X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor (2 page)

For Carey, the world of superhero comic books can become more relevant to readers by having issues that mirror the world the reader lives in. Many other writers have also identified these elements and believe they are key to the success of the X-Men franchise.

Comic book writer Mark Millar believes much of the popularity the X-Men series is because it embraces the role of the minority:

The success [of the X-Men], I think, is for two reasons. The first is that, creatively, the book was close to perfect [in the 1970s and 1980s.. . .] But the other reason is that it was a book about being different in a culture where, for the first time in the West, being different wasn’t just accepted, but was also fashionable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that gay rights, black rights, the empowerment of women and political correctness all happened over those twenty years and a book about outsiders trying to be accepted was almost the poster-boy for this era in American culture. (DeFalco 252)

However, being a minority is not the only reason one may gravitate to the X-Men. Feeling alienated by society is not the exclusive domain of any one group. Although racism, sexism, and homophobia are forms or prejudice that alienate groups of people, many people still feel alienated from society without being targets of those kinds of prejudice.

Fabian Nicieza, a writer of many X-Men comic books in the 1990s, does not subscribe to the idea that the mutant metaphor correlates to any specific group. The power of the metaphor is in the ability of any reader to find some way to relate to it:

“Mutants” does not equal one specific aspect of societal prejudices, mutants equal ALL prejudice. Be it race, creed, gender, culture, nationality, sexual orientation, the notion of being feared or despised simply because you are “different” is not owned by any one segment of the population, but rather, ironically, owned by all of us at one time or another in our lives, and that is why the X-books always flourished after their relaunch, because nearly all readers could empathize with their plight. Even if the “tragedy” you empathized with was because during your teen years you had a lot of acne, it didn’t diminish the fact that you still understood what it meant to feel “different.” Of course, people see things through their own eyes, their own experiences, their own pains, and therefore subscribe their own specific interpretations on their entertainment, usually angling it towards a position that speaks to their own needs, but if you take an aerial view rather than a ground level view, you have to realize the concept is an umbrella that covers everything, not just one specific societal group. (Nicieza)

As Nicieza points out, it does not take much to make a teenager feel like an isolated outsider. That may be one reason the concept of mutants appealed to young comic book readers. Within the X-Men comic book, mutant powers typically begin manifesting with the onset of puberty. One of the largest target audiences of comic book publishers are teenagers, and they may have found some form of association with the concept of characters who began to feel they were different from everyone else as they entered their teenage years.

Ron Richards, a comic book commentator and cofounder of the website
iFanboy.com
, believes that

the basic premise that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby came up, the idea of being like humans but slightly different as mutants was a direct allegory to the isolation that a regular teenager often feels. Things like “am I normal? Do I fit in? I feel different” etc., but manifested through developing super powers. This concept was one that many of us comic readers, especially who started reading in our teens (like I did) immediately connected with. (Richards)

Kurt Busiek, a prominent comic book writer, echoes these sentiments:

[A]dolescents feel like “the other,” so that sense of being alienated, not being understood, the fear that people won’t like you if they know your true self—and the sense of relief at finding others like yourself is also part of adolescence. So just like Harry Potter resonates strongly with young readers, with its sense of alienation relieved by access to a secret world where the fact that you’re “special” is a plus, not a minus, X-Men classically had the same kind of thrill of recognition to nerdy kids. It says, “Those other people don’t like you because they don’t understand you, but you’re secretly a hero.” It’s a very attractive message to an adolescent reader. [. . .] That teenage alienation can be used as a way to show the inequities of prejudice against
anyone
is the magic of the genre. Ideas become metaphors, symbols that can then be shown to fit other ideas, and through that we learn to identify with people who aren’t obviously like ourselves, because we know that inside, they are. (Busiek)

These interpretations of the concept of “mutant” remove some of the metaphor of institutionalized racism or sexism that have been identified with the X-Men series, instead favoring a more universal appeal to the idea of being different. However, they do not negate those themes; indeed, this broad inclusive interpretation of the mutant metaphor ensures that elements of racism, sexism, or homophobia
can
be read into the series.

