, defying the prejudices all of America was inhaling.

Dey was singing “Born This Way” a hundred years before Lady Gaga:

“I’m on the right track baby,
I was born to be brave.”

Onslaught of the 90’s

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Richard Cook

A common stereotype of superhero fans is that they love the comics they read as children. Apparently, superhero comics were so much better during the Golden/Silver/Bronze/Iron/Tin Age. But rosy nostalgia is difficult if you grew up reading superhero comics in the 1990’s. With a tiny number of exceptions, those comics were terrible. That’s not meant as a defense of the current crop of superhero comics, which are generally unreadable. But the comics I read as a kid weren’t much better. In fact, many of the problems in the 2012 superhero market – amateurish art, continuity porn, title crossovers designed to push you into buying a dozen extra comics – were firmly in place by the mid-90’s. And yet I was buying this crap.

I’ve mentioned before that I was an X-Men fan. And out of all superhero fandom, X-Men fans were the biggest suckers. Marvel editors figured out that we cared so much about our spandex soap opera that we’d be willing to buy not just one, or even four, but upwards of six or more titles each month. In any given month, I was buying X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur, Cable, X-Man, Wolverine, and probably around 2-3 mini-series. I was even willing to shop outside the X-Men ghetto if a crossover required it. Crossover with Ghost Rider? Sure, I’ll buy that. Avengers? Not a fan, but I would get it. I was even willing to buy Fantastic Four if necessary (and if you want to experience superhero comics at their nadir, read some FF in the 90’s).

So I was part of the target audience for the “Onslaught Saga,” the big crossover of 1996. For those of you who had social lives that year, Onslaught was a psychic energy being inadvertently created by Prof. Xavier after he psychically lobotomized his arch-enemy, Magneto. They had some weird mind-meld, and their bastard offspring was out to conquer the world, enslave humanity, etc., etc.

Onslaught was not much of a character, being one-dimensional and completely devoid of personality. But he wasn’t even much of a plot device, because the Onslaught Saga barely had anything resembling a plot. Instead, it meandered from one irrelevant beat to another before finally lurching to a “climax.” More accurately, Onslaught should be described as a corporate re-tooling device: most of the Marvel titles that weren’t part of the X-Men line were selling so badly that Marvel decided to reboot most of the characters and hand creative control over to the big names of the decade, like Rob Liefeld.

Eat gooch and die, Japo-Nazi!

Onslaught existed for only one purpose: to “kill” all the heroes (excepting the X-Men) so they could be reborn in another universe. In other words, the point of the Onslaught Saga was not to tell a story but to restart a few brands. I had purchased plenty of bad crossovers before the Onslaught Saga, and I had seen plenty of transparent attempts to reboot an unpopular superhero. But the Onslaught Saga actually offended me in a way that’s hard to describe. Maybe it’s because the X-Men franchise was hi-jacked to reboot another group of heroes, characters that I had never cared about and would never care about. Or maybe I was offended by the blatantly transparent “corporateness” of it all.

Technically, this roundtable is supposed to be about the worst comic I ever read, not the worst crossover. It’s hard to pick a single “worst” comic in the Onslaught storyline, because all of them were rubbish. But if I had to pick, I’d go with Uncanny X-Men #336. It isn’t the worst on most “technical” levels. Scott Lobdell’s script is about as passable as one could be for a comic of this nature. And Joe Madureira’s art doesn’t make me want to poke out my eyes most of the time, though there are plenty of shitty panels.

I’m not even sure where to begin: the lazy use of coloring instead of drawing a background, the balloon boobs, or the fact that her hands are turning into rocks.

But what makes this the “worst” comic was that this particular issue was the moment when I stopped caring about the X-Men. I know this because it’s the last issue of Uncanny X-Men in my collection (I read the Grant Morrison comics years later, but I downloaded those). It’s hard to look back and remember what was passing through my mind, but at some point I decided that I was getting nothing out of this hobby: no laughs, no excitement, not even the fannish pleasure of seeing certain couples hook up. I just wasn’t interested. When I quit X-Men, I actually stopped reading all comics for the most part, and it wasn’t until several years later that a college friend introduced me to comics for older readers.

My decision to quit X-Men comics was at least partially dictated by other developments in my life. Around the same time I gave up comics I also got my first car and I was starting to notice girls. I was spending more time with my circle of friends and less time reading the funny books. And none of my friends were into comics, so there was no one to reinforce my bad habit. And back then the Internet was only partially developed – and dial-up connections SUCKED – so there were few opportunities to participate in comic blogs or web forums. So, despite being an X-Men fan for years, it proved surprisingly easy to quit.

