I have comics!
Ah, there's nothing better than ACTUALLY getting to the comic book shop! Except maybe when the used book store has an anniversary 40% off sale.
So yeah, catching up on comics. You know, I was kind of annoyed at yet another Return of Magneto in Uncanny X-Men (Is it just me or has that guy been resurrected more times than Jean Grey) but the whole "I come not to bury Caesar, but to praise him" was awesome.
I don't doubt it'll all backfire, and Professor Xavier, bastard that he is, will turn out to be right after all. But just once it's nice to see someone give Cyclops the recognition he deserves, damnit. He DID pretty much unite (what's left of) the mutant race. Something which Xavier might have been able to do years ago, if he hadn't been so busy raising secret child armies. Granted, the fact that there are much fewer mutants helps, but having an open and public sanctuary, that ISN'T at war with humanity, is a pretty big deal. If Xavier had done that first, before the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, before the Sentinels, when he was still busy giving five scared kids extreme combat training and simultaneously militant and goofy uniforms, maybe things would have gone a lot differently.
It's possible that I like Magneto right now because he says what I think. Which given his usual tendencies might be a disturbing reflection on me. Oh well.
So yeah, catching up on comics. You know, I was kind of annoyed at yet another Return of Magneto in Uncanny X-Men (Is it just me or has that guy been resurrected more times than Jean Grey) but the whole "I come not to bury Caesar, but to praise him" was awesome.
I don't doubt it'll all backfire, and Professor Xavier, bastard that he is, will turn out to be right after all. But just once it's nice to see someone give Cyclops the recognition he deserves, damnit. He DID pretty much unite (what's left of) the mutant race. Something which Xavier might have been able to do years ago, if he hadn't been so busy raising secret child armies. Granted, the fact that there are much fewer mutants helps, but having an open and public sanctuary, that ISN'T at war with humanity, is a pretty big deal. If Xavier had done that first, before the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, before the Sentinels, when he was still busy giving five scared kids extreme combat training and simultaneously militant and goofy uniforms, maybe things would have gone a lot differently.
It's possible that I like Magneto right now because he says what I think. Which given his usual tendencies might be a disturbing reflection on me. Oh well.
posted by kalinara @ 11:42 PM
4 Comments:
At October 24, 2009 10:46 AM,
SallyP said…
Do you sometimes get the feeling that Xavier wasn't really all that interested in inter-relations between regular humans and mutants?
At October 24, 2009 3:15 PM,
Your Obedient Serpent said…
I dunno. The wisdom of child-armies aside, I'm not convinced that a "peaceful mutant separatist movement" Back in The Day would have mollified humanity's paranoia.
For that matter, I don't think establishing mutant apartheid in a "separate but equal" mutant ghetto/homeland would have mollified the MUTANT population, either.
At least not without those now-adult child soldiers leading the way.
Of course, a big chunk of the problem stems from the way both Chuck and Eric embraced the homo superior nomenclature, though. All three sides -- Eric's mutant supremacy movement, Chuck's mutant assimilationists, and the anti-mutant factions amongst "normal" humanity -- all share the conceit that mutants are a distinct species and humanity's replacements, rather than a variation OF h. sapiens and an expression of human diversity.
If someone just came out and said, "hey, you're all wrong..."
At October 24, 2009 3:34 PM,
kalinara said…
I don't think it needed to be separate, really. The separation (at least for now) is necessary as a result of Xavier/Magneto/Humanity's actions.
I mean, though...well, look at the Marvel Universe a second. What really makes the Fantastic Four or Avengers different from mutants aside from the fact that mutants are born with powers. Also, mutants who've BEEN members of the Avengers have been traditionally well received.
I think personally, having a PUBLIC organization of mutants. Heck, even having a mutant school/sanctuary with a visible leader would have helped alleviate some of humanity's antagonism. Instead of a menace that just shows up to fight a giant robot, or other mutants and vanishes, you have a group that can be confronted, talked to, learned about.
It wouldn't have been necessary for every mutant to join, but having the option out there might have been helpful. Humans would get to see mutants not only doing the hero thing but sticking around to answer questions and help clean up. They never had to be that different from the Avengers.
It's notable, I think, that all the Friends of Humanity crap, and even the Sentinels only started popping up after the X-Men had been around for a while. They're a REACTION to this secret paramilitary army that pops up, wreaks havoc and disappears. As much as I think the average Marvel citizen is a sheep, I do think that'd freak me out too.
Maybe Cyclops's way wouldn't have worked back then, but there was a LOT Xavier could have done if he were really interested in mutant-human relations.
At October 25, 2009 2:44 AM,
Your Obedient Serpent said…
Yeah, the idea of Xavier's School as a public institution from the get-go would have gone a long way.
Of course, the real reason the X-Men were a Secret Identity Super Group was because of the expectations of the genre. Putting all that aside, though, and just looking at things from an in-universe perspective, I can see how Charlie might have thought that adopting such a role might help make his students more acceptable to the public at large, considering the prevalence of other masked metahumans in the world. Ignoring the telescoping timelines, the era in which Chuck founded the X-Men still clearly remembered the colorfully-costumed champions of WWII, and the new breed of costumed defenders like the X-Men.
On the other claw, most of those mystery men were soldiers, and others, like Namor, were of *ahem* dubious allegiance and motivations. So, yeah -- these uniformed teens could be seen as a Secret Mutant Army, scrabbling to achieve some kind of acceptance while really plotting humanity's downfall.
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