Darthphere said:
Also, another reason the racist allegory worked so well is because most mutants did look like everybody else for the most part. Racism isnt because people have 4 arms or 12 eyes, its just because their different in skin color. They look just like us, except for one edfining feature, their skin color. The same with most mutantsm they look just like us except for that one defining feature, their mutation.
That would work great except there were never any black mutants, or asian mutants. It was white people essentially against other white people in a world where the Fantastic Four are cool but mutants are not...until they join the Avengers. So as a racism analogy it was sh**. The fact is, until Morrison there was no difference between the X-Men and the Avengers really. Both were comprised of mutated individuals who fought intergalactic threats and tyrants.
The only things that ever showed a racism angle were the fact that the philosophies of Xavier and Magneto somewhat resembled MLK and X. However they never even bothered playing that out. We knew they were philosophically different, but then it was onto Villainous and Hero business as usual. (In the Lee/Kirby era).
During Claremont, Days of The Future Past actually delved into the racism angle in the post Apocalypic future. They did address the natural hypocracy set up by Lee by having Sentinels wipe out all metas. However in doing so they linked mutants with other superheroes rather than making them a distinct race.
Morrison actually bothered to make Magneto a leader of a counter culture movement. Actually bothered to make the Institute and actual Institute, a SCHOOL. What is was suppose to be. Not something akin to the Avengers mansion.
True Lee and Claremont wrote excellent X-Men stories, but there was nothing distinct about them. They explored cool things like Cyclops and Jean's love. Wolverine's sorted past. Iceman's family insecurities. But what does that have to do with being an oppressed minority.
They weren't freaks. They were lucky stiffs who got to live in a mansion with nothing but perfectly attractive and beautiful people. There was romance and they got to fly blackbird jets.
Meanwhile they never once adopted anyone like Beak or Angel onto the team. The mutants were never freaks, just people with powers not unlike others. In some cases the powers carried curses (Rogue, Cyclops) but in most cases they were just powers.
Morrison changed all that. He made Xavier Institute a School, with teachers, who taught freakish mutants.
Blacks did look different, that was the point of racism. You could tell them apart, while mutants just blended in.