In a way, I supposed I should be grateful to the writers of the Onslaught Saga. Had they actually put together a halfway decent story, I might of continued reading superhero comics indefinitely. And instead of blogging about the worst comic I ever read, I’d be writing a panegyric for Geoff Johns.

__________

Click here for the Anniversary Index of Hate.

X-Men: First Class Grades on a Curve

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Richard Cook

X-Men: First Class
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring…
James McAvoy (Prof. Charles Xavier)
Michael Fassbender (Magneto)
Kevin Bacon (Sebastian Shaw)
January Jones (Emma Frost)
Rose Byrne (Moira MacTaggert)
Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique)

[Spoilers ahead, you have been warned]

Another weekend, another superhero movie. No magic hammers or wishing rings in this one. Instead, there are mutants, Soviets, and Kevin Bacon. The story is a jumble of three loosely related plots: the origin story of Prof. Xavier and the X-Men, the efforts by Xavier and company to foil Sebastian Shaw’s genocidal plans, and (by far the best storyline) Magneto’s quest for vengeance against Shaw (a Nazi collaborator). All that, plus a sexist homage to the Forgetfulness Kiss from Superman 2.

I’ll note that X-Men: First Class (XMFC) was better than Thor, though that’s setting the bar fairly low. And it was better than X-men Last Stand, though that’s setting the bar so low one has to be careful not to trip over it. Thor had a tedious moral about humility, but at the end of the day the movie was about nothing more complicated than Chris Hemsworth’s abs. XMFC is a movie that wants to express an opinion on important topics, including vengeance, intolerance, and minority rights. Like the comic it was based on, XMFC explores these topics through metaphor, but the results leave much to be desired.

Since it’s introduction, the X-Men comic has relied upon metaphor to imbue the concept of mutants with social relevance. In the early 60’s, the X-Men were a metaphor for the civil rights movement. Mutants were “hated and feared” by the rest of the world, but the X-Men fought to protect humanity and demonstrate that mutants could be loyal, tax-paying citizens. Mutants were black people … except that all the mutants were white. The comic celebrated tolerance, equality, and the loftier goals of the civil rights movement, but without ever acknowledging the movement’s existence. I’ll revisit this problem below.

Over the course of the 80’s and 90’s, the mutant metaphor shifted from race to queerness (this change was most evident in the Legacy Virus storyline, an HIV-like disease that only targeted mutants). The change may have been driven in part by a genuine commitment to LGBT rights, even at a time when public hostility to queerness was overt and widespread. But the shift was also necessitated by the success of the civil rights movement. In popular media, black characters were no longer relegated to the role of servant or comic relief. Even in the backwoods that is superhero comics, black heroes were becoming more numerous and prominent. The most prominent of all was the X-Men’s Storm, who led the team for nearly a decade. In a world with black heroes, addressing race issues primarily through metaphor is difficult to justify.*

The X-Men have always been a metaphor for teen alienation. While all teenagers occasionally feel hated or oppressed, most comic readers are nerds (also, geeks, dweebs, and dorks) who feel especially awkward and unappreciated. So what better escapist fantasy than a world where all the misfits have superpowers that they use to save the world? Plus, they get to hang out with their fellow (improbably attractive) misfits at a posh school called ~~Hogwarts~~ Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The makers of XMFC clearly understood the teen alienation metaphor, which was why all the mutants bitched and moaned about being freaks and outcasts. Then they went to the School for Gifted Youngsters, and they suddenly realized that they’re young, beautiful, and have awesome superpowers.

Yet for a film that’s set in the 60’s, there were surprisingly few references to the civil rights movement. Perhaps acknowledging the African American struggle for equal rights would raise too many questions, such as how would the emergence of a superhuman race affect relations between normal blacks and whites? Would race relations improve when faced with a common evolutionary threat? Or would ancient prejudices persist even within the mutant community? These are interesting questions to explore, but that would require a very different kind of movie (one where fewer things blow up).**

While it largely ignores race, XMFC takes full advantage of the queerness metaphor. Because mutants are hated and feared, they must find ways to blend in with the “norms,” though they do so only by denying who they truly are. Mystique’s character arc is largely an “out and proud” storyline. As a shapeshifter, she can easily blend in, but only by constantly hiding her natural, blue form. By the end of the film, she’s embraced her gorgeous blue self. There’s also a moment where Prof. Xavier accidentally “outs” another mutant who works for the CIA, which leads to a humorous dig at “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” And there’s an obvious overlap of the queerness metaphor with the teen metaphor. After all, what subset of teens feels more hated and misunderstood than those struggling with their sexual identity?

