X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor (6 page)

[T]he commercial generates a series of racially coded dyads underscoring the essentialism of American sports discourse. Its central set of antitheses, the catcher and the base-stealing outfielder, organizes a barely submerged belief system regarding the respective qualities of the races. The white catcher is cerebral, defensive, disciplined, protecting, fundamentally sound, and perhaps not very athletic by nature. Conversely the black outfielder is physical, offensive, reckless, stealing, flashy, and graced with an innate natural athleticism. (114)

It is interesting that the first instance of the general public reacting negatively toward a mutant in an X-Men comic book occurs at a sporting event. And the script makes a point that the majority wants to believe there is some cause other than talent that would allow a member of a minority to surpass them. The superiority of the majority cannot be questioned. Although in this instance there is in fact a distinct advantage—superpowers—that the Toad possesses, the logic of the angry crowd is the same type of thinking that allows tales of extra muscles in African Americans to be perpetuated through decades in locker rooms and now on online forums.

In
The X-Men #8
(Nov. 64), published more than a year after the X-Men first appeared,
5
we see a crowd of normal humans reacting with fear and hatred to a mutant. The crowd that had threatened the Toad in
The X-Men #5
(May 1964)
had no direct knowledge he was a mutant. The dialogue makes it clear that at the track meet the group believes they are watching a fraud, not neccesarily a mutant. The incident in
The X-Men #8
(Nov. 1964) begins when the Beast climbs the side of a building to save a young boy. The crowd below identifies him as a mutant and immediately begins to react as Merton’s “prejudiced discriminators.” Not only do the members of the crowd question the humanity of the Beast, pointing out that he ran up the building “like a gorilla,” but they begin to voice conspiracies about mutantkind. Mutants are “waiting to take over the world,” and the Beast “just saved that kid to throw us off guard . . . to make us think mutants aren’t dangerous!” And then a threat is uttered, as the panel focuses on the clenched fist of a man; a voice bubble reads, “Let’s get ’im, before he loses himself in the crowd.”

In the intervening issues—between
#2
, when a crowd of women adore the Angel, and
#8
, when a crowd threatens the Beast—there is no narrative explanation given for the change in attitudes toward mutants. Despite his code name, the Beast did not look terribly different from normal humans, only having larger hands and feet. By contrast, the Angel had wings sprouting from his back, thus marking him more clearly as a mutant. So why is there such a dramatic shift in tone?

It is entirely possible that the heightened debates and tensions in the country surounding the Civil Rights movement influenced Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was proposed in June 1963. This is approximately the time when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby may have worked on the first issue of X-Men, which had a cover date of September 1963. The public debate about prejudice and discrimination may have lead to the inclusion of Professor X’s statements in the first issue of the X-Men warning of potential discrimination. The Civil Rights Act was passed in July of 1964. In the time leading up to its passage, and at the time of its passage, news outlets covered horrific acts of discrimination and blatant hatred, such as a hotel manager pouring acid into a swimming pool because African Americans and whites were swimming in it together.

Although the idea of using prejudice as a central theme was present in the dialogue of X-Men comics from the first issue, the representations of prejudice did not come until over a year later. The public debate, the news coverage concerning discrimination, and the political movement of the times likely galvanized what was an idea in the creators’ minds into the central theme of the series. Or at least, it is the central theme while Lee is writing the series, as there is a distinct tonal shift when Roy Thomas comes on as writer. It may have taken a year to discover how to wed the ideas of mutants and prejudice together, but it was an idea Lee would continue to explore while writing the series and one that would become the primary focus of the series after the 1975 relaunch. This is not surprising, as other aspects of the series, such as the Beast’s scientific bent and pseudo-intellectual dialogue, were not introduced for a few issues either. The X-Men evolved as the series progressed in tone, characterization, and theme.