At times, writers have discovered that the X-Men has attracted fans they never would have expected. Scott Lobdell, a writer of X-Men comics and creator of several mutant characters, shared the following experience.

One of the most astounding things that ever happened in my life was at a store signing in Florida at the height of the X-Mania (or my wild ride at the time). I was given an adorable eighteen-year-old handler to get me from the motel to the diner to the store and such. We were talking at one point and she was saying how much her brother and his friends love the X-Men and how my writing spoke to them as outsiders who stick together because of their outsider status. As [the writer] who outed Northstar [the first gay superhero in mainstream comics] years before, I assumed her brother and his friends were gay. I was surprised when she explained, no, they were skinheads—specifically white supremacists. What?! My first inclination was to explain that her brother and his friends had completely not gotten the ideals of inclusion and tolerance that the X-Men stood for. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn’t really have my cake and eat it too. I couldn’t say the X-Men is about finding strength in being the other and then get upset because the other didn’t fit my definition of what I felt was acceptable otherness. Don’t get me wrong, when you look at the flip side of Xavier’s inclusionary viewpoint, you get Magneto’s almost Nazi-esque Master Race thesis. To the degree that this girl’s brother was not running around and gay bashing or involved in hate crimes, the notion that a sub-section of society felt they needed to come together because what made them them was threatened . . . or that they were looking to find strength in each other? That strikes me as valid as other others gravitating to the X-Men. (Lobdell)

This experience is evidence that there is no single interpretation for X-Men comic books. Some writers may write with specific points of view, but readers are under no obligation to share that point of view.

This is, of course, true of any narrative. Once it is removed from the creator’s head and released into the wild, consumers may have wildly different reactions than intended. Because of this, there are myriad valid avenues of interpretation available that may prove enlightening. This study will look primarily at the portrayal of race and gender in the comic book series, but there are many other potential readings of the series. Choosing to examine the roles of race and gender in the X-Men series highlights some ways the mutant metaphor is functioning, but in no way is meant to invalidate any of the many other interpretations that might enlighten understanding about the series itself, the creators, or the consumers of this entertainment.

A Brief History of the X-Men

The X-Men
was not an instant success, but the concept of a team of outsiders was one that would become common in the superhero genre. The minority metaphor inherent in the comic book allows for exploration of issues not commonly associated with what is often considered a juvenile genre. Michael Chabon says, “The X-Men are the most consciously, deliberately, successfully metaphorical of any comic book superhero” (
Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked
). Perhaps it is for the deliberate metaphor that the X-Men would eventually become one of the most successful comic book franchises in history. Although the comic book initially struggled to find an audience, Marvel has nurtured the adventures of mutants into one of the largest and highest-selling areas of their publishing line.

When they first appeared, the X-Men were not as popular as Marvel’s other titles such as
The Amazing Spider-Man
or
The Fantastic Four
. After the first several issues were written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, with moderate sales success, different creative teams were rotated in to try to increase interest as sales began to wane. After sixty-six issues of original stories, Marvel began to reprint the earlier issues and ceased production of new X-Men stories. Oddly, the decision was made to continue the issue numbering system with the reprints, so that although
X-Men #66
(Mar. 1970) was the last new story, the first reprint occurred in
X-Men #67
(Dec. 1970). Eventually, when Marvel again began to publish new X-Men comics, the series continued the numbering beginning with
X-Men #94
(Aug. 1975).
X-Men #67
through
X-Men #93
are all reprints, whereas every other issue in the run is an original comic. This is not the standard practice in the industry, and
The X-Men
is unique as a long-running series with a significant number of issues consisting of reprinted issues.