But metaphor only goes so far. As I mentioned above, the X-Men comic largely abandoned the civil rights metaphor as broader cultural attitudes changed and black characters entered the mainstream. Similarly, attitudes regarding the LGBT community have changed enormously over the past few decades. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will (probably, eventually, hopefully?) be repealed, and a majority of Americans now support gay marriage. So instead of veiled references to queerness, why not include an actual queer character in the ensemble cast? Hell, the film could have gone the safe route by including a lipstick lesbian. Not exactly freaking out the norms, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll also point out that filmmakers can’t fall back on the excuse that the source material gives them nothing to work with. There are at least a handful of queer X-Men that I can name off the top of my head. Why not use Northstar? He’s gay … and Canadian! Who doesn’t like Canadians? But just as blacks were nonexistent in the early X-Men comics, so queers are nonexistent in XMFC. In all likelihood queer characters were excluded because of the fear that a sizable minority of consumers would refuse to see a movie that promoted “alternative lifestyles.” So the (presumably liberal) filmmakers expressed their support for LGBT rights, but only in a way that wouldn’t hurt profits. Using the mutant-as-queer metaphor seems less a subversive or daring act than a cowardly one.

X-Men: First Class reveals the limits of political expression in the current crop of big, summer blockbusters. Movies can toy with political views, but even the least controversial opinions must be expressed in a vague or indirect manner. It’s far safer, and more profitable, to pretend that you have no opinion at all.

________________________

* There are thoughtful ways to use the mutant-as-minority race metaphor in the 21st century, and Grant Morrison did so during his X-Men run. But it requires an intelligent writer with an appreciation for how racial identity and race relations have evolved since the 60s.

** Even if the metaphor was present, it’s hard to overlook that, of the two mutants of color, one gets killed and the other goes evil. Celebrating racial equality in the abstract doesn’t mean much when characters of color are still thrown under the bus.

White Hair, Blue Eyes, and Black(ish) Skin: A History of Storm in Comic Book Covers

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Richard Cook

Storm is one of Marvel’s most recognizable heroines and the most prominent woman of color in superhero comics (though the definition of “color” varies from artist to artist). She’s never had her own ongoing series, but she’s been a headliner in the X-Men franchise for decades. Since her introduction in 1975, Storm has assumed many roles: mutant, superhero, African goddess, pickpocket, claustrophobe, knife-fighting enthusiast, team leader, Black Panther’s arm candy, and fetish-fuel for Chris Claremont. This post is a visual summary of how artists portrayed Storm during the past three and a half decades.

1970s

Cover by Dave Cockrum and Irving Watanabe (1977)

Cover by Dave Cockrum, Terry Austin, and Gaspar Saladino (1979)

Cover by John Byrne, Terry Austin, and Dan Crespi (1979)

1980s

Cover by Dave Cockrum, Josef Rubinstein, Tom Orzechowski (1981)

Cover by Bob McLeod (1981)

Are they … scissoring?

Cover by Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek (1983)

Cover by John Romita, Jr. and Dan Green (1984)

Great ideas in comics: Storm as a punk rock bitch with a mohawk.

Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith (1984)

Cover by Rick Leonardi and Whilce Portacio (1986)

Cover by Marc Silvestri, Dan Green, and Alex Jay (1988)

1990s.

Cover by Andy Kubert and Joe Rosen (1990)

So there was this plot where Storm was turned into a kid … it didn’t make much sense.

Cover by Jim Lee, Scott Williams, and Tom Orzechowski (1991)

Cover by Whilce Portacio (1992)

Cover by Joe Madureira (1995)

Cover by Terry Dodson and Karl Story (1996)

A four issue mini-series.

Cover by Scott Clark (1997)

2000s

Cover by Andy Kubert (2001)

Cover by Salvador Larroca (2003)

Cover by Greg “Pornface” Land (2004)

Cover by Mike Mayhew (2006)

Cover by Leinil Francis Yu (2006)

Storm and Black Panther were married in 2006.

Cover by Alan Davis (2008)

In Wakanda, only men get chairs.

