I'm going to do this with minimal spoilers because I think there's a potential that comic book cinema fans might sleep on this movie and I think it would be a shame, but there are very minor spoilers so beware.
It has been a while since I saw a superhero film that is this free of cynicism and shame about itself. While not as bright and shiny as Superman, I think its interesting that this comes on the heels of Marvel's Thunderbolts* which, despite obvious comparisons to Suicide Squad and Deadpool, was also a radically earnest film. It would seem this is the year that superhero films dig down deep and embrace sincerity.
Which is not to say that the medium is necessarily insincere, but there's certainly been a long conversation within the medium from release to release about what sorts of stories you can tell and the tone. If Ironman showed up on the scene with dry wit as if to say "sure I'm a superhero movie, but I'm not that kind of superhero movie." Gestures to Batman & Robin "I'm cool." Then Avengers Endgame shattered us all by allowing ourselves to become emotionally invested and in doing so, elevating the genre to high art.
Now with talk of whether audiences are bored, Superman is back and he's brought bright colors and idealism as if this were the pre-9/11 world again.
30 years ago, when I was still in grade school, I can't help but think that James Gunn's Superman would have read as an aggressively "hip to be square" sort of film. Its hero is vested with awe inspiring power but chooses to be humble and kind. He shames more with his example than he does a stern lecture. He seeks not worldly riches or accolades. Not that he isn't sensitive to having his motives misunderstood.
While a hegemonic society sired him, loving parents instilled this refugee with a passion for service and a hatred of no one and nothing but small minded cruelty. Superman is a classic "coming to America" story of a sort that is regarded now as corny at best, imperialistic at worst. The subtext of Superman has always been one of assimilation and assimilation seems to be lonelier than it used to be, with its culturally conservative friends viewing assimilation as a lie and assimilation's culturally progressive friends viewing assimilation as hegemonic.
Both takes tend to de-emphasize Superman's role as an aspirational figure. As a symbol. A secular fable even. Like many of our icons, Superman's beginnings are influenced by American Jews locked out of more "respectable" writing and illustrating trades but nevertheless desiring to tell stories about a larger than life figure who embodies the virtues that his creators want to see in the world.
Like my beloved Star Trek, I also think of good superhero stories as secular fables and tall tales. They reflect back at us our anxieties about the present but also model behaviors we should seek to emulate. Where Paul Bunyan was industrious and courageous, a master of the frontier in keeping with that era's fixation on mastery of nature; Superman has no frontiers to conquer, rather he is a protector of the weak. Like America, he has a choice about how he uses his vast and seemingly limitless power and his creators were quietly expressing a preference with their words and illustrations. Captain America Brave New World is very much a part of this conversation and its a conversation Superman 2025 doesn't shrink away from participating in.
What makes this Superman stand out is his arrival at a time where there is tremendous anxiety over what it means to be a man and a lot of cultural energy trying to push a vision of power that is comfortable with violence not merely as regrettable necessary but as an end unto itself. We see this in the co-opting of the aesthetic of the Punisher and a culture of viewing oneself as a stand in for Frank Castle: betrayed and left for dead by (pick your villain: society, the elite, the cabal, effete hypocrites) and with this cosplay comes the dream of being Frank Castle, of having an excuse to express some sort of deep rage through violence. The content mines of cable TV, Substack, social media etc. fill up with bros imagining scenarios in which they might have a reason to unleash hell on their foes.
The return of bright, unfiltered color to the superhero film is a declaration that fearlessness is called for in times of sepia malaise. To be muted is to succumb to the feeling that nothing can ever be good again. That to be unashamed is shameful.
Shining brightly is to be unashamed but this is not the same as being shameless. Superman is unashamed because he has nothing to be ashamed of. He has a conscience and it is clean. Lex Luthor is shameless for he cannot be shamed. There is a black hole where his conscience should be. An inadequacy that drinks up all light and goodness because he can never be satisfied. He cannot abide the use of power for ends other than his own glorification so he must humiliate and destroy anyone and everything that might distract from his supremacy.
Superman is a character and a film that has not given up on leading by example and this too matters when fatigue and fear are pervasive. Everyone has their own tolerance for risk and there is safety in numbers. Rare is the person who wants to fight a hopeless battle rather than slink away and hope to endure. This is what superheroes do at the end of the day: they pick the fights mortals might find too big and impossible.
Except when they don't.
