X-Men ’97 wasn’t about superheroes, it was about people

Who are the X-Men for?

The malleability of the mutant metaphor has long been a strength of Marvel. As a product of the 1960s, it was popularly seen as the superhuman version of the civil rights struggle. In the 21st century, fans have adopted it as a queer story, identifying with the rise of mutant characters and the thematic thread of found family that was present from the early days of comics. In between and beyond, mutants are easy for any outgroup or minority in society to identify with, a perpetual underdog and a victim of humanity’s terrible drive to make others its own.

Because there is no consistent, real-world analogue for the mutants, X-Men stories often find specificity in their antagonists. The best are philosophical: other mutants who believe in mutant supremacy over coexistence (sometimes Magneto) or in the brutal mathematics of Darwinian battle (always Apocalypse). People who see mutants as a biological goldmine that needs to be stripped for parts (Mr. Sinister) or weaponized (William Stryker). Or other outgroups who find within themselves another possible future for humanity, one in which mutants are not even in the picture (the Children of the Vault).

Season 1 of the Disney Plus revival series X Men ’97 is a bit of a grand tour through this existential battleground for Marvel’s mutants, with a dizzying array of antagonists complicating their battle for acceptance. In the three-part finale, the series ends with one: Bastion, a human-machine hybrid who sees his post-human transformation as a natural response to the extinction-level event that is mutation. An immovable object against the unstoppable power of mutants and their potential to replace ‘normal’ humans as the majority.

Herein lies its specificity X Men ’97. “Tolerance is Extinction,” the title of the finale, takes its name from Bastion’s ideological argument: that humanity’s coexistence with and embrace of mutants will result in its own extermination. This is a 2024 update to the basic politics of X-Men stories, which are based on their heroes being “hated and feared” because they are different. It is a direct echo of modern far-right rhetoric (which is in fact quite old far-right rhetoric) intended to incite fear and anxiety about changing demographics, as migrants or progressives or anyone who deviates from deeply held norms threatens due diligence . accumulated power of the elites.

The first season of X Men ’97 was full of internal debates about how to deal with this sentiment – ​​a deeply held belief that inspires anti-mutant militias, legislation and genocide – and with the bystanders who allowed it all to happen. It was remarkably unconcerned with its superhero characters; instead it was interested in them as people. People with a long history of dealing with oppression and bigotry, people who may be fed up or burned out, or desperate for someone to be held accountable for their pain. Some, like Rogue, shock their friends and teammates with the way they lash out. But their anger is understood. Space is being made for it.

Image: Marvel Animation

This is, in a sense, the central tragedy of the X-Men: they are always fighting a war simply to exist. In the great essay “Magneto’s judgment,” writer Asher Elbein puts it this way:

Read enough In X-Men, the lives of minorities are completely determined by oppression. No improvement can be permanent; progress is always an illusion; As figures in an ongoing, perpetual piece of intellectual property, so too must mutants always to be hated and feared.

Perhaps this is a bleak reading of the X-Men and their function as a metaphor for the marginalized. However, cartoon characters work best as vehicles for simple ideas, and the complexity of any other social group will always be ill-served by the need to keep the metaphor marketable and forever railing against some oppressor. The X-Men can never be alone for any group that identifies with them; they are too dependent on the machinations of bigots and those who want to ruin the X-Men. Perhaps their role is simpler instead: that there will always be a struggle and a side must always be chosen.

It is not unreasonable to be suspicious of this X Men ’97. Few nostalgia plays are so blatant: the year is here in the title – or so focused. Even as an evolution of a children’s cartoon intended for the adult versions of those children, it retains the haphazard nature of its source material: the soap operas of a long-running series that sound strange to anyone not used to them. Yet it still feels urgent, thoughtful, and essential for one small reason: it hurts. The way people do.

X Men ’97 season 1 is now streaming on Disney Plus.