X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor (17 page)

The island nation of Genosha, located off the east coast of Africa, is introduced as a country with a thriving economy and very modern standard of living. However, the nation’s economy is secretly based off of the slave labor of mutants. The Genengineer, a genetic scientist, has manipulated the minds and wills of mutants. Besides ensuring their enslavement, the Genengineer attempts to breed mutants with specific powers to fill specific labor needs. The Genoshan police force, called Magistrates, capture several X-Men. They are eventually freed, and some of the foundations of Genoshan society are shaken.

Alex Summers, grieving because his girlfriend, Polaris, has joined the Marauders, begins a tentative romance with his brother’s ex-wife, Madelyne Pryor. However, when Pryor sees Scott on television with Jean Grey, she becomes enraged. A demon offers her the power to make Scott suffer, which she accepts.

In a storyline called “Inferno,” Madelyne Pryor is endowed with demonic powers and becomes the Goblin Queen. She turns New York into a demon-infested hell. The story crosses over with issues of
X-Factor
and
New Mutants
,
and many other Marvel comic books set in New York City feature stories in which the heroes battle demonic enemies. The mutant teams defeat the demonic forces, and much of New York is returned to normal, though the Goblin Queen’s lair remains. There, Mr. Sinister reveals that Madelyne Pryor is a clone of Jean Grey that he created. He had manipulated Scott’s life so that his DNA and Jean Grey’s DNA could be combined to create a powerful mutant, but Jean Grey’s “death” had thwarted his plans. After these revelations, the Goblin Queen dies in a battle with Jean Grey. The Goblin Queen’s son, Nathan, is infected with a disease that modern science cannot cure, so the X-Men send him to the future where he is cured.
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A young Asian American mutant named Jubilee follows the X-Men through a portal back to their base in Australia. When the Reavers attack the X-Men, several members of the X-Men team step through a portal called the Siege Perilous, which transports them to random locations around the globe. Those who go through the Siege Perilous have amnesia, and some have been physically altered by their journey. Wolverine, who remains behind, loses his battle with the Reavers and is left for dead. Jubilee, who was in hiding, rescues Wolverine and helps him heal.

In the absence of the X-Men, who are scattered across the globe with amnesia, a new team of X-Men is formed and based on Muir Island for a brief time. The storyline shifts to the efforts of Forge and this pseudo-team of X-Men in their efforts to gather the X-Men who passed through the Siege Perilous and help them regain their memories.

After some success in finding the lost X-Men, a large crossover story called the X-Tinction Agenda takes place in all the comic books Marvel publishes related to the X-Men. Taking place on Genosha, the teams must battle Cameron Hodge, a cyborg with an insane hatred of mutants. Following this, the X-Men return to outer space to aid Professor X and his wife, Lilandra, in a battle against shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls. And in the last storyline of this period, the team must battle Professor Xavier’s insane son. In the course of the battle, Xavier’s spine is damaged, and he is again confined to a wheelchair.

New Members of the X-Men

Anna Marie Raven (Rogue)

Rogue, whose real name (Anna Marie Raven) is not revealed until 2004, is not the first nor the last reformed villain who will join the X-Men. She first appeared in
Avengers Annual #10
(1981), written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Michael Golden. The first reformed villain to join the team was Mimic, and Banshee and Sunfire were also villains in their first appearances. Rogue’s mutant power is to absorb the memories and the special abilities of anyone else through skin-to-skin contact. Normally, the absorption of the memories and powers is only temporary, but with prolonged contact Rogue may permanently retain the powers and memories. One of the first characters Rogue maintained contact with for too long was a superhero named Ms. Marvel, and Rogue gained Ms. Marvel’s super-strength, power of flight, and near invulnerability. Additionally, Ms. Marvel’s memories and personality, which are now a part of her mind, haunt Rogue.