The Justice Gang are reminiscent of Captain America from X-Men 97 in that they've accepted the bargain that is "going legit." They aren't simply vigilantes taking the law and public interest into their own hands while owning the consequences all on their own. They can access vast resources to achieve much more than they could ever do on their own, but their hands are tied in certain situations. Which is where shame, specifically the shame of seeing someone do the thing you know is right but isn't comfortable represents the loudest of calls to action.
Speaking of action, just a minor bit of praise for Gunn's craft and genre savvy. This is where there might be the most minor of minor spoilers. This movie starts immediately. No 30 - 45 minutes of throat clearing, origin stories, and training montages. You know who Superman is. Your kids may not, somehow, but they know how superhero stories work. What James Gunn does is not introduce us to Superman the character, he introduces us to his Superman. Because that's what is actually important: what is this Superman's character? What drives him? What sort of person is he?
We get our answer real quick: he can't quit. He can't look away. He has to help.
I'm sick and tired of the glorification of The Punisher. Frank Castle is a sick man whose happy place is being in a war and it doesn't really matter what or who he's warring against. He never started this crusade for revenge. If it was for revenge, then he would've gone home like 3 weeks in to Punishering it up.
Frank Castle is not a hero. He’s not some tough-as-nails, misunderstood anti-hero. He’s not some tough teeth gritting vigilante with a heart of gold. You're thinking of Wolverine. No, he’s a murderer. Plain and simple. That’s his whole thing. That’s what he does. That’s all he does. He doesn’t fight for justice, he doesn’t save people; he kills. And yet, people still put him on this twisted pedestal, like he’s the symbol of the moral gray and justification. And I’m so sick of it.
Yeah, sure, this is the Marvel Universe, where logic bends, where guys in tights throw buildings and teenagers can swing between skyscrapers like it’s no big deal. Ethics get fuzzy when you have gods and mutants and billionaire playboys. But what Frank does goes beyond all of that. Because Frank Castle is a bad man. A sick man. A man whose entire life is wrapped up in a never-ending war he never really wanted to end.
He lives in a van or warehouse full of guns and weapons, and he’s still out there, free, because he's too violent, too ruthless for anyone to deal with. Nobody stops him. Nobody can truly stop him. Not because he's some anti-hero with a tragic backstory. Once again, you're thinking of Wolverine. It's because he's a walking, talking, killing machine who’ll unload a clip in your face before you even think about it. People think he’s a badass. They think he’s cool. No. He’s a psychopath. A man who is only happy and defines himself by being in the middle of a war.
Don’t get me wrong; I like the character. I really do. But, I read his comics the way you might watch a true crime documentary about Jeffrey Dahmer. You’re not rooting for Dahmer. You’re horrified by him. But you’re fascinated. You’re trying to understand what makes a person tick when their clock is so broken. That’s The Punisher. There’s something raw, something almost cathartic about watching one man wage his own war against crime with no empathy, no mercy, just a hell of a lot of ultraviolence. And yeah, everyone gets in that mood every once in a while.
But here’s what gets me: people out there, actual people, glorify this. They paint his skull on their cars, their jackets, their walls. They act like he’s some kind of symbol of tough love or real justice. But Frank Castle would hate that. He’s said it himself — "Captain America would love to have you. I would not." He despises anyone who sees him as a role model because he knows what he is. He’s not confused. He’s not conflicted. He’s not trying to be a better person. One more time, you're thinking of Wolverine. Frank Castle is a monster.
And he knows it.
So let’s call it out. Call out the people who put Frank Castle on a pedestal like he’s something to aspire to. You wanna read a tough teeth gritting vigilante? Go read Frank Miller’s Batman or Daredevil. You want someone morally gray, someone who actually grapples with the weight of what they do? Check out Moon Knight. But if you want to peer into the mind of a deeply broken, deeply dangerous man, then yeah, read The Punisher. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking he’s anything other than what he is: a guy who likes to kill people, who lives to kill people, and who’s damn good at it.
This is in relation to this post, about how the supersoldier serum allegedly corrupts (T'Challa and Extremis are not included, first because they are not supersoldier serum-based)
The scoring is a bit arbitrary, but the logic goes as follows:
Bucky and Isaiah received the serum as part of involuntary experimentation (though in case of Isaiah this is extrapolated from the comics). Bucky post recovery fights brutally, but generally in self-defense. Isaiah seems completely normal.
