X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor (22 page)

In terms of gender representation, the numbers skew heavily male. If we consider each issue a character appears in as one appearance and add up each character’s total number of appearances, team members appear for a cumulative total of 378 times in the first sixty-six issues of
The X-Men
. Of 378 appearances by members of the X-Men, 311 appearances represent male team members and 67 represent female team members. From 1965–1970, 82.3% of the team member appearances in individual issues are male, whereas 17.7% are female. This number will shift dramatically in later periods as the team becomes much more balanced in terms of gender representation.

In total, the X-Men battled 122 different villains in this period. Seventy-six (62.3%) were men, 44 (36.1%) had no applicable gender (most were robotic foes), and 2 (1.6%) were women (Scarlet Witch and a Savage Land “mutate” named Lorelei). There were 186 appearances by villains in these issues. One hundred eighty-six (71.0%) of those appearances were by men, 70 were by villains with no applicable gender, and 6 (2.3 percent) were by women.

One potential reason for so few female villains is Stan Lee’s belief that male villains were more popular. Even after he stopped writing the series, Lee was Marvel’s editor in chief and had a significant say in what was published. Roy Thomas explains:

[D]rawing on myth and legend, I devised a beautiful female Irish mutant called Banshee. Stan, though, informed me that super-villains were more popular than super-villanesses, so I had to make the Banshee a male. I got a few letters decrying my ignorance of the sex of banshees, but I was still fairly proud of our creation, especially the catchy green costume Werner designed. Still, when Marvel introduced the Banshee’s daughter Siryn years later, wearing her dad’s old costume, I sighed; that’s what the Banshee should have looked like, from the start! (507)

The only two female supervillains to appear are members of teams that are dominated in number and personality by men.

There were 39 characters in the supporting cast in this period. Twenty-nine (74.4%) were men and 10 (25.6%) were women. The characters in the supporting cast made 116 total appearances. Seventy-one (61.2%) appearances were by men, while 45 (38.8%) were by women.

Totaling the total number of X-Men, villains, and supporting cast in X-Men comics from the 1960s reveals that there were 170 distinct characters who appeared. Of these, 112 (65.9%) were men, 44 (25.9%) had no applicable gender, and 14 (8.2%) were women. There were 750 appearances by characters in these sixty-six issues. Of these, 568 (75.1%) were by men, 118 (15.6%) were by women, and 70 (9.3%) were by characters with no applicable gender.

In this period of
The X-Men
, the greatest proportion of characters are white and male. The females tend to be shown in passive or domestic roles and are the most likely team members to be captured or in need of rescue. The most diverse characters are the villains.

Period 2

In terms of racial representation, there is a trend toward greater diversity in terms of heroes, villains, and supporting cast when compared with the X-Men comic books from the 1960s. There are 17 characters who appear on the team in this period; of these, 13 (76.5%) are white, 1 (5.9%) is black, 1 (5.9%) is Jewish, 1 (5.9%) is Asian, and 1 (5.9%) is American Indian. Because Sunfire, who is Asian, quits the team in his second appearance, Thunderbird, who is American Indian, dies after three issues, and Kitty Pryde, who is Jewish, joins the team late in this period, the team is still heavily white during this time. There were 513 appearances by members of the X-Men in these seventy-four issues. Of these, 409 (79.73%) were by white characters, 74 (14.42%) were by a black character, 26 (5.07%) were by a Jewish character, 3 (0.58%) were by an American Indian character, and 1 (0.19%) was by an Asian character.

What these numbers seem to indicate is that while the team did diversify from its previous incarnation, when the team was 100% white, in terms of ethnic identity the X-Men remained overwhelmingly white. The team became much more international with respect to its membership, but in terms of what a comic book audience would see on the page the team remained mostly white and male.

As with the earlier period, the villains are much more diverse than the heroes. Of the 119 villains to appear, 52 (43.7%) were white, 8 (6.7%) had unknown race and ethnicity, 2 (1.7%) were black, 2 (1.7%) were Asian, 1 (0.8%) was Jewish, 1 (0.8%) was American Indian, and 1 (0.8%) was Middle Eastern. Additionally, 24 (20.2%) were aliens, 5 (4.2%) were demons, 22 (30%) were robots, and 1 (0.8%) was a living island. While the X-Men battled aliens in the 1960s, this period really cemented the interstellar aspect of the X-Men, with stories that alluded to popular films such as
Alien
and
Star Wars
.

