Warning: Spoilers ahead.
The first issue of X-men was published in 1963, cover dated
for September (meaning it was released in July – go figure). This month
therefore marks the 50th anniversary of the X-men comics, and
therefore 50 years since the creation of these characters and the concept of
super-powered mutants fighting for equality.
The X-men comics are commemorating the past with a time
travel saga that brings the original X-men into the present. This story is due
to develop into a major Marvel Universe crossover. Outside of the comics,
however, it seems like the event will pass with very little fanfare. This month
sees the release of The Wolverine in cinemas worldwide, and its coinciding with
such a huge landmark could have been a major marketing point, but the X-men’s
half-centenary is going unmentioned. Granted, as a solo film, The Wolverine
would not be as appropriate a celebration as next year’s X-men: Days of
Future Past (another time travel adventure that will bring the present day
X-men face-to-face with their past selves).
What’s truly significant about this landmark, besides the
five-oh number itself (which is, after all, just a number), is how much the
world has changed since the X-men comics began. The issues of tolerance and
inequality underpin the X-men comics and movies and grant them an uncanny
amount of pathos. In the world of the X-men, mutants experience a lot of
prejudice and this allows the ‘mutant problem’ to become a metaphor for anyone
who is discriminated against or simply, doesn’t fit in. These issues were
having a huge impact on the western world when the X-men were created, with the
civil rights movement still gaining momentum, and many groups, especially black
people, still struggling for equal rights under the law even in developed
nations. In fact, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in which Martin
Luther King delivered his legendary “I have a dream speech”, occurred around
the same time as the release of the first X-men comic.
In those flower-power days, the struggle for racial equality
was the most obvious analogy that could be drawn between the real world and the
events of the X-men comics, and the writers often highlighted this. 1974
brought us a multicultural X-men, and a black African woman who would go on to
lead the team. Disability was another equality issue that the comics addressed
prominently, with Professor Xavier representing one of the world’s first
disabled super-heroes. Over the years, as the comics have changed and the
society they exist in has changed even more, mutants have been a metaphor for
feminism, gay pride, class struggles, religious conflict, as well as any and
all ethnic groups. Recently, the metaphor has been extended to encompass all
manner of subcultures, lifestyles and political ideologies.
While the X-men fight for peaceful coexistence, their
ever-present opponent, Magneto, shows the more militant approach to the
struggle that minorities face – a struggle for acceptance, respect and, often,
survival. Our abhorrence of his violent methods is tempered by our
understanding and sympathy for his situation, and the knowledge that all his
actions are done because he feels they will protect his people. It is this that
makes Magneto one of the most well-rounded and complex villains, not just in
the super-hero genre, but in popular culture as a whole. In the comics, Magneto
has veered in his approach many times, actually turning to the X-men’s cause on
several occasions, albeit with a slightly more pragmatic (some would say
realistic) outlook on mutant-human relations. Now that the X-men films are
finally returning to the present day and showing events after the original
X-men trilogy, this would be an interesting route for the films to follow, in
the wake of Magneto seeing the terrible consequences of his violent ways in
X-men 3: The Last Stand. It would be dramatic gold, to see an older, reformed
Magneto confront his extremist past self in Days of Future Past.
It is this kind multi-dimensional, quite realistic portrayal
of conflicts that has made the X-men comics far more than the tales of a team
of heroes born with super-powers, and allowed them to gain a following that has
continually grown for the past 50 years. These issues of tolerance and equality
and the struggles that stem from them have – dare I say it – mutated almost beyond recognition since
then, with a black US president endorsing same-sex marriage, but greater
conflicts emerging in other arenas. It may be incongruous to suggest that the
X-men stories contributed to this change in any significant way, however
staunchly they championed equality, but it would also be remiss to fail to
acknowledge the small part they have played in the sea-change in culture that
has helped shape popular opinion and thus allowed ever-growing inclusiveness
over the past five decades.
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