Bruce took the serum voluntarily, but was ignorant of its true purpose, and while the Hulk is hugely destructive, he lacks an ideological drive.
The Winter Soldier Five (after dropping their new album) allegedly volunteered for the cause and are destructive and unhinged, but ultimately just drones.
Walker went unhinged, but in the name of avenging his murdered friend.
Karli wants to tear the world down and built a new one, collateral damage be damned, enough said.
Ditto Red Skull, only with a Nazi slant.
You might think Steve never went mad, but we have seen him when Tony hurt Bucky. We didn't see the immediate aftermath of Bucky's first death, we did however hear Steve a day or so later, swearing to kill or imprison everyone wearing the same uniform, in revenge for the death of one soldier.
EG!Steve took possession of a device which gives him control of the fabric of reality and used it for his own gain.
There is a pretty clear pattern here, and exceptions to the supersoldier madness seem to be correlated to whether the subject wanted the serum in the first place. So. Zemo was demonstrably wrong. There were/are other Steve Rogerses. It’s just Steve was not among them.
Its rare for any incarnation of the X-Men to not have incredibly smart things to say about bigotry, authority, organizing, and power, but X-Men '97 is killing it.
However, I think people who are too quick to get behind Rogue or are offended on Captain America's behalf are missing out on just how sophisticated '97's understanding of power and authority is.
Lets get this out of the way: I take a "yes, and" stance on power and social organizing.
I think its incredibly difficult to holistically understand movements and declare this "helped" the cause and that "hurt" the cause. It all depends on how you calibrate your rubric for success and how you understand how influential a person, group, or action really was.
What I see in the X-Men in all incarnations are some of the most iconic and thorniest debates about inside or institutional power vs outside, autonomous organizing and power, about assimilation or separatism.
Reasonable people recognize these are highly contingent arguments without clear, unambiguous or ethically pure answers.
Which is a rich meal for an ethics nerd like myself and I am having the most amazing time watching and thinking about X-Men '97 and the issues it raises.
So lets get into this!
Spoilers for X-Men '97 episode 7 "Bright Eyes"
Rogue's encounter with Captain America on the hunt for Bolivar Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, is probably the most commented on and debated scene on my social media feeds (as of this writing.)
Those who take Rogue's side in the exchange of words and that epic Frisbee hurl make very familiar and painful arguments. The system Captain America represents and Captain America himself have consistently let mutants down. Where were the Avengers when Genosha burned?
Which is a damn good question considering there are multiple Avengers and Avengers adjacent characters who are confirmed as existing in Earth 92131 who could conceivably have been able to learn about the attack in near real time and react in real time. Thor is very likely to have been tipped off by the likes of Heimdal or other mystical means and can cross continental distances in moments. Doctor Strange likewise could portal over the moment he found out about it, along with anyone else he could rustle up.
SHIELD and essentially any other entity with orbital surveillance would likely have learned about the attack the moment their satellites overflew Genosha. Given the world's jitters over Genosha, I'm having a hard time believing Genosha wasn't being monitored around the clock. However, knowledge doesn't translate into the ability to respond faster than a Quinjet can reach the island.
Now there's an unsatisfying Watsonian explanation here in the form that this is a common trope: all of the world's heroes are somehow busy or ignorant when really big stuff is going down. The Doylist lens would remind us that this is endemic to superhero stories and kind of required for suspense, except when its time to do the big team up story.
So if we want to be generous to Earth's Mightiest Heroes, "they didn't know or were busy or couldn't reach Genosha in time" is an explanation we can fall back on. Thor and Doctor Strange do have to sleep sometime and its not as if they don't have other responsibilities that take them off world or off this plane of existence. Most of the other superheroes known to exist in Earth-92131 could have an out in that they may not have had the means to become aware of the attack in real time or the means to reach Genosha before it was already over.
However, that's awful nitpicky. Rogue can be being unfair about the lack of an immediate response to Genosha while still having a valid point to make on a broader scale. Homo Sapiens Sapiens civilization more broadly would almost certainly, from Rogue's point of view, been holding the idiot ball or maliciously ignorant to miss out on a new army of Sentinels under construction including a big freaking Sentinel kaiju.
Of course we'd later find out that some handwavey deus ex may have also ensured that the world's electronic eyes were shut without any elaborate conspiracy, but Rogue doesn't know this yet when she's unloading on Cap. For all she knows, this is yet another in a long list of times where the "good" Homo Sapiens Sapiens and their champions have been unwilling or conveniently unable to intervene in personal scale tragedies like lynchings by the Friends of Humanity or population scale atrocities like permitting Genosha's former regime to run forced labor camps.
