Grant Morrison OWNS Frank Miller

I didnt realize you have to be freakishly disfigured to be different. How we all forget the witch hunts of old, the red scare of the 50's. Mutants were a threat to the populace, or they believed so. All Morrison did was make some really ugly people and stuck them in the Institute. There was nothing groundbreaking about his run. Was it good. Sure, I dont personally like it, but it was good. I think Marvels perfectly captures what Stan and Jack created back in the day.
 
ShadowBoxing said:
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.



Well, I agree and disagree. Lee and Kirby certainly adressed the racism issue with the Sentinels and a few of the Magneto stories. But I do think that Morrison perfected it.
 
Darthphere said:
I didnt realize you have to be freakishly disfigured to be different. How we all forget the witch hunts of old, the red scare of the 50's. Mutants were a threat to the populace, or they believed so. All Morrison did was make some really ugly people and stuck them in the Institute. There was nothing groundbreaking about his run. Was it good. Sure, I dont personally like it, but it was good. I think Marvels perfectly captures what Stan and Jack created back in the day.

You also have a point. However, I do think Morrison did alot. Having more deformed mutants shows that not everyone has the luxury of simply pretending they aren't what they are. And, making the school an actual school was pretty nice too.
 
I thought the Morlocks covered the idea that not everyone has the luxury of pretending they aren't what they are. Anyone remember the Morlocks? Anyone? :confused:
ShadowBoxing said:
Both were comprised of mutated individuals who fought intergalactic threats and tyrants.
I'm not going to join the argument because I don't really care about the X-Men either way, but it's "Both comprised mutated individuals..."
 
The Question said:
You also have a point. However, I do think Morrison did alot. Having more deformed mutants shows that not everyone has the luxury of simply pretending they aren't what they are. And, making the school an actual school was pretty nice too.


Ill give you that, but to say no one addressed the issue of racism and all its allegories and metaphors over the years in X-Men and somehow Morrison came in and shocked the world, is ludicrous IMO.
 
TheCorpulent1 said:
I thought the Morlocks covered the idea that not everyone has the luxury of pretending they aren't what they are. Anyone remember the Morlocks? Anyone? :confused:


No, the Morlocks don't exist. No ugly mutants existed until Morrison came along.
 
Apparently not. I loved most of Morrison's X-Men run, and I applaud him for bringing the focus back to the ideas of Xavier's school as a school, the X-Men as the teachers of that school in addition to superheroes, and the mutants' being an oppressed, racially subjugated minority, but I fail to see how any argument can be made that they didn't embrace those ideas before Morrison came along. :confused:
 
They did embrace them, and then came the 90s, and then Morrison brought back the social issues in a new light.
 
Well everything sucked in the 90's so thats like a given.
 
Darthphere said:
I didnt realize you have to be freakishly disfigured to be different. How we all forget the witch hunts of old, the red scare of the 50's.
Communist and Witch hunts though both categorized the hunted as different from the mainstream. The Mainstream in the Marvel Universe is Superheroes. The X-Men, as far as Marvel was concerned were people who obtained powers by accident (since there would be no way for a casual observer to understand where their powers came from), which is no different than other superheroes.

Black people were oppressed because of their genetic appearance, as mutants were supposedly oppressed. Because they were "born different". In the case of black people, yes they WERE thought to be disfigured. I don't think I have to present the scads of movies/photos/cartoons/comics and pictures that exaggerated the black appearance to seem more ape-ish and disfigured.
Mutants were a threat to the populace, or they believed so.
Not initially. Initially, just like in Ultimate they were LOVED. Like really celebrities. Trask came out with one article which explains these mutants are going to take over and the population goes nutty. This is somewhat akin to the Reconstruction era politics, but I doubt this is intentional.

And you have to quantify why they were oppressed. Yes, we are told in the comic they are a threat. But it's because they have powers. Not because (like Morrison did) they were outpacing the Homo Sapiens.

Trask forwarned they would enslave. But if the X-Men would enslave because they have the power to. Why did the populace cheer them but not denounce the Avengers, Fantastic Four and others who were easily just as strong.

The X-Men were never made distinct from the rest of the MU. We were just told to believe that these super-beings were somehow oppressed but the other super-beings were not. Now maybe there is some inherent hypocracy in racism, but generally it is pretty focused.

Blacks skin color was drastically different in most cases from white people. Even the light skinned still had features and tones which set them apart (Furthermore it was really simply extending the logic of slavery).

So the X-Men were neither enslaved nor politically disenfranchised. So there must be some distinct reason why they are oppressed.

For years the X-Men were always called "Freaks" and "Gene-Jokes" when its obvious to anyone they are just as attractive and normal as all other superheroes. Should they not actually look like freaks. Does this not justify the analogy.

It is easy to say "This is an analogy for racism". To actually present an analogy for racism is something different.
All Morrison did was make some really ugly people and stuck them in the Institute. There was nothing groundbreaking about his run.
Which is important and groundbreaking. Early black leaders were teachers, not militants. Xavier was changed from a good natured battlion leader to a headmaster. He was actually teaching children and providing them haven from the ghettos they lived in.