Rogue discovered her mutant power the first time she kissed a boy, and the experience traumatized her. As Michael Mallory says of Rogue,

The knowledge that the mere touch of her bare skin can be dangerous to anyone, mutant or otherwise, not only affects her dress—she must remain covered head-to-toe at all times—but it leaves her with a level of sexual angst with which few, if any, can really empathize. (86)

Despite Mallory’s assertion, Rogue often appears in varying states of undress in the X-Men comic books.
The Uncanny X-Men #236
(Late Oct. 1988) opens with Rogue in a battle while completely nude, with shadows and objects in the foreground barely preventing full exposure. Though her power set, in a sense, desexualizes her, that forbidden touch is still used as a source of titillation in how she is presented to the readers.

Rachel Summers (Phoenix)

As the X-Men comic books and associated spin-offs continued year after year, the continuity became more convoluted. Rachel Summers is one of the first of several X-Men characters whose origins will involve time travel and/or alternate timelines. Chris Claremont and John Byrne created Rachel Summers, and she first appears in
The Uncanny X-Men #141
(Jan. 1981) in the classic story Days of Future Past. She is a part of a potential future timeline. The storyline involves X-Men from a dystopian future attempting to alter the past to change their timeline. Though the X-Men in the present day do prevent the inciting incident that would lead to Rachel’s dystopia, her timeline continues to exist. She travels back to the present day and becomes a member of the X-Men.

In Rachel’s timeline, she is the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey, and she takes her mother’s code name as a member of the X-Men. She possesses powerful psychic abilities and telekinesis, much like her mother.

Betsy Braddock (Psylocke)

Psylocke, created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe, has an interesting narrative history. In this period, she is a white British woman with telepathic powers. She was introduced in another series,
Captain Britain
, and is the sister of that series’ namesake. Readers who began to read
The Uncanny X-Men
in the 1990s would be hard-pressed to recognize the 1980s version of Psylocke. This version, an upper-class white British woman, is very conservative in dress and social interactions.

Her character will undergo a radical transformation that will result in her mind being in an Asian body, a different set of mutant powers, ninja training, a much more seductive personality, and a significantly skimpier costume. Mike Madrid explains:

Gone was the lovely English rose; in her place a statuesque gold skinned Asian beauty. Psylocke’s sculpted body was wrapped in a skintight costume that showed off every curve and muscle. Her impossibly long legs were crisscrossed with straps that enhanced her muscular thighs. Psylocke’s back arched to present her chest for all to admire. A revealing thong showcased her rock hard buttocks. [. . .] The old Caucasian Psylocke had been a formidable telepathic fighter. The new Asian Psylocke was a killer, possessing ninja martial arts skills and a ruthless love of battle. [. . .] Her new body finally gave Betsy the fighting skills and endurance of her dreams. She was the object of both fear and desire. Betsy Braddock might have been a lady, but as Psylocke, she was a babe. (270)

The Asian version of Psylocke, with one of the most revealing costumes any female of the X-Men will wear regularly, is generally drawn without any semblance of realistic body proportions. Moreso than any previous female character, this version of Psylocke is drawn with nearly pure cheesecake portrayals from most artists. Entering the 1990s, artists increasingly draw a pose that has become known as the “brokeback” pose. A female character in the brokeback pose has her body contorted in such a way that her butt and breasts are simultaneously visible for ogling. To achieve this position in real life, a woman’s back would have to be broken from the twisting, resulting in the name. It is a ridiculous trend, but one which would become very prominent in 1990s comic books. The Asian version of Psylocke is one of the characters that most frequently appears in a brokeback pose.

Alison Blaire (Dazzler)

Alison Blaire appeared in the same issue that Kitty Pryde first appeared in. However, Claremont and Byrne, who wrote and drew that issue, did not create Dazzler. Dazzler was intended to be a cross-promotional character between Casablanca Records and Marvel Comics, and a committee was used to design her look and powers, though Tom DeFalco and John Romita Jr. are most often credited with creating the character. Because of the tie-in with Casablanca Records, disco music and culture are prominent in Dazzler’s initial appearance. Marvel Comics would help to create the name, look, and personality of a singer superhero, and Casablanca would release a record of a singer they found to adopt that persona. There were also rumors of a potential film project featuring the new character. After Marvel promoted the new character, even having her first appear in one of their top-selling comic books, Casablanca Records dropped out of the agreement. Marvel, having pushed Dazzler more than most new creations, decided to give her a monthly comic book title to try to justify the promotion the character had received, though the series only ran for thirty-five issues.