Baked into the setting assumptions of X-Men is a significant amount of systemic abuse that gets overlooked by non-mutant superheroes or that said superheroes are not powerful enough or imaginative enough to dismantle. This ends up necessitating a never ending set of excuses for how Earth's Mightiest Heroes keep winding up on the wrong side of justice yet can still claim the mantle of hero.
I'm not going to repeat ad nauseam familiar arguments about the suspension of disbelief problems created by widespread anti-mutant bigotry being a part of the same setting as a vast roster of enhanced individuals and literal gods that the general public lionizes without much hesitation. The savvy reader already knows these forwards and backwards, so I'm only going to continue to address them to the extent they're relevant here and refrain from further meta-commentary about this aspect of X-Men '97's world building.
Now to be fair, Captain America actually does give us an answer of sorts as to at least what he's up to and why he's not more ambitious in his pursuit of justice. He does intend to act, but not, from his perspective, impulsively. Captain America needs to obtain clearance to act across international boundaries. Captain America is in many ways governed by a sclerotic and often unjust system.
But wait! Captain America is a supersoldier, you say. Who gets to tell him "No, you don't get to pursue justice according to your conscience?" Cap should just tell his handlers to get stuffed and go settle accounts.
Notice my repetition of Steve's nom de spandex? Captain America is not a friendly neighborhood star spangled vigilante. Its unclear exactly who he is working for in this universe, but its heavily implied to be if not the United States, then perhaps SHIELD, and either way there are geopolitical considerations to Captain America showing up without phoning ahead and asking nicely if he can wander around without a minder, punching and exploding people and things on his own discretion. A whole lot of countries are justifiably sensitive about this sort of thing.
The point is that Steve Rogers is accountable to some sort of regulatory authority that is clearly meant to ensure that Captain America's activities are understood clearly and that he doesn't meet with an unfriendly reception by governmental actors that Steve would rather not be shooting at him and that Steve would prefer not to have to punch his way through on his way to his mission.
This authority likely has an additional role of at least performing for the masses and other governments that Captain America is being held to strict rules of engagement and that the bad guys he is punching are definitely villains plotting acts of violence not ideological enemies of the status quo. Because again, wanton violence for motives that are not clearly explained or are suspected of being fraudulent is a touchy subject.
Now of course, Steve Rogers could always go off the reservation. Its happened plenty of times in other continuities/universes. After all, the US government can't repo the super soldier serum.
What they can take away though is a lot of what allows Steve to be more than just a really strong guy. You know who is also a really strong guy? Bruce Banner. Also Luke Cage.
What do Bruce and Luke not have when they aren't playing on a team with some sort of direct or indirect government approval?
Extensive intelligence networks to direct them to international problems that need punching.
Supersonic jets to get them to places where there are villains who need to get decked.
People with relevant authorities who can work the phones and obtain permissions for a superhuman to engage in activities that may require a large scale disaster response operation and sending out surveyors afterwards to redraw topographical maps.
Why obtain those permissions? Because nations have armies and sometimes their own superhero teams they will send out if they get wind of a rogue superhuman showing up and doing violence without phoning ahead and clarifying their motives.
Special forces and super teams are a real inconvenience when there's wrongs to be righted on the other side of them.
So that's the bargain.
As Captain America, Steve Rogers gets an invisible army of intelligence operatives, pilots, Quinjet mechanics, and diplomats that all work together to ensure that Steve can do the maximum good when his conscience and the interests of his benefactors are aligned.
When he goes off reservation, he's just a really strong guy. Like Bruce Banner or Luke Cage. Not just a really strong guy, but probably a person of interest because authorities tend not to like their monopoly on violence being undermined by tough guys who are only accountable to the vibes of their conscience but can wreck New York's skyline if they're having a particularly bad day.
Which brings us back to Rogue and the X-Men.
The X-Men represent outside power.
Its heavily implied through any number of dialogues between the X-Men and the US President and the UN, the X-Men have some sort of understanding with legal authorities. However, its also implied that while this understanding exists, its begrudging. The X-Men have a wider latitude to act autonomously than the Avengers because they're specialists at what they do: they're intimately acquainted with some of the most dangerous, "Omega" level mutants who can be surly and embittered towards Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Yet that latitude is both a gift and a curse.