Cover by David Yardin and Jacob Keith (2009)

Cover by Phil Jimenez, Frank D’Armata, Travis Charest, and Justin Ponsor (2009)

Time Capsule, Part 2

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Richard Cook

To celebrate my impending thirtieth, I decided to take a look at the comics being published during the month of my birth, September 1980. Last week, I reviewed a handful of mostly disappointing DC titles. Will Marvel fare better?

Peter Park, The Spectacular Spider-Man #46
Writer: Roger Stern
Pencils: Mike Zeck
Inks: Bruce Patterson
Colors: P. Goldberg

I’m not a Spidey fan. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate him the way I hate Superman, but even as a kid, I never had any interest in the character. It’s not that his books are particularly bad. Nor are they any more or less formulaic than the average serialized adventure. I would like to say that the incessant self-pity grates, but that’s not true. I loved the X-Men, but all they did was whine about how the world didn’t appreciate their awesomeness.

My indifference to Spider-Man actually came from his place in Marvel’s shared universe. Now in theory, a shared universe is supposed to excite young readers with the promise of team-ups and crossovers and guest appearances. But there’s a flip side: all of Spider-Man’s adventures take place in a world that he shares with Thor, the Hulk, the Avengers, the X-Men, etc. In other words, he’s a small fry fighting two-bit villains.

The standard tag line I hear from Spidey fans is that Spider-Man is a middleweight hero who struggles to overcome more powerful foes, and that’s what makes him relatable. But young me didn’t care about relatable. I wanted his stories to be big and epic, I wanted them to “matter,” and how could Spider-Man foiling a bank robbery matter when the Avengers were saving the planet at the same time? As an adult, I can see that this attitude was silly. And yet … Spider-Man still seems like the sideshow to me.

In this issue, Spider-Man fought a jewel thief named Cobra. It’s as inconsequential as it sounds. Meanwhile, the X-Men were saving the universe…

Uncanny X-Men #137
Writer: Chris Claremont
Co-plotters: Chris Claremont and John Byrne
Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Terry Austin
Colors: Glynis Wein

This is arguably the most famous issue in the history of the series. The star-spanning Shi’ar Empire comes to kill Jean Grey, a.k.a. the Phoenix, and the X-Men fight the Imperial Guard in a failed bid to save her. And since this was written by Chris Claremont, it begins with a crapload of exposition.

Jack Kirby created the Watcher way back when in the pages of Fantastic Four. From what I’ve read, the Watcher is a near-omnipotent entity who’s grand purpose is explaining the plot to lesser beings. He’s essentially a glorified recap page, and yet he narrates with such gusto. Look at the guy! He takes such pride in summarizing the preceding six issues, and he’s already convinced me that that this will be the greatest comic ever. Who knew that combining a giant bald head, a toga, and goofy boots would produce such a charismatic character? Jack Kirby knew, that’s who.

John Byrne drew a great double-paged opening splash. He fit all the characters onto the spread while still leaving just enough room for Claremont to give more lines of exposition to as many characters as possible. That’s teamwork.

Of course, the subtext of the storyline is still depressing. A woman gains absolute power, so naturally she goes insane and has to be destroyed. Rumor has it that Byrne and Claremont initially intended to de-power Phoenix as a punishment for her actions, but Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter insisted that she die (because she’d committed genocide in an earlier issue). Regardless of their intentions, de-powering doesn’t change the subtextual problems.

Not that any of this mattered to my younger self. The sprawling melee on the moon remains one of my favorite action pieces from superhero comics. And the death of Jean Grey perfectly embodies why so many kids and teens were drawn to the X-Men: MELODRAMA.

The romantic (and platonic) relationships and the overwrought drama were the main appeal of the book and what set it apart from its more traditional competitors. Of course, as time passed, the relationships became increasingly byzantine, to the point that a new reader would need a flow chart to understand who’s related to who. But in 1980, it was still crying and yelling and angst and Wolverine getting clobbered every other issue. It was a good time.

Fantastic Four #222
Writer: Doug Moench
Artists: Bill Sienkiewicz and Joe Sinnott
Colors: G. Roussos

In a few years, Bill Sienkiewicz would do incredible work at Marvel, becoming one of the few mainstream artists to reject the realist paradigm. But in 1980 he was another genre hack, cashing a check on the Fantastic Four. This splash page is just sad (and somewhat creepy).

