What Makes Those X-Men So Darn Great? Essay, Research Paper

Why Does Zach Like Those

So Much?

Zach Dotsey

English 101 Section 30

12 December, 1996

Third and Final Draft

When many people hear about the X-Men, they think of a silly kid s comic book,

but that is not so. X-Men, actually most comic books in general, are a unique blend of

two classic art forms; drawings, sometimes even paintings, and storytelling. A comic artist

must be able to convey the right mood and feeling for his or her art. They must also be

able to fluidly tell a story and fit it all in the allotted number of pages. The stories often

probe deep into the human psyche, questioning what is right and what is wrong or

showing human frailty. That is not all. In a series like the X-Men, where there are at least

a few hundred characters, past and present, leading and supporting, even dead and alive,

the writer must keep track of a character s experiences and their personality. They must

also keep track of continuity, making sure they don t contradict past events. This last rule

is only loosely followed sometimes.

All in all, a long, ongoing story can be like a soap opera. My favorite example of

this is The Summers Family, Which goes a little something like this: There are two

brothers, Scott and Alex Summers, who were orphaned as children when they were

pushed from a plane being attacked by an advanced alien race. Their mother died but their

father went on to become a space pirate.

Later, Scott falls in love with Jean Grey, who becomes an omnipotent primal force,

the Phoenix, who commits suicide to save the universe from herself. Meanwhile, a bad

guy has made a clone of Jean named Maddie, who marries Scott. They have a baby,

Nathan. Jean returns from the dead, not actually having been the Phoenix, but actually a

body template. Scott leaves his family and joins a team of super heroes with Jean and

some other old friends.

Well, Maddie becomes a bad guy and apparently dies. Later, the baby, Nate, is

infected by another bad guy with an incurable virus, so he s sent 2000 years into the future

where he grows up then comes back to help fight the good fight. Nate was brought into

the future by a group of people pulled together by his older sister.

His older sister is Rachel, who was born in an alternate timeline where almost all

the good guys were dead. Her parents were Scott and the real Jean. She came back to

prevent her time from ever happening and ended up about 2000 years in the future

because a friend was stuck traveling about in the time stream.

Meanwhile Alex feels that he cannot live up to Scott s standards so he constantly

tries to escape his shadow. He gets brainwashed into being a bad guy, recovers to lead a

group of good guys, and gets brainwashed again.

Great family history, no? Oh yes, there may be another brother around

somewhere.

The X-Men are all mutants, Homo Sapien Superior, the next evolutionary step for

human beings, a minority group of people with a genetic quirk, an X-Factor that grants

them extraordinary powers. Some are blessings, like the ability to control the weather or

to fly. Some are curses, such as the ability to blast uncontrollably strong beams of force

from the eyes. Blessed or cursed, mutants are a group of people who are feared for their

differences. Some mutants strike back against humanity in a harmful manner. One group

who attacks regular humans is the Acolytes, formerly lead by the X-Men s oldest enemy,

Magneto. They have attacked hospitals and orphanages just to cleanse the genepool.

Some strive to bridge the gap between mutant and human. These are the X-Men, a group

of mutants, formed by Professor Charles Xavier, the world s strongest telepath, sworn to

protect a world that fears and hates them. The X-Men comics are not just about

prejudice either. They tackle many social issues, such as abortion and AIDS.

The original team of X-Men consisted of five teen-agers and Xavier (Professor

X). These were not as popular as other titles of the times such as Superman, Batman,

Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, and The Avengers. The early stories were basically about

a supergroup that went around facing super bad guys and some prejudice now and then.

After sixty-odd issues, X-Men started just reprinting old stories. This went on for about

thirty issues when the book was going to be canceled. The X-Men were saved by the

creative team of Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and Terry Austin with Giant Sized X-Men

#1.

Giant Sized X-Men #1 introduced an all-new, all-different X-Men. This boasted

in a new team of mutants. The new team of X-Men was multi-racial and multi-national,

whereas the original team was a bunch of white American kids. It was also a very radical

team, considering the time period (the late seventies). Since the book was scheduled to be

canceled, the creators decided to be a little bit radical in their approach to this dying comic

book.

The person who took over field command was Storm, an African native. Think of

that, a black woman leading a superhero comic book team, a role she usurped from a

young white male (Cyclops). It was quite a change from the norm. There was also a

young Russian, Colossus, during a time when Russians were taboo in America.

