It Had to be Said #5

Professor Xavier is NOT Martin Luther King Jr.

While both have a dream of a better world for their respective repressed minorities, Martin Luther King was a pacifist who refused to use violence, even to defend himself.

Professor X trained his students to be masked vigilante freedom fighters who beat the crap out of anyone, human or mutant, who gets in the way of his goals.

No, Professor X's belief that mutants have the right, and sometimes to the need, to use violence to defend themselves makes him a lot closer to, appropriately enough, Malcolm X.

It would be an interesting story, I think, if Xavier and his small army of demi-gods met a truly King-esque mutant rights activist, someone who thinks the violent tactics of the X-Men themselves hurt the cause, one who refused to attack the Sentinels, but rather lay in front of them, absorb their blows and refuse to budge. This would be particularly entertaining if said pacifist was the Blob.

p.s. And here is an excellent post on why Magneto isn't Malcolm X

They Also Serve...

Off topic, I know, but I assume we are all geeky enough- erm, sorry Beau Smith -big enough fans of fantasy fiction to have all read Harry Potter, yes? Good.

Two characters I've always wanted to know a little more about are Hermione's parents, the Grangers. Especially compared to Harry's and Ron's families, we know very little about them. We know they're Muggles, and come from a long line of Muggles. We know they're both dentists, and would rather have Hermione solve her buckteeth through orthodonture than magic. And we know they are comfortable enough with the world of magic to have gone school supplies shopping with the Weasleys at Diagon Alley. That's it. Heck, we know more about Neville's parents than we do about the Grangers.

Now, I don't need a thousand page saga about how they met and fell in love in dental school, scrapped together the funds and opened a small practice outside of Cambridge with nothing more than two degrees and a dream, and eventually reached a level of middle class security that allowed them to raise a bright and gifted child. But maybe just a scene of them sitting with the Arthur and Molly having a cuppa, talking about the final year.

Because I want to know what their reaction is to the world of magic. Frankly, the only Muggle reaction to magic we ever see is the Dursleys' utter disdain for the whole thing, but the Durlseys are horrid people anyway. What is the sane, normal parents reaction to finding out witches and wizards real and their very daughter is one?

Are they proud of their brilliant daughter? Do they know that she is probably the most talented witch of her age? Do they have a "My Child is on the Honor Roll of Hogwarts Academy" bumper sticker on their car? Are they scared for her? When she was paralyzed in Year 2, did they demand she be pulled from the school? Shouldn't they have? Did they know she was working 28/7 during Year 3 and exhausting herself? The Dursleys tell their neighbors that Harry goes to a school for the criminally insane. Where do the Grangers tell their friends that Hermione goes to school?

It's one thing to be told that you have great power and a special and dangerous destiny. What is it like to be told your child is the one with the power and the danger?

To relate it back to superheroes, what if you found out your son was a mutant, and you weren't a prejudiced bastard? There's a nice scene in the early '90s X-Men cartoon (which is STILL my preferred interpretation of the X-Men) where Beast looks over a photo album which includes a picture of him, at his graduation, in his cap and gown and blue fur, hugging his normal looking dad. Along with a funny photo of young Hank McCoy playing little league, it said so much about the kind of family he grew up with. Unlike so many mutants, Hank never had to run away from home. He had a fairly normal childhood despite the fangs and claws, and his parents supported him and encouraged his academic career (he is DOCTOR McCoy, after all).

One of my minor complaints about the death of Robin's father, Jack Drake, in Idenity Crisis, was that in Robin's own title, Bill Willingham introduced the idea that Jack Drake knew his son was a superhero and had JUST accepted that, despite the danger, being Robin was a good thing for Tim Drake. And that was a dynamic that I wish had been explored more. Too bad.

I guess I'm just fascinated by the Alfreds, the Mas and Pas Kent, the Mary-Janes... those mundane people who have to face the fantastic, but can only do so from the sidelines through their loved ones. Those who worry, but also embrace and support where they can. Who occasionally have to kick a little butt themselves when the fantastic crashes through the door.

Is it any surprise that Samwise was my favorite hobbit?

Why I Hate the Mutant Gene

I hate the concept of the gene for mutant powers, or "X-gene", in X-Men comics. It's stupid and it leads to bad stories and muddled meanings, but I specifically hate it for four reasons. The first is scientific, the second semantic, and both are pretty petty and pedantic, but they tie into the third, substantive reason, so I'll try to get through them quickly to get to the fourth.

1. The Mutant Gene Doesn't Act Like a Gene.

A gene is a specific sequence of DNA that codes for a particular physical characteristic. A particular gene might determine whether your eyes are blue or black, but that same gene in another person won't give him stronger back muscles. Even taken to the exaggerated superhero level, the same gene can't give one guy the ability to fire lasers out his eyes and another guy fully functional wings!*

2. An X-Gene Means "Mutants" Aren't Mutants.

A mutation is a change in a gene, a mutant is a changed gene or organism arising from that changed gene. The key here is change. A mutated gene is one you did NOT get from your parents, that you have and your siblings don't. If the "mutant" gene is shared among individuals, if it is inherited, then it is, by definition, no longer a mutant, and a person who exhibits traits associated with that gene is not a mutant either.

