X-Men

My history with the X-men is pretty, well, non-existent. I’ve seen the first movie before, but that is it. I’ve never read the comics and prior to this week, I never managed to watch any of the sequels. However, I’ve found the readings regarding the X-men in class thus far to be incredibly interesting, and I believe I may now be in love with the X-men. (Side note - with all the “political correctness going on in the world, I really hope that feminists keep their hands off the X-men or we’ll have X-Persons on our hands, which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, right?)

I hit up the Netflix library for some supplemental studying this week, and found an interview with Stan Lee by Kevin Smith titled “Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters and Marvels.” Basically Stan Lee summarized the entire Silver Age unit from Kaplan’s “From Krakow to Krypton” except it was more entertaining hearing it straight from the man himself. He did provide a few bits of information that the book did not, including the fact that he originally pitched the idea of “X-men” to the bosses with the title of “Mutants.” The title was turned down due to, what Stan Lee said he was told, “that people won’t know what a Mutant is.” I think it was meant to be, as X-Men certainly has a better ring to it, but I thought it hilarious when he said, that after he re-pitched it as X-Men, and it was approved, he said he walked away thinking, “so people WILL know what an X-Men is?” If you are interested, the interview is available to play instantly on Netflix if you are subscriber, but beware, Kevin Smith was not the most brilliant interviewer. If I could have jumped up and into my television I would have slapped him. I like Kevin Smith, so I’m going to guess that he was just nervous interviewing a hero of his. Stan Lee also provides just a tad more insight into the whole issue of Jack Kirby defecting to DC. He claims that he knows very little firsthand, just that he was told Jack wanted to keep rights to all of his images and the right to re-issue them without any connection to Marvel, and was very angry when he was turned down.

Anyway,  the readings inspired me to re-watch X-Men (the first) which I thoroughly enjoyed and was completely amazed at all the references to the Jewish experience that could be found, particularly the experience during the Holocaust. Obviously the first scenes which show Magneto at a concentration camp being separated from his parents, are clearly depicting this time, and explaining to us why he is who he is. But the entire theme of the witch hunting and the propaganda against the mutants, an entire population being convinced that another group is different and therefore dangerous, fostering a sense of fear that is sure to make people lose their sense of right and wrong if not their minds entirely. These themes are all reminiscent of the events that lead to the Holocaust.

Netflix didn’t have the second X-Men movie on demand, but luckily The Exclusive Company carries tons of used dvd’s at a reasonable price, so I now own a few more. The second movie, which I watched for the first time last night, while not as outwardly as the first, is still continuing this theme of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust. This is depicted through the obvious, like the idea of forced registration of all mutants, as well as the eventual attempt and move towards the “rounding up” of all mutants after being framed for a terrorist attack. However, there were more subtle references too, like the image of the children hiding in the walls when the military arrived to detain them.

X-Men and the deeper stories that are evident in the comic books we’ve explored thus far, is definitely fostering a new interest in comic books for me. By the end of class, or perhaps even by mid-way through, I may be a card carrying comic book nerd. I was (in a very complimentary way) called just such a thing by the store clerk when I got up to the counter at Exclusive with a stack of comic book based movies and after I corrected him that my stack of treasure did not contain ONLY Marvel  but also one lonely DC title.  A few weeks ago I wouldn’t have known the difference.