In terms of appearances, there were 244 by villains. Almost all of these appearances were by white characters or aliens. White villains appeared 141 (57.8%) times, and aliens 43 (17.6%) times. The next most common villains were Jews with 8 (3.3%) appearances, robots with 30 (12.3%) appearances, demons with 5 (2.0%) appearances, black characters with 3 (1.2%) appearances, and American Indians with 2 (0.8%) appearances, and there was 1 (0.4%) appearance each by a Middle Eastern villain and a living island.

The supporting cast also was most often either white or alien. There were 74 characters in the supporting cast in this second era of X-Men comic books. Of these, 38 (51.4%) were white, 24 (32.4%) were alien, 4 (5.4%) were black, 3 (4.1%) were Asian, 2 (2.7%) were robotic, 1 (1.4%) was Jewish, 1 (1.4%) was American Indian, and 1 (1.4%) was demonic. Of the 326 guest appearances in these issues 178 (54.6%) were by white characters, 89 (27.3%) were by alien characters, 20 (6.1%) were by black characters, 17 (5.2%) were by Asian characters, 15 (4.6%) were by robotic characters, 4 (1.2%) were by a Jewish character, 2 (0.6%) were by an American Indian character, and 1 (0.3%) was by a demonic character.

Combing these numbers for the total, the numbers still bear out a comic book series heavily dominated by white characters that is still functioning as a metaphor about prejudice. There were 210 characters in these issues, and 103 (49.0%) of them were white. The next most common category was alien, with 48 (22.9%) characters. There were also 24 (11.4%) robotic characters, 8 (3.8%) characters with unknown race and ethnicity, 7 (3.3%) black characters, 6 (2.9%) demonic characters, 6 (2.9%) Asian characters, 3 (1.4%) Jewish characters, 3 (1.4%) American Indian characters, 1 (0.1%) Middle Eastern character, and 1 (0.1%) living island.

The actual appearances are even more dominated by white characters. Of 1,109 appearances, 755 (68.1%) were by white characters, 135 (12.2%) were by aliens, 97 (8.7%) were by black characters, 38 (3.4%) were by Jewish characters, 40 (3.6%) were by robotic characters, 21 (1.9%) were by Asian characters, 8 (0.7%) were by characters of unknown race and ethnicity, 7 (0.6%) were by American Indian characters, 6 (0.5%) were by demonic characters, 1 (0.1%) was by a Middle Eastern character, and 1 (0.1%) was by a living island. Notably, while Latinos had a few appearances as villains in the first period of X-Men comics, there were no appearances by Latinos at all in this period.

One aspect that should be considered when looking at these numbers is the problem presented by characters such as Nightcrawler, who is categorized as white, but who bears no resemblance to a white man because his mutant power has left him with blue fur. He does have an image inducer that hides his true appearance under a hologram when he goes out in public and wishes to pass as a human. When using this device, he chooses a white complexion (usually using Errol Flynn’s face). Nightcrawler is the only member of the X-Men in these issues who has no clear visible ethnic markers. His speech patterns do easily identify him as German.

With 68.4% of the appearances in the comic books from this period coming from white characters, the title looks more diverse than the comic books from the 1960s when 91.2% of the appearances were by white characters, but it is still not as diverse as one would expect from a comic book series dealing with the themes for which the X-Men are famous.

In terms of gender representation, this period of X-Men comics is much more balanced in some ways, but still very heavily male-oriented in others. The percentage of female representation on the team remains largely the same as in the 1960s, but the villains and especially the supporting cast are more evenly distributed between males and females.

Seventeen different characters appear as members of the X-Men in the seventy-four issues published in this period. Of these, 12 (70.6%) are male and 5 (29.4%) are female. This is a very slight increase percentagewise over the first period of X-Men comic books, when a smaller number of characters appearing on the team were 77.8% male and 22.2% female.
Giant Size X-Men #1
through
The Uncanny X-Men #166
did see a much greater turnover in team membership than the previous era. Whereas the core team of the X-Men appeared in almost all the first sixty-six issues of the series, in this second period Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine appear in all seventy-four issues, and the other twelve team members come and go, with some only appearing in two or three issues before leaving the team.