The plot downplayed the usual sci-fi nonsense in favor of seances and demon-possessions. It’s not a bad issue, truth be told, even with the disappointing art.

But Fantastic Four is one of those books that I can only enjoy intermittently. The family dynamic is supposed to be it’s main appeal, but I generally find the relationship of Reed Richards and Sue Storm to be tiresome. And adding the kid didn’t win me over. Maybe I’m one of those singles who doesn’t care about the trials and tribulations of married couples.

On the other hand, I liked The Incredibles, which is more or less a knockoff of the FF family. And if I had to pick the most significant difference between The Incredibles and the Fantastic Four, it would be in how they treated the super-kids. In the former, the children are revealed to be a heroes just like their parents. Without their help, Mr. Incredible could never have saved the day. But in Fantastic Four, Franklin is more a burden than a person. He’s always getting possessed or losing control of his powers or something equally terrible and his parents have to constantly worry about his well-being. Family life seems like a cross to bear, rather than a blessing. Why would I want to read a superhero comic about that?

Avengers #199
Writer: David Michelinie
Pencils: George Perez
Inks: Dan Green
Colors: Jim Salicrup

This a great example of how hindsight can ruin my appreciation for a perfectly decent comic. There’s nothing wrong with this issue, in itself. Michelinie may be a hack, yet he knows how to pace a story and he at least gives the characters distinct “voices.” But the real star of the show is George Perez. He takes a generic heroes vs. robot storyline and crafts several exciting action sequences. Plus, I love the anime-inspired design for the robot, Red Ronin.

What ruins the issue for me is the sub-plot leading to the next issue, Avengers #200. A quick summary: the heroine Ms. Marvel is pregnant without a father and the fetus is growing rapidly. In the next issue, the storyline will go from vaguely unpleasant to outright disgusting when the baby is born and rapidly ages into the very man who impregnated her (I’ll let old-school fangirl Carol Strickland explain the gory details). It’s one of the most offensive and ill-conceived storylines I’ve ever seen in a mainstream comic (and I was reading comics in the awful ’90s).

Quality craftsmanship is all well and good, but it can’t hide the fact that many of the people creating these comics were creeps.

Daredevil #166
Writer: Roger McKenzie
Co-plotters: Rober McKenzie and Frank Miller
Pencils: Frank Miller
Inks: Klaus Janson
Colors: Glynis Wein

I’m no good with dates. I didn’t realize Frank Miller was working on Daredevil all the way back in 1980. He had to share writing credits with McKenzie, but the issue is full of unmistakable Millerisms, especially the tough-guy dialogue and the hard-boiled narration inspired by Raymond Chandler.

Miller was also drawing these early issues, and it’s an interesting sample of his early work.

As the image above makes clear, Miller loved to display Daredevil’s physical prowess. Much of the comic is hardly distinguishable from any other mainstream title, but the action sequences easily stand out as some of the best from the era.

I’m not going to claim that Miller is a brilliant artist (he isn’t), but he understands and appreciates violence in a way that few superhero artists do. That may sound like a criticism, but we’re talking about a genre characterized by violent confrontation, and it’s always amazed me that so few artists really understand or care about the anatomy of a fight sequence. For Miller, a cursory exchange of punches would never suffice. There’s a give and take between equally matched opponents, weaknesses are sought, and ineffective strategies are replaced.

There’s also a realism to Miller’s violence, though it’s not necessarily graphic in nature (this was still the era of the Comics Code). Miller’s characters “sell” the blows, every hit looks painful, and the characters strike each other in ways clearly intended to cause serious harm.

It’s easy to see why Miller’s work became a success. Compared to Daredevil, the other comics I reviewed seem hesitant and even cowardly in their use of violence. The superhero publishers relied on violence to gain the attention of young boys, but it was always within strict limits. The superhero books were supposed to be morally uplifting. But Miller didn’t see violence as a mere tool to sell a book about selfless heroism. Instead, heroic violence was the whole point. Morality is all well and good, but most superhero readers aren’t looking for role models. They’re looking for cheap thrills, and there are few things as thrilling as seeing one man savagely pummel another.

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And that brings my exercise in nostalgia to an end. Marvel’s September 1980 line-up was fairly impressive in terms of craft, even though it lacked the genre variety of DC Comics. However, when I read all these comics together, it’s obvious why Marvel could never attract female readers.

The Hooded Utilitarian

a pundit in every panopticon

Tag Archives: X-Men