Dazzler has the power to transform sound waves into light/laser energy. As a singer, she used her power to provide a spectacle to her performances. After her series was canceled, she was brought back into the X-Men where she had first appeared.

Longshot

Ann Nocenti and Art Adams created Longshot, who is the first member of the team who is not a mutant. Longshot appears to be a white human male, though with only three fingers and a thumb on each hand. He is, in reality, an artificially created humanoid from another dimension. He has the ability to alter the probability of random events around him so that they turn out in his favor. In the dimension where he was created, Longshot competed in gladiatorial combat for a population that was obsessed with televised events and violence. The X-Men have been captured and forced to compete for the entertainment of this dimension’s audience several times.

Jubilation Lee (Jubilee)

Jubilee, created by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri, is a young Chinese-American mutant who can generate bright explosive “plasmoids,” which look like fireworks. After her parents were murdered and she was orphaned, Jubilation Lee began to live at the Hollywood Mall, surviving by petty theft and money she gained by entertaining shoppers with her mutant powers. At the mall, Jubilee sees several members of the X-Men use a portal to transport to their Australian base, and she follows them through. She hides out in the base, stealing food to survive. When Wolverine is attacked and no other members of the team are around, she saves his life, and they form a close bond, with Wolverine acting as a father figure to Jubilee.

Forge

In comic books American Indian characters conform to several stereotypes. Their costumes often include feathers or a buckskin-type fringe. They go on journeys of spiritual awakening. And their powers are very frequently closely related to nature and spiritualism. In some ways Forge departs significantly from these stereotypes, in others he embraces them. His character is shown as being divided between his technological side and his spiritual side.

Created by Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr., Forge has not, as of yet, had his real name revealed. His code name is a reference to his mutant power. Forge has the ability to understand how any machine is constructed instantly, and he also has the ability to understand how a machine could be constructed to meet any need he has. In essence, he has the power of invention. He lives in one of the most high-tech buildings in the Marvel universe. This is a far cry from other American Indian characters such as Thunderbird, or later Warpath, who come from reservations that are depicted more as camping grounds than as cities with any sign of modernity. Both Thunderbird and Warpath have sets of powers that increase their natural abilities. They have heightened strength, sight, and hearing. Conversely, Forge’s power places him beyond the cutting edge of modern technology. Forge has even replaced an injured part of his leg with a cybernetic portion.

However, although his mutant power departs from the superheroic stereotypes of American Indian characters, many of the storylines he is placed in, at least initially, conform to those very stereotypes. The result is an odd dichotomy of unique character traits and old stereotypes. Forge takes Storm on journeys of spiritual awakening, and a former friend of Forge’s chastises him for turning his back on his mystical heritage in favor of technology.

Remy LeBeau (Gambit)

Chris Claremont and Jim Lee created Remy LeBeau as an American mutant with the power to charge objects with energy that causes them to explode when suddenly hit or impacted against other objects. Gambit was born and raised in New Orleans and belongs to a group called the Thieves Guild. Before joining the X-Men, Gambit was a master thief. Much like Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Banshee, Gambit’s dialogue is often written with a thick phonetic accent, in this case a Cajun dialect.

Close Readings

A storyline involving Professor Xavier serves to make the metaphorical connection between mutants and racial and ethnic minorities unavoidable. In the story, bigoted students attack Professor Xavier, a clear hate crime, and an example of hate speech toward mutants is linked to hate speech that exists in the real world.

In
The Uncanny X-Men #192
(Apr. 1985), Professor Xavier has begun working as an adjunct professor at Columbia University where, though he has not revealed himself to be a mutant to the world, he does touch on the plight of mutants in his class. He is attempting to draw his students’ attention to the threat mutants face in an increasingly hostile world. As he explains to Storm,