The gift is the X-Men are essentially free to follow their consciences. Because the legal authorities have given the X-Men nothing much more than a blind eye towards their activities, the only thing the authorities can take away from the X-Men is that blind eye. The X-Men are a largely self sufficient operation, so there's no obvious card to play that is analogous to revoking Steve Rogers' legal identity as Captain America. The X-Men supply their own Blackbirds, no matter how many of them they lose, and largely generate their own sources and intelligence.
The X-Men also own their own mistakes, which is a mixed blessing. When Rogue goes on a grief fueled rampage, she's not liable to start World War 3. While she's technically an American citizen, its understood that she acts as her own agent, with no direct connections to the US government that could be interpreted as Rogue acting out the will of the US government.
Rather than retaliate, any foreign governments alarmed by Rogue's behavior are not likely to blame the US directly and are likely to lodge a complaint through official channels in the hopes that the US government will coax the X-Men into doing something about her or that Uncle Sam will try to take matters into its own hands. In other words, its understood that Rogue is America's problem but not its fault, at least not intentionally. Which is good enough to keep nuclear missiles from waving at one another as they pass one another in Earth orbit.
And that's essentially the contours of what the X-Men's outside power looks like.
The X-Men have incredible resources at their disposal by virtue of Xavier's seed money, the genius of Hank McCoy and others, and the allies they've cultivated like the Shi'ar, but everything they've built up they've had to bootstrap. They're free to follow their consciences but they're also at risk of running off the cliff and getting disavowed if they chase their consciences too far, too fast, too hard for the liking of the world's nations.
The Avengers, especially Steve Rogers, subordinate their consciences to higher authorities to a greater degree, but the trade is that when they do act, they can act with the knowledge that they're not going to have to deal with blue on blue conflict from confused and scared locals and with largely infinite resources. There is almost assuredly a limited supply of Blackbirds. There is a limited supply of Blackbirds right? The number of Quinjets available to the Avengers is only limited by the budget afforded to them by SHIELD or Tony Stark.
Speaking of Tony Stark, depending on which universe and what time period we're talking about, he is not necessarily a backup plan for an Avengers team that finds its consciences misaligned with the interests of SHIELD. Not just because he might not feel like being their sugar daddy, but also because Tony Stark is ultimately a businessman. Ironman may be challenging for the world's authorities to reign in if he's in a bad mood, but Tony Stark has financial assets that can be frozen and capital assets that can be seized.
Let's not forget that when Steve Rogers decided he was done asking for permission to do what he felt was right in the MCU, he was only able to continue superheroing at the same level he had previously because a secretive nation with a friendly monarch was willing to provide him with a jet and supplies so long as they approved of his goals and methods.
Thus the X-Men enjoy greater freedom of conscience but its much more precarious than Captain America's compromised freedom.
This is not a value judgment, just an observation.
And if I made the case for Captain America playing by the rules a little too well, then its probably because Earth 92131 Steve Rogers doesn't seem to have been gaslit into being the hatchetman for corrupt ends.
Yet.
One could also imagine that SHIELD or USGOV have also failed to tip Cap off about mutant related this, that, or the other that Steve might have OPINIONS about and feel strongly that some Homo Sapiens Sapiens supremacists are need of punching in a time and place that is super inconvenient for the authorities.
Because sometimes injustice isn't about what authority does, its about what it doesn't do: malign neglect and so forth.
Magneto’s power gives him options that are unavailable to most Mutants. It would also make him a kingmaker if not the king, whether he wants it or not. Who could defy him in a separatist enclave aboard Asteroid M except another Omega? Since no one could, then who would dare?
Previously I discussed why X-Men as a setting is fundamentally pessimistic as a necessity according to the creative choices made. It is an essay in 5 parts:
1,2,3,4,5
This is a new series analyzing how experience and social status influences Mutant outlooks on the assimilation vs separatism/supremacy question.
A mile wide asteroid is not a very big place. Doing a bit of back of the envelope math, that works out to a volume of about 2.2 million cubic meters. Which is an impressive number to be sure.
For comparison the ISS has a pressurized volume of about 1,000 cubic meters and an inhabitable volume of 388 cubic meters. That supports 7 people usually. That works out to about 1 person per 143 cubic meters.
