The Curious Relationship of Race in X-Men: A Look at Black Mutants

Passing . . . Since its inception, the core theme of the X-Men mythos has revolved around tolerance, resistance, and acceptance. Boasting a large enough mythos of characters and conflicts to maintain its own universe inside of Marvel cannon, the X-Men is the only series I’ve followed almost consistently since 1992 with only gaps of when the stories became too wayward for my tastes. Since the team’s debut in 1963, the social commentary of oppressed groups and their relationship to a dominant, aggressive society has been the crux of the book. Only recently, following the events of Jonathan Hickman’s House of X/Powers of X relaunch, did the mutants find themselves at a vantage point of peace where they have a nation, language, and economic commodities of their own. Still grand in concept and design, the struggle of X-Men lore remains the tension between homo superior and homo sapien. Over the course of time, this conflict stands as an evolving parable for intolerance in our society – race, religion, orientation, and all silly human forms of separation. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the series debuted in the same year that white nationalists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Medgar Evers was assassinated, and Martin Luther King delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. The conflict at the heart of the X-Men is more than allegorical to people of color in an aggressive, reactionary society. Within the ranks of the X-Men themselves, however, o…