Lee and Kirby, who had Werner Roth finish the pencils on these issues, had one last tale with prejudice as the central theme before Kirby would move on to other projects. A three-part story would introduce one of the most iconic villains in X-Men comic books: the Sentinels. The Sentinels are giant robots built by Dr. Bolivar Trask with the purpose of protecting mankind from the threat of mutants. The Sentinels, however, will not simply wait for mutants to become threatening; they will actively hunt mutants. The first part of the story, “Among Us Stalk . . . The Sentinels!” was published in
The X-Men #14
(Nov. 1965) and featured a televised debate between Professor Xavier and Dr. Trask. Professor Xavier argues that “[b]efore giving way to groundless fears, we must first consider—What is a mutant? He is not a monster! He is not neccesarily a menace! He is merely a person who was born with different power or ability than the average human!” (328). Pierre Comtois argues that in this issue “Lee has spelled out the series’ racist subtext, that the hatred and distrust of mutants is nothing but a thinly veiled metaphor for the real world’s prejudices” (107). But the reactions from the crowd do not reflect racist bigotry; they express prejudices against intellectual elites (“What would an egg-headed old stuffed-shirt like him know?”) and political ideologies (“I’ll bet he’s a Communist!” and “He looks more like one of them right-wingers to me!”), but not against mutants (107). The storyline itself features overt actions taken against mutants because they are born different from the majority of humanity, making the racial element a metaphorical theme.

The most interesting character arc in the Sentinels story belongs to Trask, the creator of the mutant-hunting robots. Trask begins the story as a clear bigot, claiming that mankind will be enslaved by mutants. His fear and hatred of mutants drove him to construct the Sentinels as “guardians of the human race” (329). To Trask’s surprise, the Sentinels do not obey his orders, instead revealing that because their decisions are logical and not influenced by human emotions and frailties, it is in the best interest of the humans to take orders from the Sentinels. In
The X-Men #15
(Dec. 1965), the Sentinels tell Trask, “We can only guard the human race by becoming its master! Humans are too weak, too foolish to govern themselves. Henceforth, we shall rule!!” (351). Not only does Trask see his creations spin out of his control, he sees that the X-Men fight for themselves but are also willing to sacrifice themselves to protect a city of normal humans. In the following issue, just before sacrificing his own life to prevent an army of Sentinels from being created, Trask realizes that “[i]n my ignorance, in my fear, I created an evil far greater than the menace it was built to destroy!” (383). The finale reveals that the true evil was fear and ignorance, and that, just as significantly, fear and ignorance can be overcome. Lee and Kirby had toyed with reluctant villains before in the X-Men—Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver only served Magneto because he had previously saved their lives—but Trask is the first villain to fully reform in the series.

Following Stan Lee as writer was Roy Thomas. Although Lee and Kirby had launched many very successful superhero comics for Marvel,
The X-Men
was struggling for sales. Perhaps it was for this reason that Thomas introduced a different tone to the series. The first set of Thomas issues have the X-Men fighting past villains, such as the Blob. These issues had been plotted before he became the writer, with Thomas only adding dialogue. As Thomas explains of his first issue,
The X-Men #20
(May 1966), “The book had already been plotted and even drawn by Werner Roth when I was given it to script. Stan didn’t take any plotting credit in the printed book. For all I know Werner may have plotted the book himself” (DeFalco 21). When Thomas began giving the series his own twists, he made the book more similar to the other titles Marvel was publishing. The X-Men ceased fighting evil mutants or threats such as the Sentinels and began fighting supervillains who had already appeared in other Marvel comic books. Eventually Thomas would return the X-Men to the themes that Lee and Kirby established. The end of Thomas’s run on the series includes some very overt condemnations of prejudice.