This is something that actually occurred in the Civil Rights movements and actually happens in societies with oppression.

Was it good. Sure, I dont personally like it, but it was good. I think Marvels perfectly captures what Stan and Jack created back in the day.
Before Marvels I had not seen anyone write a story about an ugly scared girl with no powers locked in a basement. Stan Lee and Kirby never ever touched anything like that.
 
TheCorpulent1 said:
Apparently not. I loved most of Morrison's X-Men run, and I applaud him for bringing the focus back to the ideas of Xavier's school as a school, the X-Men as the teachers of that school in addition to superheroes, and the mutants' being an oppressed, racially subjugated minority, but I fail to see how any argument can be made that they didn't embrace those ideas before Morrison came along. :confused:
Not like they should have. They said the X-Men were always this oppressed minority. That it was a school. But they never showed it.

It was always a Superhero book before Morrison. It failed to ever present those themes as they should be presented. They never made sense.
 
X-Men is, was, and always has been a superhero book, including the time Morrison was writing it. What are you arguing--that superhero comics are somehow incapable of presenting serious themes? There are quite a few classic stories where those themes were presented very well. I don't know which X-Men comics you were reading. :confused:
Not Jake said:
They did embrace them, and then came the 90s, and then Morrison brought back the social issues in a new light.
Ok, that I can buy. I agree that Morrison rejuvenated the X-Men line.
 
ShadowBoxing said:
Not like they should have. They said the X-Men were always this oppressed minority. That it was a school. But they never showed it.

It was always a Superhero book before Morrison. It failed to ever present those themes as they should be presented. They never made sense.


Wow, and the thing is, youre saying this seriously. Never? I think you need to go and read up on some essentials or anything, its all there. Maybe they didnt hit us over the head with it like Morrison did, but its there subtle, but its there.:up:
 
TheCorpulent1 said:
I thought the Morlocks covered the idea that not everyone has the luxury of pretending they aren't what they are. Anyone remember the Morlocks? Anyone? :confused:
Not really. The morlocks were presented as evil, they were contentious with the X-Men. Only a few instances did the X-Men really fall in line with them. Mutant Massacre comes to mind. However outside of that usually the Morlocks tried to kill or battle against the X-Men.

So if your ugly mutants are evil, that is kind of a typical cliche. Make the villain ugly, make the heroes beautiful. Pretty standard writing device.
 
Darthphere said:
Wow, and the thing is, youre saying this seriously. Never? I think you need to go and read up on some essentials or anything, its all there. Maybe they didnt hit us over the head with it like Morrison did, but its there subtle, but its there.:up:
I have nearly every Uncanny X-Men in some form thank you:down

Your crux is to prove the theme made sense before Morrison. Something that is pretty much impossible from where I stand. Hell Lee did not even make one Mutant black. Way to hit home that racism analogy :down
 
ShadowBoxing said:
I have nearly every Uncanny X-Men in some form thank you:down


Then you need to go back and read all of them because your Morrison fanboyism is blinding you from the truth. Im not denying Morrison did all the things you say he did, but he wasnt the first, not by a long shot.
 
Darthphere said:
Then you need to go back and read all of them because your Morrison fanboyism is blinding you from the truth. Im not denying Morrison did all the things you say he did, but he wasnt the first, not by a long shot.
He was the first one to present it sensically, yes. Before him, the analogy was weak at best.
 
ShadowBoxing said:
He was the first one to present it sensically, yes. Before him, the analogy was weak at best.


Yes, were going in circles here. Youve said this many times already. You may believe it was weak, but it was there. I dont think it was weak. Just because writers in the past didnt feel the need to take a baseball bat and hit us over the head with it repeatedly like Morrison, doesnt mean other writers havent touched upon it.
 
1) "Sensically" is not a word.
2) He wasn't the first to present them sensibly. Don't you think the fact that everyone else managed to get the message of racism out of the classic X-Men comics while you apparently couldn't might tell you something? :confused:
 
TheCorpulent1 said:
2) He wasn't the first to present them sensibly. Don't you think the fact that everyone else managed to get the message of racism out of the classic X-Men comics while you apparently couldn't might tell you something? :confused:
Uhhh, no. X-Men always said it was a book about racism. It never showed it sensibly. The contradictions ran to fiercly through the book. As I said it was pretty easy for Stan Lee to say this is our racism focused book. But critically if you analzyed it, it's a terribly weak analogy which plays on the fact that usually comics are not that deep.

I think it's pretty easy to have the word "MUTIE" scralled on a wall or show an angry mob. But when it comes time to actually make mutants an oppressed minority, they failed.

We were told they were "freaks" yet rarely were any of the X-Men "freaks". And even those who could not pass as normal were generally drawn to look attractive.

Problem 1: Mutants need betterment in an oppressive system: Okay great. They never got it. Apparently you were either going to put on spandexy uniforms and fight Magneto or you lived off somewhere. Mutants never were educated at the school. In fact during the sixties/seventies and eighties all the mutants attended normal colleges with normal students. Blacks never had that option. Their problem was they needed special outlets and were forced to go to lesser schools for their education. But apparently Jean Grey has no problem attending the same school as Johnny Storm. Metro University. Yeah racism runs rampant when "You can walk into a college and get the same education as anyone else, but you have to live being a mutant. Oh the agony".