But both of those complaints are really nerdy. After all, when you're dealing with pulp science fiction, you have to put up with some bad science and mangled language as plot devices. But the reason the "mutant" gene bothers much more than does its DC equivalent the "meta-gene" is because it's a plot device that hurts the plot it's try to support:

3. The Mutant Gene Undermines the Metaphorical Power of X-Men.

At its core, X-Men is about individuals, shunned and rejected by society at large, alienated from everyone, who come together to form a new family of choice in order to survive, thrive and relate back to the larger world. Now, whether that's an allegory for racial politics, homosexuality, or teenage rebellion in general, who better to play the role of the outcast than a LITERAL mutant, someone who, on a genetic level, is cut off from his own family? And that the X-Men don't share DNA in common, that they are connected by their otherness from everyone in the world, including each other, makes their new family bond all the more meaningful, a celebration of our shared humanity over our superficial differences.

If Marvel "mutants" are not literal mutants, however, if they inherited their power from some rare recessive gene, then they would still have a family connection. Maybe not their parents, but an aunt or distant cousin should be a "mutant" too. If there is a mutant gene, then it doesn't make sense for it NOT to run in families. And if their "mutant" gene connects them to their family rather than dividing from their family, then the power of the metaphor is severely weakened.**

And if "mutants" share a specific gene, then it seriously weakens the idea of the X-Men as a family of choice. "Mutants" are a lot closer to being a new species, united by their shared genetic identity, rather than simply humans who have happened to have the odd quirk in their genetic structure. You lose the sense of people defying their genes to find each other, and gain an unheroic doom of a group giving into it's collective genetic destiny.

And then there's the fact that:

4. The Mutant Gene is Completely Unnecessary to Explain the X-Men.

Mutation is REAL thing. Mutants happen all the time and in fact you almost certainly have a few mutant genes in you. But only a very small percentage of mutations have any noticeable effect on the body at all, and 99% of those that do cause cancer or are pre-natally fatal.

BUT... in the Marvel Universe, things that would cause cancer or instant death in our world, like MASSIVE DOSES OF RADIATION, instead grant superpowers. So superpowered mutants would be the natural byproduct of such a world. So instead of having a "mutant gene" which 1. doesn't make scientific sense, 2. is a contradiction in terms, and 3. undermines the story you are trying to tell, you could just leave it at "They're mutants," AND BE DONE WITH IT!



*And don't give me Byrne's "they all DO have the same power, to 'warp reality,' they just warp it differently," because that still doesn't answer WHY one warps reality by controlling the weather and the other warps reality by being really fat. *



**The worst was a line in X-Men 2, where Pyro tells Iceman's mother that the X-gene is carried by the father, not the mother. The only way that can happen is if the X-gene is on the Y chromosome. This is doubly stupid, because a) it means only people with Y chromosomes could have mutant powers, and Rogue is sitting right there! And b) the Y chromosome cannot carry a gene without expressing it, so Iceman's father and brother should be "mutants" too, and they aren't.**

Big Pile of Awesome

Damn you people! I'm buying more and more comics because you keep recommending them, including Action Philosophers and Batman and the Mad Monk.

'Course, I couldn't read The Mad Monk without first reading Batman and the Monster Men, which just so happened to come out in a trade today, so I bought that too.

All in all, I bought 10 books this week, including the trade, and half of them I would never have picked up had I not started to seriously read comics blog.

I hope you're happy...

'cause I certainly am!

I have rarely had as high an enjoyment to total ratio as I did today.

The comic I enjoyed the least was Blue Beetle which still isn't living up to its very high potential, and even that was a lot of fun. (Though John Rogers, if you're somehow reading this, pick up the goddamn pace and chain Cully Hamner to a desk).

There's too many to review them all now, so I'll just hit one moment each that stood out.

Blue Beetle: The Phantom Stranger. Just seeing that guy's great.

Astonishing X-Men: Shadowcat-Fu.

Fell: Good old fashioned detective work

Wonder Woman: Twirling. Mother fucking twirling.

Justice League of America: The A.I. grapevine.

Action Philosophers: The Wandering Jew, which may be my next Halloween costume.

Batman and the Monster Men: The shadowy man training on the rings.

Batman and the Mad Monk: Good old fashioned Catwoman.

Batman: Andy Kubert cheeky use of Pop Art and a guest appearance by Sgt. Rock.

52: Montoya's prayer.

Yes, that is in ascending order of enjoyment. 52 was HANDS DOWN the best comic this week, with Joe Bennett bringing his A game to the art to support the head-on collision of two of the major plots, a genuinely tense sequence playing on both mystical fantasy and all-too-real violence, Talky Tawny and Uncle Dudley!!!, Black Adam getting nervous, The Question's role as a step ladder, the pay-off for the rat poison, and what a Marvel wedding looks like, the issue was great.

But what made it truly excellent was Renee Montoya's prayer. A lot has been said about her being a lesbian. Some people remember she's Hispanic (Dominican, to be exact). She's also a former cop and current alcoholic and, when it comes down to it, one of the baddest asses in Gotham.

But she's also Catholic, and her religion is very important to her. It's one of the reasons why she stayed in the closet. It is both a source of strength and of crippling guilt. And the juxtaposition of the Marvel Family wedding, where multiple gods are called upon to throw lightning around super beings flying through the air, and Montoya's quiet prayer to the mother of Jesus in the moment of her greatest need for personal strength, was genuinely moving.

So, what'd you think?