The others in the team were Wolverine, a Canadian, whose violent nature was very

different from the boy scout types like Superman. There were also Sunfire from Japan,

Banshee from Ireland, Nightcrawler (no, he is not a worm) from Germany, and

Thunderbird, an Apache Indian. One thing that made this group of X-Men stand out was

that on the first mission for the new team, issue #95, they killed off Thunderbird, an

extremely new and radical thing. About 40 issues later they killed off one of the large

mainstay characters, Jean Grey, who was a founding member. Of course, as I explained

earlier, she came back a few years later, but it was a really big thing at the time.

That X-Men team went on many adventures, saved galaxies and all reality, and

built up a huge supporting cast, paving the way for spin-off books. A current list of

X-Men books includes the following titles; Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force

(originally New Mutants), Excalibur, Generation X, X-Man, Wolverine, Cable, and

Deadpool, not to mention a lot of four issue limited series titles.

So, you may be asking, where does all the social stuff come in? Well, it started

coming into play early on, with the first group of X-Men. People began to realize what it

could mean to have people being born with great super powers. They began to feel afraid

and obsolete. One man, Dr. Bolivar Trask, played on these fears and built giant robots to

capture and control mutants. I believe this was around issue #15. They were called

Sentinels and have been a recurring problem for they X-Men. This parallels to the United

States government taking action against other groups of people they did not understand,

such as the Indians forced onto reservations, or the blacks that were oppressed with laws

until very recently.

Another government action was the Mutant Registration Act, which required

mutants to check in with the government to the government could keep tabs on them.

One storyline dealing with racism is called Days of Future Past (which I recently

bought for a total of $21, one issue is even autographed by the artist). This story

illustrates a consequence of racism out of control. In it, the Sentinels are programmed to

protect humans from all mutants. The Sentinels figure that the best way to do that is by

taking over the humans. In the end, all the heroes are dead and the Sentinels prepare to

launch an attack on the rest of the world to save it from the mutant menace just as Europe

is about to launch nuclear missiles at the conquered North America to keep the Sentinels

away. The world is a nightmare where people are killed or shipped to concentration

camps for being born a little differently from most others, when racism wins out over

reason.

Another template of a society gone mad with racism is shown in the island country

of Genosha. At one time Genosha was a thriving country, one of the most popular tourist

attractions in the world. It seemed perfect, everyone seemed happy. But things are not

always as they seem. Genosha was secretly taken care of by mutates, mutants who were

made to be subordinate through mindwiping techniques. The whole country, even the

transportation systems like the railroads, were run off mutate energy. All the low jobs

were given to the mutates, who didn t even have mind enough to speak in protest.

Eventually the X-Men helped to free the mutates, but, after failing to live peacefully

together, a civil war broke out, leaving the once prosperous nation in ruins.

The normal humans are not the only people guilty of racism in X-Men. The

first villain ever fought by the X-Men was Magneto, a mutant who sought to rule over the

mutants and crush humanity for being inferior. After being defeated time and again and

even switching sides once, Magneto decided to gather up mutants and live off of Earth

and away from humans on an orbital space station called Avalon. It was eventually blown

up and Magneto lost his memory then joined the X-Men again.

Magneto mirrors many things tried by minorities in America. His attempts to fight

back are like the Black Panthers and some Indian tribes. His separationist views are like

some of what Malcolm X thought. Then there is the inevitable attempt to fit in, which

seems to work as a temporary, surface fix.

Another group who struck back out of fear was the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants,

lead by Magneto, then Mystique, and now Havok. Mystique s Brotherhood was even

more militant in some ways than Magneto was. They attempted an assassination of a

presidential candidate which, if successful, would have set the Days of Future Past

storyline into actuality. They were as much, if not even more like the Indians and Black

Panthers than Magneto (until they became a government sanctioned group in return for

full pardons). Havok s group is too new to assess right now.

Social organizations have also been involved in the racial issues, as they often were

long ago. There have been two prime examples of this. One was a story called God

Loves, Man Kills, where the preacher tells his clergy that mutants, having strange powers,

are all hellspawn and condones hunting them down and killing them to keep the threat

away and to put a little chlorine in the gene pool. This is like the Ku Klux Klan or a racist

church one may hear about in movies or television shows. The other example is also a

church but it shows a school of more open thought. In this church, the preacher

recognizes that some of these mutants use their powers to help others and they should not

be prejudged. The X-Men are even compared to angels in this story. This shows the

organizations, such as churches, that are open to people, no matter who they are.