Although making the X-Men more like Marvel’s other titles may have been logical from a certain business perspective, it did take away some of the unique qualities of the series. Rather than being a series that was tackling a relevant issue, the title became a fight-of-the-month series. In
X-Men
#22
(July 1966), the X-Men fought a group of supervillains that included such uninspired characters as Unicorn, Plantman, the Scarecrow, Porcupine, and the Eel. In
The X-Men #24
(Sept. 24), “The Plague of Locusts,”
a conveniently named Dr. Hopper attacks the world with a plague of giant grasshoppers in what seems like the plot from a science fiction B movie from the 1950s. Soon the X-Men would fight villains more traditionally associated with the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. At least some fans took note of the change in tone. Many Marvel comic books feature a letters column, in which letters from fans are published and the editor of the comic book responds to the questions or complaints or praises the fan voices. The letters column is obviously a very mediated forum—the editor carefully selects what letters to publish—but it was used as a tool for Marvel to create a sense of belonging amongst their fans. In the first letters column, appearing in
The X-Men #5
(May 1964),
Kenny Crowe wrote in saying, “I like the Homo Superior and Homo Sapiens bit in The X-Men. It tends to give the magazine something besides just ‘good guys vs. bad guys’” (129). But it was not uncommon to see letters that were critical of the creative direction of the series published in the column. For example, the letters page of
The X-Men #29
(Feb. 1967)
includes a letter by Ronald Ford which reads:

Awright! Enough is enough! It used to be that I liked the X-Men better than any of your titles. They were mutants, feared, not trusted, always on the side of humanity fighting evil mutants. So what happens? You turn these evil-mutant fighters into crummy super-villain combaters. You’ve turned an instant hit into a flop. So bring back evil mutants—singly or in a group—in the sensational tradition of The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Their purpose is supposed to be fighting mutants such as these. Leave the super-villains to your other costumed do-gooders. C’Mon, give it some thought! (690)

Marvel’s lighthearted response to Ford’s letter was to point out that they had previously received many letters complaining about using Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants too often in their stories.

Though the use of mutants as a metaphor for minorities was lessened in this time, the diversity of the title actually increased. Of course, with a previously all-white cast, the likelihood of diversifying was pretty good. However, increasing the diversity of a comic book cast does not inherently include a sensitive portrayal of other cultures.
The X-Men #25
(Oct. 1966) features the first significant characters to appear who are not white Americans. The main villain of the issue, El Tigre, and his two henchmen come from the fictional Central American nation of San Rico. The three villains contain many stereotypes of Latin American culture. One henchman dresses in a mariachi outfit, and the other dresses in a poncho. They wield bolos, a machete, and poisoned darts. In a comic book universe that frequently features heavy sci-fi elements for American protagonists, Central America has not yet discovered guns, much less lasers.

Thomas would also introduce two mutants who would later become part of a more international team of X-Men. The Banshee is an Irish mutant who first appears as a villain, later becomes a sometimes ally of the X-Men, and becomes a full-fledged member of the team in the 1975 relaunch. As
X-Men
was nearing the end of its initial run of original issues, Thomas also introduced the Japanese mutant, Sunfire, as a villain. Banshee and Sunfire never became members of the X-Men during this period, but Havok and Polaris, two white mutants, did join the team. Appearances of minority mutants increased, but the team remained composed of entirely white American members.

In addition to diversifying the characters appearing in the series, the back-up stories Marvel began publishing, which revealed the origins of the individual X-Men characters, had a much stronger anti-prejudice bent than the main stories did. Thomas was the writer for the majority of these back-up stories. One of the first instances of Cyclops using his powers in public is related. Cyclops uses his optic blasts to disintegrate a crate that was falling from a construction site and would have killed the crowd below. With a rather illogical reaction, the crowd immediately wants to attack Cyclops. One member of the crowd yells, “He must’a been some kind of mutant . . . a monster with deadly powers!” To which a man in a bow tie and bowler hat replies, “Then . . . he’s more dangerous than a falling crate . . . by far!” Irrational fear and hatred of mutants has returned to the title, at least in the back-up stories.

Following the series of back-up stories that established Cylops’s origin, Iceman was the next member of the X-Men to have his past revealed beginning in back-up stories in
The X-Men #44
(May 1968). When an encounter with a bully ends with Iceman revealing his mutant powers, the small town quickly turns against him.