The X Men series has always fascinated me, and no, I’m not talking of the movies. Though I can hardly call myself a comic book aficionado either as my romance with X Men began with the X Men: Evolution animated series. So I do not lay claim to reading all of the X Men: Age of Apocalypse, Marvel 2099, House of M, Mutant X, etc. Truth is I have had the opportunity to lay hands on only The Ultimate X Men. (Though no doubt, I’d be more than willing to devour the rest.) So I’m a poor person to talk about the plot details. But what I want to talk about here is why X Men is definitely a landmark in the so-called superhero comic series genre.
X Men were created by the renowned writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby who together have also created The Avengers and Hulk. But I’d rather talk about the animated series, which I’m better versed with. X Men: Evolution first ran for four seasons including fifty-two episodes on Kids WB between November 2000 and October 2003. (That’s what Wikipedia says, I watched it later on Cartoon Network sometime between 2004 to 2006.) The plot revolves around mutants, who are humans with some extraordinary powers which are manifested in them because of the X gene absent in humans.
However the similarities with other superhero comics stop there. Unlike the traditional superheroes, these mutants are mostly looked down upon in society, because they are “so weird.” One of the mutants, Kurt Wagner a.k.a. Nightcrawler, has to see the more bitter part of it when he is forced to emigrate from Germany because blue, fuzzy hair covers his entire body, and he starts to look something like a cross between a giant hybrid rat and Satan. (Nightcrawler has the ability to teleport, by the way.)
But it is not just about how others perceive them. Mutants themselves are freaked out by their powers when they first manifest (The X gene usually activates between 14 to 16 years of age). They do not know what is happening to them , they begin to feel things are going out of control, and it is not a nice feeling. Imagine if while sleeping, you suddenly started dropping through your bed and through the ground into the floor below and wake up to find yourself suspended in mid-air. That you’d totally freak out can be only be an understatement. But that is what Kitty Pryde a.k.a. Shadowcat has to go through when her powers first manifest. And then you begin to question yourself, Who am I? What’s happening to me? without any clear answers, and it starts brewing into a chaotic soup inside your mind. You start feeling unclean from within. And if you can’t help pushing people into coma simply because you touched them (like Rogue does), you begin to feel like a murderer.
Of course help comes to such mutants in the form of Professor Xavier (popularly called Professor X) with his team- the X Men and Magneto with his Brotherhood of Mutants, who tell these people exactly what is happening to them and train them to control their powers so that the world can begin to make some sense again. But what is more fascinating is the constant struggle which the mutants undergo to come to terms with their powers, and to get accepted in society. The fun lies in the completely gray nature of the characters, rather than black and white. It’s something like this…
Professor X and Magneto are partners in the beginning, who agree that they should train young mutants to control their powers etc. so that those mutants can still keep their sanity. So they build a facility on an offshore island, amid a lot of persecution, as they are not “normal”. Magneto soon realises the futility of negotiating with non-mutants for social acceptance, and parts ways with Professor X who believes that understanding and education is the only way mutants can make a place for themselves in the society.
Professor X on the other hand, believes that mutants and non-mutants can co-exist peacefully if mutants are able to show the world that they are just people like them and mean no harm. He trains the X Men to this end. They are not supposed to be heroes who save the day, but rather much like everyone else- so that means he trains them to exercise restraint and not use their powers publicly. But gradually, his “students” (the X Men) begin to question his premise, at first, when they see someone they can help using their powers. And later even questioning why they have to hide their powers and pretend to be like everyone else when they actually are not? Why should they be conforming to the behaviour of the social majority, and not the other way round? These questions, at several points, pinch some members enough to leave the X Men. Some, like Spyke take to streets, while others like Cyclops, join Magneto, hopeful of a world where they’d be allowed to be themselves. Magneto however, feels that the society would never accept mutants, simply because they are so different and even a threat to non-mutants because of their enhanced powers. His fears are confirmed when the U.S. government launches a Sentinel Program targeted to eliminate mutants, by categorizing them as terrorists and threat to humanity at large. Magneto, thus, is thinking in terms of Survival of Fittest, and declares that if mutants have to survive they must begin by taking control of the non-mutants which can be done by enhancing their powers and thus, climbing further up the evolution ladder.
But with great power comes great responsibility and many are not ready to handle it. For how do you justify killing people, however much they hate you, to create a better world for yourself? How do you justify suppressing others’ freedom of choosing a lifestyle to flaunt the lifestyle you want? So disillusioned even by Magneto’s promises they return. But they know they have not returned to the world which would lead to theirs either. They have returned only because they do not want to be the means to any end. They do not want to subjugate- They just want to be perceived as normal and not an oddity. To be understood as people and not monsters. Nor heroes. They want people to know that just like non-mutants, they can be generous and kind, and they can be cruel and jealous. They wonder if that is too much to ask for?
I think the X Men series is a parallel story of contemporary human society itself. Consider all those not-so-“normal” people today. Autistic, homosexuals, the physically handicapped, transvestites. Consider all the marginalised groups. Aren’t they mutants in our own world?
I recently read this story from Uganda about how a leading gay activist of the country was found beaten to death in his home after a newspaper started a hate-campaign against homosexuals. Homosexuals are dangerous, and they’re “recruiting” children, so beware. It’s time they were demolished. Something to that effect. But forget such radical rhetoric. We all use the word “gay” for labeling something soppy, right? And we all take offence and try to justify ourselves when we are called gay or lesbian or bi, even at a tease. And that never happens if I being a guy, say I had sex with a girl. So where does that come from? What are we threatened by? And why do we feel so greatly insecure of something new or different? To the point that we strip the individual of all identity but that which scares us? X-Men raises these questions using the metaphor of the mutant throughout the series. That is what mutants ask: Why must mutant be perceived as our only identity? Why can’t we be just people even while we are mutants? Why do we have to wear the hero or the villain tag, only because we are slightly different, yet take pride in those differences?
This post was originally penned for the LitSoc blog in 2011.
Noodles and Prose 