This is why I love mutants: they tend to be a-okay with ‘difference’.
Too bad it’s fictional.
And here I thought Northstar would forever be an old maid.
It’s rare that my reading of mainstream comics actually pays off in some sort of socially redeeming way. Other than the horrible films celebrating violence as the means by which any and all genetic variations deal with their problems, occasionally a comic comes along and shakes things up a bit. Of course, it’s common knowledge that the idea of ‘mutants’ in the Marvel Universe has been a means of dealing with human difference, bigotry and civil rights (which is why initially, perhaps, it was one of the least popular of the Lee/Kirby creations). More often than not, however, mainstream comic book companies will continue to sell out to the almighty dollar–meaning they rarely ‘push’ their readers into uncomfortable areas of thinking (even as lovely as it is that Jean-Paul and Kyle are getting married, it’s also bringing in lots and lots of publicity/cash–so, I’m not totally convinced it’s a ‘counter-cultural’ move on their part).
Traditionally, the mainstream comic book world has reveled in its heterosexism where they ensured that all heroes were steroid-induced practitioners of violence ‘making it’ with other steroid-induced heroines who always wear the most ridiculous costumes conceivable by their predominantly male ‘creators’ (ah man, Mary Daly could be right on a few things). And if any same-sex action was suggested, it was mostly girl on girl. And by ‘girl’, I mean ‘very young woman’. The comic industry does not really know how to think about what it would mean to carefully portray an older woman as a superhero or a lesbian, as neither would be ‘attractive’ to the vast majority of heterosexual male readers whose closest thing to a relationship is taking their picture with any one of the numerous Poison Ivy wanna-be’s at Comic-Con. (Seriously, can I get just one fan-gal to pull off Layla Miller? I’d be that guy begging her for a photo together.)
"Kara Zor-El, are we going to pillow-fight or what?" "Why, I don't know, Powergirl . . . someone could be watching." "That's the whole idea, Kara. That's the whole idea."
Of course, to the credit of folks like Peter David, who last year won a GLADD Award for his work with X-Factor, it’s finally coming around (David has also been doing some intriguing work with Monet–a very ‘temperamental’ super-heroine recently revealing that she is a Muslim–with a some very interesting connections being made between the fictional rhetoric used against mutants and the real rhetoric employed against Muslims). Whether or not comics is a mirror of, or to, culture, in which culture can be shaped by comics (after all, you’re looking at an industry big enough that Disney was willing to pay $4 billion for Marvel), you start to get the feeling that Astonishing X-Men #51 could matter after all.
I’m guessing that’s why there is a One Million Mom March against the presentation of gay marriages in comic books (but not the heterosexist and thoroughly patriarchal representation of women in comic books). An aside: Guess what moms? Kids don’t even read comic books anymore. The demographic is not your little boys. I can’t think of the last time I saw anyone under the age of twenty in a comic book store. Their numbers are so low that the majority of comic book stores have created a very small ‘kids’ sections–where six-year-olds can look at a Mary Martin version of Dr. Doom. So, you know . . . good job knowing your own kids.
Perhaps, Magneto, long known for his own past bigotry (he’s a ‘good’ guy now) has been right all along: mutants really are homo-superior. They are the next step in our evolutionary ascent from the kind of hatred homo-sapiens have long displayed toward women, people of different races, those with disabilities, those of different nationalities as well as those who prefer intimacy with one sex over the other. Instead of mutant difference being an occasion for either superiority or inferiority, some of these writers actually have the insane idea that difference should breed respect for difference. It’s a crazy idea, to be sure, but one that could prove just interesting enough to instigate a necessary mutatis mutandis in humans.
(You see what I did there?! I took the phrase ‘mutatis mutandis’ and implied an evolutionary change in humans that results in the necessary mutation to–okay, yeah . . . you get it, you get it.)
Even Professor X agrees that Magneto was right!