Homo Superior: The X Men as a Cultural Allegory

Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider. Steve Rogers was exposed to a superhuman serum. Throughout the silver age of comic books, the values a character represented that made them appealing to wider masses was rooted in a clearly defined backstory. Thus began the inevitable question for writers; why be a hero? For obligation? For responsibility? For vengeance? 

During the early 1960s, comic books experienced a significant renaissance, fueled by the creative decisions conducted by head writer of Marvel comics Stan Lee. However, under the weight of constant output of serialised issues, originality began to fracture. The question of “why be a hero?” became increasingly complex to answer; how can one continue to inspire innovation through original motivations for comic book heroes when the demand for new heroes has never been higher?

As the production of comics began to increase, Stan Lee found an answer to this age-old question; removing it entirely. The reason for being a hero was no longer tied to the acquisition of their superhuman abilities and instead, begged the question: What if superpowers had presented themselves since birth? Now, superpowers were no longer an event, or a speck in the timeline of their lives; it was their lives; it defined their destiny. 

In 1963, the brainchild of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby presented itself as the X-Men. Power no longer became inseparable from identity, thus the concept of “why be a hero?” became far more innovative through simplicity. The X-Men were created to avoid writing origin stories, yet they ended up telling one anyway.

Around the time of their inception, the world was experiencing rapid, large-scale social change, particularly shaped by events such as the civil rights movement in America. The target audience of comic books tended to be adolescents, the same demographic which was the catalyst behind a lot of major cultural change, such as the Free Speech Movement and growing awareness of differences in sexuality. As a result, wider audiences began to have a growing interest in stories that reflected real tensions. 

The X-Men, unlike most superheroes at the time, represented marginalised groups in a way that had never been tackled before by Marvel. Contrary to the common trope of superheroes being adored by the public, the X-Men were feared and hated by the very people they swore to protect. Therefore, they provided a compelling parallel to the discrimination widely faced by people of colour, particularly resonating with black populations and the growing civil rights movement. 

The term “mutant” referred to those born with the genetic trait, dubbed the “X-Gene”. This was responsible for manifesting their unique abilities. This depicted mutants not as a cultural group, but as a separate biological category. This was further demonstrated by the scientific name Homo Superior, which presented them as the next step in evolution. The biological successor, and ultimately, the doom of humanity. This acted as the primary trigger that led to discrimination of their kind being institutionalised. Homo Sapiens feared what they could not comprehend; feared what was different from them. At the time, these themes provided major cultural insight and relevance, providing correspondence to the treatment that people of colour had endured for centuries. 

The suffering and violation of rights that the mutants experienced resonated with the struggles faced by black people, with early issues of the Uncanny X-Men line (#141-142). This was particularly evident with the Days of Future Past story arc, where it depicts a possible future where mutants were actively hunted and killed, with anti-mutant rhetoric being more prevalent than ever.

Kirby and Lee portrayed the debut team for the X-Men as school-age teenagers, spearheaded by Professor Charles Xavier. Not only was he a mentor to teach them to hone their abilities, but a teacher for all mutants, having founded Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Part of the reason why this idea was so appealing to wider audiences was due to the emergence of the “teenager” as a concept. People in their teens began to rebel against the beliefs insinuated by the older generation and began to question widely-accepted values that enforced discrimination and inequality. Therefore, teens established a new culture centred around forming a society without marginalisation and conforming to discriminatory standards, which was looked down upon by the elders that lead the world. As a result, many teenagers who partook in protest were regarded as abnormal, and often scorned. Hence, the idea of a place for misfits and those shunned by society heavily resonated with adolescents.

Furthermore, Xavier was frequently exhibited as an idealist, desiring a peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants, and was a strong advocate for integration; akin to that of the real leader of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, who advocated for the integration of black people with white society and believed in non-violent solutions to prejudice, much like what Xavier was portrayed as. In contrast, the primary nemesis of the X-Men, Magneto (Erik Lehnsherr), was presented as a moral contrast, providing the comparison of pragmatism versus Charles’s idealism. 

Magneto emphasised the belief that mutants are the next step in evolution and must actively fight against oppression, by any means necessary. Unlike Xavier’s passivity and desire for peace, Magneto believed in fighting preemptively. Additionally, his history as a Holocaust survivor provided a reason for his beliefs, as he had been someone marginalised not just for his abilities, but for his human identity. This provided somewhat of a parallel to Malcolm X, who similarly to Magneto, provided the ideological contrast to Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement. Malcolm X advocated for separation from white society and self-defence through violence and represented a side of the civil rights movement that were more radical.

However, in a way, the creation of the X-Men acts as an intentionally unstable metaphor. The prejudice against mutants is somewhat presented as biological, not societal. Martin Luther King often preached about how racism is taught and never a part of one's being, an idea that was followed by many civil rights activists after his death.

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate…”

• Nelson Mandela

The representation of how humans fear mutants shifts bigotry from the rhetoric that “people are taught to hate” to an idea that people may instinctively fear what threatens them. The X-Men suggest prejudice is not always a moral failure, but can be rooted in a fear of genuine concern. 

This deviates from the real world, where marginalised groups are not inherently dangerous. However, some mutants within the Marvel universe absolutely are. These themes are explored and represented through Jean Grey, a prominent member of the X-Men who, during the Dark Phoenix Saga (Uncanny X-Men #101-108), gained immense cosmic power, becoming the Dark Phoenix and incinerating an entire star system; and Scarlet Witch, a villain-turned hero with extremely destructive reality-bending abilities through her knowledge of chaos magic. Despite her heroism, her emotional turmoil leads to her warping reality to create a mutant-dominated "utopia", where humans are minorities (House of M #1 - 6). 

Ultimately, despite the X-Men and the mutants acting as a parallel for real-world marginalised groups and presenting analogies for global minorities, it is intentionally an unstable metaphor as, while most X-Men stories want you to sympathize with mutants, some also suggest reasoning for why humans are afraid. The X-Men metaphor is deliberately imperfect and this provides nuance and more complexity to discrimination along with how mutants are perceived within the Marvel universe, rather than acting as a one to one analogy of racial bigotry. Therefore, due to the ambiguous nature of the metaphor, the X-Men have allowed audiences worldwide to project their own social anxieties and experiences onto the mutants, cementing themselves not only as cultural icons but also as symbols for real-world discrimination.