In 1975 Marvel decided to relaunch the title, and it did so to great critical acclaim and financial success. New writers, artists, and characters were key to the success of this relaunch. The X-Men were reintroduced to the public with a one-shot comic book in 1975 entitled
Giant-Size X-Men
(the title referred to the extra number of pages in the issue, not any abnormally large stature of the X-Men themselves). When that issue sold well, the series was officially relaunched with Chris Claremont writing. Claremont would continue to write the title for sixteen consecutive years, leaving in 1991, but he has occasionally revisited the title since 2000. Bradford W. Wright explains some changes made in the relaunch:

Between 1977 and 1981 Claremont and artist John Byrne transformed it from a second-tier monthly title to the best selling in the industry. [Much of this success was because] Claremont created strong female characters who played more than the token supporting role traditionally allotted to women in comic books. [These strong women] helped to expand the title’s appeal across the gender barrier, and
The
X-Men
became one of the very few superhero titles to win a significant female following. (263)

The series, newly christened
The Uncanny X-Men
, though continuing the original numbering, would quickly rank among the most popular titles. The title was so popular that Marvel would shortly publish spin-off series focusing on mutant characters. These included
Dazzler
, about a mutant disco singer/superhero, and
The New Mutants
, about the next generation of mutants being trained to protect the world. These spin-offs were just the beginnings of an avalanche of X-Men–related comic books. The single highest-selling issue in comic book history was
X-Men
#1
, published in 1991. This new series was created to allow two teams of the core X-Men characters to have published adventures each month. The first issue was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Jim Lee and sold an unprecedented eight million copies. By comparison, the top-selling titles in 2013 are fortunate to sell three hundred thousand copies in the direct market.

Due to the popularity of the series since the 1975 relaunch, Marvel Comics has published many other titles that are closely tied to the X-Men franchise. Other books featuring teams of mutants and solo titles featuring popular X-Men characters in their own adventures are prominent on the comic book shelves. At some periods there have been almost twenty X-Men–related comic books published per month. With so many publications, the narrative continuity can become confusing, especially because so many titles are interconnected.

In some instances it is impossible to work out a logical connection between characters’ appearances in the shared Marvel universe, which ostensibly is meant to be telling one grand narrative. For example, in a single month in 2010 the character of Wolverine appeared in the monthly comics
Wolverine
,
Wolverine: Weapon X
,
Dark Wolverine
,
The Uncanny X-Men
,
X-Men: Legacy
,
Astonishing X-Men
,
X-Force
,
and
New Avengers
, as well as appearing in limited series such as
Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine
. Additionally, Marvel publishes comic books that are not part of the core Marvel universe continuity. So they may publish a comic book aimed at younger readers featuring a version of Wolverine that is less savage, but the story and characters are not meant to connect to the character appearing in
Uncanny X-Men
. Or they may publish alternate reality versions of the character, such as
Wolverine Noir
, which reimagines the character as a film noir private eye, again with this version of the character having no relation to the core Marvel universe.

The sheer volume of comic books published by Marvel relating to the mutant characters is too broad and vast to be exhaustively analyzed in this project. To understand the amount of material published relating to the X-Men, a brief introduction to some of the terminology associated with comic book publishing is necessary. A single comic book today is likely to have twenty-two pages of content. Publishers produce one-shot stories that tell a complete story in one issue and are not part of a continuing series. There are also miniseries that tell a story over two to six issues, maxiseries that usually tell a story across twelve issues, and ongoing series that generally produce an issue on a monthly basis and are launched with the goal of never ceasing publication. Also, companies may publish graphic novels, which are longer self-contained stories, often with one hundred pages or more of content published in a single volume. Although ongoing series do have storylines that end, the series itself is meant to continue so long as it is profitable. Often there are subplots that continue while the main storyline wraps up after four to six issues. The beginning of the next plotline is often introduced in the same issue the previous storyline concludes. One-shots, miniseries, maxiseries, and graphic novels are likely to have the same creative team from beginning to end, whereas monthly ongoing series may have the creative team change at any point.