Civil Rights and the Metaphor of X-Men

Those of us who are minorities can always take some comfort in the comics’ world, where the X-Men have always served as better vague analogues than individual characters like Black Lightning, Luke Cage, The Falcon, or (Black) Nick Fury have in providing that conversation for equality—what parallels can be drawn to the real world is that these characters are almost all qualified by the term “black” in their name, as the President is often relegated to being “the black President”. It could be that most of those characters were developed at the height of Kung-Fu blacksploitation but it could also be that the metaphor was buried deeper. Luke Cage specifically was built to be a fist beating, jive talking, “Power Man” from Harlem. There wasn’t much political to be said in his usage, while the Falcon was introduced as Captain America’s partner—not sidekick, which is an important distinction. Black Lightning was always a teacher-turned-superhero, and so had a positive hue to his bio…but still these characters provided some weak attempts to hold up, familiarize, or create role models (black Nick Fury was just a twist on an existing character that became more popular than its original incarnation because people love to hear Samuel L. Jackson speak). Latinos, Asians, and Jews had some waiting to do before comics would begin to even think about attempting such characters and often we end up with ridiculous puns like “The Acidic Jew” or “Vibe” or “The Atom—now Asian!” Regardless, something about the X-Men has remained more resonant—cross over appeal.

The X-Men provided something to white American kids to fantasize about…but something complicated by an oppression they would never experience, let alone fantasize about. Who would want to fantasize about being oppressed after all? The downfall of the metaphor is the medium. An ongoing fantasy will inevitably water down the message. For one, the results are fictional. Secondly, the means are imaginary. Beyond even that though, the stakes of a fantasy are not as high—or permanent. These characters took on more of a life of their own in decades of serialization than changes actually occurred in the conversation.

While blacks and minorities did not have razor sharp, unbreakable metal claws protruding from their fists with which to battle oppression and racism, the mutants are well armed to punch their foes in the nose with super powers. The leaders who died for their views of equality and the roads to take to find it weren’t granted the benefit of re-aged bodies, cloned bodies, or “getting better” when they faced assassination and death. Malcolm X only came back in stellar performance by Denzel Washington and Dr. King was immortalized by a Federal bank holiday—but neither will be returning for a last page cliffhanger; while Xavier and Magneto have had the benefit of many returns from beyond the veil. The metaphor has outgrown its root, and while X-Men occasionally serves as a platform for discussions on equality (such as Beast’s short lived stint as an “outed” gay mutant, or Northstar’s recent marriage to his boyfriend) the emphasis is somewhat washed away. At the end of the day the escapism of the title is the heart of its success, not its political origin.

While fiction and science fiction have that most incredible power to fashion worlds to tailor meet the message of an author, these worlds are inevitably finite in their ability to stay true to the message ad infinitum. The real world also has a problem with limits of philosophies and messages…but that has more to do with the attention spans of constituents, and the vigor of activists. In comics today, the mutants are starting to reap full integration in their fictional community while, arguably blacks are only beginning to see theirs—perhaps that realization will be more concrete, not with the re-election of the first Black President, but with the election of the second.