In terms of the number of appearances made by characters, the male members of the X-Men made 389 appearances while the female members of the team made 124. In total, 75.8% of appearances of team members in this period were by men, while 24.2% were by women. This represents a slightly higher percentage of appearances by women when compared with the 1960s X-Men comics, when 82.1% of the appearances by team members were by men and 17.9% by women.

In the first period of X-Men comic books, almost all of the villains they faced were men. They battled only two women. In this second period of X-Men comics the team faces more female villains who make more appearances. Of the 119 villains the X-Men battled, 85 (71.4%) were male, 19 (16.0%) were female, and 15 (12.5%) had no applicable gender, either because they were formless demons, aliens with no clear gender, or electronic villains. There were 244 appearances by villains in these issues, with 182 (74.6%) of those by men, 39 (16.0%) by women, and 23 (9.4%) by villains with no applicable gender.

The greatest change in gender representation occurs with the supporting cast. Several regular female supporting cast were introduced, including Moira MacTaggert and Lilandra. While both of these women serve as love interests for members of the team, Banshee and Professor Xavier, respectively, they are defined by much more than being simply the love interests for male characters. Moira MacTaggert fends of enemies by wielding machine guns in her first appearance and is one of the leading scientists on the mutant phenomenon on the planet. Lilandra is the empress of an entire alien empire. Although the female supporting cast in the 1960s were almost always simply defined as love interests, the female supporting cast in this period represent much greater character development.

Seventy-four characters guest starred in X-Men comic books in this period. Of these, 48 (64.9%) were male and 26 (35.1%) were female. In terms of appearances, however, the representation was much more balanced. Of 352 appearances by characters in the supporting cast, 179 (50.9%) were by men and 173 (49.1%) were by women.

In total, there were 210 characters who appeared between
Giant-Size X-Men #1
and
The Uncanny X-Men #166
. Of these 145 (69.0%) were male, 50 (23.8%) were female, and 15 (7.1%) had no identifiable gender. There were 1,109 appearances by characters in these issues. Of these 750 (67.6%) were by men, 336 (30.3%) were by women, and 23 (2.1%) were by characters with no identifiable gender. This represents a significant increase in female representation from the first period of X-Men comic books.

Period 3

In this third period there is a slight increase in diversity on the team, though overall the series becomes more dominated by white characters than it had been in the previous period of X-Men comics. This period is the most balanced of all in terms of gender representation.

Although the diversity of the X-Men increases overall in this period, the diversity of the overall cast of characters decreases, as a higher total percentage of characters and appearances in this period are by white characters when compared with the period between
Giant-Size X-Men #1
and
The Uncanny X-Men #166
. The series is still more diverse, statistically speaking, when compared with the issues published in the 1960s.

Of the 19 characters to appear on the X-Men, 13 (68.4%) are white, 2 (10.5%) are Jewish, 2 (10.5%) are Asian, 1 (5.3%) is American Indian, and 1 (5.3%) is black. Strictly speaking, only 18 characters appeared as X-Men, but because Psylocke appeared in two different bodies with different ethnicities, each version of the character is counted as distinct for the purposes of this analysis. There were 639 appearances by characters on the X-Men in this period. Of these, 471 (73.7%) were by white characters, 83 (12.9%) were by a black character, 42 (6.6%) were by Jewish characters, 28 (4.0%) were by Asian characters, and 19 (3.7%) were by an American Indian character.

As has been the case in every period analyzed so far, the villains are more diverse than the heroes. Of the 143 villains to appear, 96 (67.1%) were white characters, 14 (9.8%) were alien characters, 8 (5.6%) were Asian characters, 7 (4.9%) had no known race or ethnicity, 4 (2,8%) were robotic characters, 5 (3.5%) were black characters, 4 (2.8%) were American Indian characters, 4 (2.8%) were demonic characters, 2 (1.4%) were of unknown ethnicity, and 1 (0.7%) was a Middle Eastern character. Of the 514 appearances by villains, 347 (67.5%) were by white characters, 26 (5.1%) were by alien characters, 36 (7.0%) were by Asian characters, 21 (4.1%) were by robotic characters, 19 (3.7%) were by American Indian characters, 18 (3.5%) were by black characters, 17 (3.3%) were by characters with no known racial or ethnic identity, 17 (3.3%) were by demonic characters, 13 (2.5%) were by characters with unknown ethnic origin, and 13 (2.5%) were by a Middle Eastern character.