Following the same ratio, Asteroid M could probably support a population of 15,384. Where things get fuzzy is that the amount of personal space Asteroid M residents seem to enjoy, such as lavish reception halls complete with Sentinel scrap thrones, is much higher than your average astronaut. Asteroid M is also theoretically fully self-sustaining whereas the ISS needs periodic resupply and provision of spare parts. On the other hand, Asteroid M also was built with salvaged alien tech from the Savage Lands so that might even things out quite a bit.
Just over 15,000 people is the population of a large town trapped inside a machine that provides them with the essentials of life in an environment that would otherwise kill them within 30 seconds, absent special powers or survival gear.
We don’t have to work very hard to imagine the damage that could be wrought by just a handful of Omega tier Mutants deciding to cut loose inside Asteroid M’s walls. The boss fight with Bastion is a pretty excellent example. The damage to structural integrity and essential systems can add up very fast. I forget the specifics, but Asteroid M also had to be abandoned previously due to damage that made it at risk of becoming uninhabitable in the wake of Cortez’s coup against Magneto.
Accountability for Omegas and Protections for the Mutants Who Don’t Have Cool or Awesome Powers
This leads into a question of how an insular Mutant state could govern itself. Realistically the only answer to a Bad Omega tier Mutant is a Good Omega tier Mutant. Yeah, I don’t really like the implications of that analogy either.
The alternative is large numbers of lowertier Mutants or Humans with sufficient firepower or technological doodads but we’ve seen time and again that this winds up being a Zapp Brannigan strategy. It can work, but it costs a lot of lives and material. I wouldn’t personally be overly eager to sign up to be part of a special task force whose objective is to try to slip a power suppression collar on Magneto.
TAS/’97 never really elaborate on what sort of society Magneto was planning to create and how it would be organized, constitutionally speaking. Notably Genosha was setting up a constitutional monarchy prior to the Wild Sentinel attack. It was also notable that of the known members of the executive council, the majority were Mutants with extremely formidable powers. The presence of Moira MacTaggert in some capacity and Callisto represent at least gestures towards the idea of egalitarianism and informed decision making, but the presence of Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost, both known Mutant Supremacists and unapologetically hierarchical, does not instill confidence.
The groups directly influenced by Xavier’s teachings seem to be the only organizations that don’t have an implicit power based hierarchy. In this way Mutants seem not to have surpassed Human organization and Human concepts of justice. This is something I’d like to think Xavier recognized, especially the further down his path of separatism and domination Magneto went, which is why in theory, if not in practice, Xavier was willing to work inside of Human institutions.
Flawed as they are and unreceptive to Mutants, well designed Human institutions are designed to disaggregate power and regulate how authority is used when it is necessary for an individual to have wide latitude and vast resources at their disposal. This often does not work as well as might be desired, but history is full of examples where being unable to alter the course of an absolute ruler once they’d set their mind to something proves disastrous.
As such, the X-Men working to contain and disrupt the activities of Mutants who are too powerful for traditional Sapiens authorities to deal with practically is probably the most potent statement pro-coexistence Mutants can make about their ability to be folded into existing society and institutions and their willingness to be held to the same standards as baseline Humans.
It's a statement that Mutants who use their powers destructively can be confronted and brought to justice by a force of Mutants willing to be bound by and enforce rules and norms of Human society. In doing so, they declare themselves to be Humans who have mutant powers, rather than something else entirely.
Next: No matter how many times we save the world, it just seems to get in jeopardy again. Also when we save it, you hate us more for some reason.
Personal experiences can bestow a fundamentally sunny disposition about Mutant assimilation in Human society. They can also inspire the bleakest despair and a level of skepticism about unilateral disarmament.
Previously I discussed why X-Men as a setting is fundamentally pessimistic as a necessity according to the creative choices made. It is an essay in 5 parts:
1,2,3,4,5
This is a new series analyzing how experience and social status influences Mutant outlooks on the assimilation vs separatism/supremacy question.
It should not surprise us at all that the Morlocks and Magneto have very different opinions from Xavier about who should regulate their behavior and how. Once he’s confronted with how little protection his wealth affords him, even Sunspot becomes a convert to Magneto’s way of thinking.
When you’ve had a bad experience with someone claiming to be on your side and then contradicting literally every value you thought you shared, it makes a person calloused against appeals to a shared set of values or the innate goodness of humanity.