Scott went one from there to get a JOB as a radio announcer and Jean as a MODEL. Gee tough life.

Problem 2: (never addressed before Morrison) Mutants as threats. Mutants were threats supposedly because they had powers they could or could not control. They were essentially walking weapons. Now in the movies this was not a contradiction. However when you have a beloved God named Thor walking around, it is. Mutants were no different, and sometimes less of a potential threat than regular Superheroes. Days actually bothered to address that Sentinels would eventually see all metas as threats. But in doing so they passed this supposedly focused oppression onto every other hero as well.

Morrison actually made his first storyarc about mutants causing humans to become extinct. Back in the Lee/Kirby and even Claremont days mutants sparatically appeared. We know for example the 198 are suppose to be Lee era mutant levels. So not only were they a minority, they were an extreme minority. Something akin to the size of the audience who read them rather than an actual minority.

To Trask apparently their abilities and unpredictablity were this horrible threat, but in doing so the book completely skirts the issue that Marvel had several beloved heroes with similar "afflictions". Some of them more freakish than any X-Men.

Problem 3: Xavier Institute bastion for all mutants: We'll start with Lee's run. Supposedly Xavier was the bastion of tolerance, but not once did a black, asian, or latino mutant ever join. All white, anglo saxon, protestant, fit and normal looking individuals. Even the fat guy, Blob, turned out to be evil after being only OFFERED membership.

They should have hung a sign on the door saying "all white superheroes club, female quota filled."

The next run to even address this concept was "All New, All Different" which brillantly made one of the first extremely multi-ethnic teams ever. Now something Ultimate X-Men did here was to make the multi-ethnic roster create inherent racism amongst the team. Something we never saw during Claremont. However the team was still all beautiful. Even Nightcrawler was drawn as a handsome young man, and both he and Beast were huge womanizers. Some curse huh?

During Morrison we saw Beast revert to anything but attractive, as the same for the students. Most of whom were disfigured and did not look human.

Problem 4: Political Disenfranchisement: There never was an explanation for the MRA (not even passed) or a system like Jim Crow developed in the comics. The X-Men were first and foremost accepted by other Superteams, in fact they looked just like the other superteams. This was a taboo that was never broken because in order to do so you'd have to show that most of the people in the MU were bigots. But they never did. There were small pockets of people who hated mutants, who also seemed to revere heroes.

Truthfully, if for no other reason but to save face, the Avengers and FF and others should have been denouncing mutants right allong with the rest. There was no law enforcement agency officially sanctioned by the Government put against them, because this would mean that the same Government who paid Captain America was also bigotted. That doesn't work out when your Government superteam are suppose to be good guys.

Sentinels would come into play as part of renegade schemes. So really this oppressed minority was really a team of superheroes that had groups who hated them? Wait isn't that all superteams. So does Hydra hating SHIELD make SHIELD an oppressed minority. What about Fantastic Four, I am pretty sure the whole race of Skrulls hates them.

Blacks were actually politically disenfranchise by the agency that ruled over them. Mutants never were. It was never even addressed whether mutants had political leaders or not.

There wasn't even enough support drummed up by hate filled people like Gaydeon Creed or Senator Kelly (pre-1985) to cause mutants to become oppressed. If anything they were preventing a future of possible oppression than ever actually combating actual oppression. The same can be said of any Superteam really. Cap and FF do not want Baron Zemo or Doom seizing power anymore than the X-Men want Creed or Trask to.

So are they really oppressed, or do some guys just hate them. That is not racism.

Morrison addressed this with making the X-Men into more of a underground black ops team. Who interacted very little with the Superhero community. He stopped them from appearing like the exact thing that was suppose to be against them in the first place. The rest of the world.


Just an FYI. My favorite story ever is Phoenix Saga, followed by Inferno. Not Morrison. I hated him when he was writing him. I used to say this is not X-Men, but looking back now...it was. Morrison actually wrote X-Men as an oppressed minority. And cleaned up all the problems with the poor analogies of the past.

X-Men was much more focused on it's exploration of it's characters, all of which are very good, than it was making the racism angle work.

I'm glad you know senisically is not a word, it's too bad you are unable to see why X-Men never made sense.
 
I'd probably rather know that sensically isn't a word. I mean, in the real world, what is going to help you more. Grammar. Yes sir.
 
Totally. Grammar rocks. :up:

Also, that post is entirely too long for me to read.
 
...Yeah...to get away from X-Men for a moment, may I say something about the original subject of the topic?

I completely and utterly disagree with people saying how Miller's work sucks. The people who say that the guy has no subtlety and just hates superheroes are generally unable to see the subtlety or is just plain ignoring it.

A good smilie to describe his writing is, like bashing you in the face with a sledgehammer with a thumb-tack glued on. You get hit so hard with the sledgehammer you don't even see the thumb-tack that's stabbed right in your face.
 
In my opinion, Miller will always be better than Morrison when it comes to writing superheroes. That's the one thing that Miller will have over Morrison.
 

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