As said earlier, the X-Men don t revolve only around prejudice, but they battle

other social injustices as well. One is the fear inspired by the Legacy Virus. This is a

disease that attacks a mutant s genetic structure and eats it away, much like the AIDS

virus attacks and destroys a person s immune system. The X-Men have already lost some

close friends to this disease. At first it was thought that only mutants could get the virus,

like it was once thought that only homosexuals or drug users could get AIDS. Then a

friend of the X-Men, genetic researcher Moira MacTaggert, a normal human, contracted

the disease and panic spread like wild fire. Now all of the sudden every Tom, Dick, and

Harry is afraid of catching that Mutie disease. For a while, as I remember, people

thought one could catch AIDS by being near an infected person. That is how people see

the Legacy Virus: get near a mutant and you ll catch that non-curable disease they all

have.

Another issue the mighty mutants have confronted is abortion. Is it right to

prevent a life if it is known that the baby will have what is essentially a birth defect? In

one storyline in X-Factor a doctor discovers a way to tell if a fetus will be a mutant or not.

This information can be passed along to the parents who can decide if they want a mutant

baby or not. In the end, Wolfsbane, a conservative Scottish Catholic lass, destroys all the

research information the doctor has, preventing mutant abortions.

Currently, anti-mutant hysteria is at an all time high. An ultra-powerful

combination of Professor X and Magneto took control of an army of Sentinels and

programmed them to round up super-powered people and destroy New York City. This

amalgamated being, called Onslaught, decided he would get rid of all normal people and

then decided to just kill everybody. To destroy him, Earth s popular heroes, the Fantastic

Four and the Avengers, sacrificed themselves. Most people view it in this way: a mutant

killed all of their favorite heroes so mutants are all evil.

It also did not help the mutant cause that a popular anti-mutant presidential

candidate was killed on live television by an as-of-now unknown mutant. No, mutants are

not riding high on America s popularity list.

The X-Men are popular outside comic books also. There is a cartoon and a comic

spin off of the cartoon, since it is geared towards younger people. As Philip always points

out, there is an X-Men ravioli out there. Clothing, shoes, video games, toys, dolls, Pez

dispensers, shoestrings, you name it, the X-Men are likely to have it.

So why do I like the X-Men so much? It is a combination of a lot of things. Great

stories, characters you can get attached to, beautiful art, a different perspective

(everybody loves Superman, but nobody loves mutants), and social relevance. What else

could make a better escapist s world? Not only all that, but they are everywhere you turn.

And now, a few of the

Professor Xavier, founder of the X-Men, telepath

Magneto, first enemy of the X-Men, one-time leader, now a team mate, ability to

manipulate magnetic fields

Cyclops, first and leader of the X-Man, Phoenix s husband, fires uncontrollable optic

beams

Phoenix, Cyclops wife, founding X-Man, telekinesis (can move objects with thoughts)

and telepathy

Beast, founding X-Man, super strong and intelligent, hand-like feet

Archangel, founding X-Man, originally had feathered wings, but they were ripped off and

later replaced

Iceman, founding X-Man, can turn into ice and manipulate nearby temperature

Storm, leader of second team of X-Men, manipulates weather

Wolverine, most well-known X-Man, has bone claws and the ability to heal extremely fast,

had indestructible metal laced bones and claws until Magneto sucked them out of him

Nightcrawler, now leads Excalibur, ability to teleport

Colossus, now with Excalibur, body transforms into an organic steel, also super strong

Jubilee, now with Generation X, formerly Wolverine s sidekick, ability to produce

fireworks

Cable, son of Cyclops and a clone of Phoenix, leads X-Force, telepathy and telekinesis

There are many, many other mutants, but these are a few pretty important ones.

Freak. Flatscan. Deadend. Genejoke. Mutie. Words. Powerful words

meant to distance… to demean… to destroy the havens of self respect we each

carry and nurture within us. Seeing past their differences, humans and mutants

share a common, unbreakable bond. Underneath all the words … we are related.

We are all family.

-Professor Charles Francis Xavier, Uncanny X-Men #294