X-Men Creator Chris Claremont Laments Modern Marvel Comics Turning Characters Into Identity Politics Lectures On Minorities
Marvel Comics has seemed not to know what to do with the mutant end of their publishing line for quite some time, with failed attempts at forcing the X-Men into a mess of identity politics in recent years where they’ve pushed disordered LGBTQ lifestyles at the expense of their readership. Now, Chris Claremont has taken exception to this use of the characters in a recent interview.
The X-Men always presented an interesting group of characters with powers based on genetic mutations; the “homo-superior” was shown as the next step in evolution for mankind, with Professor Charles Xavier teaching young students to utilize their powers at his school.
The Stan Lee and Jack Kirby creation was borne out of a demand for more superhero teams. Fantastic Four became a hit bestseller, propelling Marvel Comics to heights it had never seen before, and the team wanted to recreate the formula in another book in a mostly male-led team with one heart-throb female in Jean Grey.
X-Men did not see the same success and teetered on cancelation for years until Chris Claremont revitalized the franchise in the 1970s with Giant Size X-Men. Here, he introduced the world to a lot of new mutants, showing, much like Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek, a group working together despite their political differences. In this initial group was a German, Russian, and more to present a twist where it became more like the United Nations fight against evil.
Some stories under Claremont hit on social justice topics, but for the most part, the X-Men were a swashbuckling adventure book with a lot of intrapersonal soap opera drama, the formula Marvel carried to success and eventually transformed the book into one of Marvel’s best sellers.
In recent years, however, Marvel Comics has been trying to push identity politics with the book. The company hired transgender activist Vita Ayala in a recent iteration who turned Kitty Pryde into a lesbian.
Nightcrawler’s origin was also changed to push the agenda, making him the result of a birth by two lesbian mutants, even going so far as to have the formerly Catholic priest character officiate a gay wedding in an insult to Christians.
Because of instances like this, X-Men has lost the plot, and Claremont has called out the LGBTQ activists in the past. Chris Claremont himself confirmed he never intended for it to be an allegory for homosexuals when he was speaking at an LGBTQ-themed convention in 2012 called Flame Con. Here, while trying to court and appeal to the rainbow flag audience, he told the attendees he didn’t always intend for the X-Men to be a stand-in for the LGBTQ community, but, he said, “You know there’s a space between every panel. You can go wherever you want. And who am I to get in the way?”
It was a diplomatic answer, but now he’s given another interview where he shows he doesn’t approve of the recent handling of the Mutant franchise.
During a panel at CCXP 2024, he spoke on the topic,
“The challenge is to see themselves at the school as minorities, That’s Charlie’s job. That’s Magneto’s job. From my perception what they are is a half-dozen, maybe a dozen kids, young people living together, but looking on themselves as ordinary people.”
“They have abilities, yeah. Leonard Bernstein had abilities. From their perspective, it’s not much different. He composed and played brilliant music. They save the world. You know, A and B. The key is to think of them as people, not as heroes. Not, ‘Yes, I am a minority.’ No, you’re a person who is trying to live a normal life. Other people may see you as a minority. You may react to them as a minority. You may look at yourself objectively as a minority, but as a person, you’re a person.”
“Nightcrawler is the most dynamic non-human physicality in the team. But his attitude is, ‘I am the person God made. Who am I to argue with God? I’m just going to live my life like a normal guy and see what happens next.’ Yes, he used to hide the way he looked, because he’s not stupid. Blue skin, two fingers, two toes, and a tail definitely make you stand out from the crowd. It took Logan to challenge him to take off the mask and be a normal person and see if anybody else notices to get him to do it. But other than that, he just tried to live a normal cool life as someone who loves acting, who is a theater performer, and who is a stuntman.”
“That is the way you should look at these characters. Not as characters, not as objective concepts, but as ordinary normal really cool people. The rest of it falls into place, but you can look around this room at the people around this table. Oh look, that’s an X-Person! How do you know? Well, it looks sort of like Colossus. How do you know? Well, doesn’t he? It may be Peter Rasputin, but who knows. You just see him as a person. Not as Colossus.”
Clearly he wished the book would have been more in an action-adventure format and not so focused on identity politics as recent iterations of X-Men has become. Wokeness infected Marvel Comics on a level never before imagined, and even liberals like Claremont see the current crop has gone too far.
What do you think of Chris Claremont not wanting the X-Men to be a focus on being minorities? Leave a comment and let us know.
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Claremont is a snake. He recognises that the SJW nonsense became too much so even normies notice, while he's the one who pushed progressivism in the early X-Men comics. If it wasn't for Jim Shooter the propaganda would've been even worse.
It doesn't matter whether one or more characters in a story are gay, trans or straight. The important thing is that it doesn't interact with the actual story and only disturbs it because of this fact. In LoL's “Arcane”, it doesn't matter if Vi is a lesbian or not. It doesn't affect the story in any way because it's so much more than that.
The problem in my eyes is not about the so-called "political agenda", even if it has nothing to do with politics, and also not about the anti-woke movement called "THE MESSAGE", but only about whether it influences the narrative for one reason only: someone has to represent a minority and that in the foreground.