For a real life example, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is a repudiation of the Soviet Union under Stalin, even though Orwell was no fan of extreme inequality and the violence used by elites to protect that inequality in market driven societies. Orwell was motivated to revisit the idea of whether the USSR was a true reflection of his values due to his personal sense of betrayal when the Soviet Union declined to intervene in the Spanish civil war against the Nazi allied regime.
We ought not to be surprised when impoverished visible Mutants find it difficult to imagine having a seat at the table when they can’t even get a seat at the table masquerading as Sapiens.
Xavier’s access to power is always depicted as somewhat tenuous and his relationships with Presidents are transactional. Regardless of their personal feelings and long term visions, the leaders Charles interacts with are primarily focused on day to day crisis management. These leaders are ultimately accountable to the overwhelming majority of the population that does not have special abilities and those who are fearful of Mutants and those who are supportive of Mutants vote and contribute to political campaigns.
Xavier isn’t even visibly mutated. The tendency for Humans to perceive Morlocks as hideously disfigured denies them any comfort in mainstream society. Their very appearance reminds Humans that something has gone amiss in the gene pool and that something may not bode well for baselines in the long run.
Magneto’s experiences as a Sapien minority on the wrong side of the boot has made him deeply skeptical of power beyond his own. A Holocaust survivor, Magneto doesn’t need to imagine what the worst case scenario is for Human - Mutant relations.
Like Orwell, he is not easily swayed by appeals to common values or shared interest. For Magneto, trust is earned and the tests to earn it are not easy. As a consequence of his experiences, Magneto has adopted an attitude that only the people that are imminently facing the same type of threats can truly understand each other and be relied upon.
To the extent that this is a fair and accurate sentiment, taken to an extreme it can be very isolating and leave one with few allies and even fewer people whose insights might be trusted when they contradict Magneto’s own instincts. This becomes a serious problem when Cortez worms his way into Magneto’s inner circle or Magneto rationalizes the fate of Mutants trapped on an Earth incapable of using modern technology as expediting evolution.
Yet, cynic that he is, life as an island is hard and even Magneto is not immune to the occasional savvy operator figuring out how to earn and abuse his trust, like Cortez.
Next up: Power level as privilege. What happens when a cranky Omega isn’t trapped in here with you, you are trapped with them….
X-Men: It gets worse before it gets worse, no good deed….
We’re back where we started: this setting has no theory of change. It can’t. It’s a showcase of struggle and cautionary tales.
Previously I discussed why X-Men as a setting is fundamentally pessimistic as a necessity according to the creative choices made. It is an essay in 5 parts:
1,2,3,4,5
This is a new series analyzing how experience and social status influences Mutant outlooks on the assimilation vs separatism/supremacy question.
To return to the theme of the intrinsic pessimism of the X-Men setting, the X-Men’s efforts to protect lives from belligerent Mutants are often overlooked as regular Sapiens react more strongly to the original inciting event, the fact that the X-Men had to intervene at all, rather than recognizing the X-Men’s role in damage control.
Ominously, X-Men ‘97 ends with President Kelly, an already fair weather friend of Mutants, at risk of losing reelection to Grayden Creed, the once disgraced Friends of Humanity leader, last seen “catching up” with father, Sabertooth. It's unclear if Kelly is taking heat because of his pro or anti-Mutant stances, or whether he handled the Magneto crisis too aggressively or not aggressively enough (where have we heard this one before?) and it’s not entirely beyond thinking that Creed has had a change of heart.
But let's get real. This is this setting. Kelly is likely being blamed for being too soft on Mutants in the wake of the Magneto crisis, the usual suspects have engaged in widespread gaslighting about the origin and nature of the Prime Sentinels and have shifted the emphasis away from Magneto losing his temper after two massive scale pogroms against Mutants and more towards Magneto having killed electricity (and thousands of people in cars, trains, planes, on life support etc.) and whose asteroid nearly destroyed all life on Earth (after Kelly ordered it nuked.)
The X-Men risked everything to save the world after a handful of Humans with inordinate power almost destroyed it trying to preempt and retaliate against inordinately powerful Mutants, many are presumed dead, and their reward is one of their worst enemies may wind up seizing power.
I’ve articulated why the X-Men setting prefers stasis over progress, and escalating catastrophe over the status quo, but boy, does the messaging around this get under my skin. It's not unrealistic, but as an old school Star Trek fan, it bums me out and alarms me. Maybe the Trekkie in me is too hypersensitive and sees doomerism in the media equivalent of a primal scream on behalf of those perpetually treading water for acceptance.
