This is one of the best X-Men stories ever written, although there are a lot of really hokey/dated/unintentionally racist elements. In the early 80s, the previously terribly selling X-Men books began their surge that would last until today, mainly once they started being more political and using the X-Men as analogies for how minorities of all kinds were/are treated. Back then, it mainly meant racial minorities, but today the X-Books are often about how homosexuality is treated in society. This graphic novel, written by now awful Chris Claremont, deals with a crazy evangelical minister William Stryker who uses his clout to incite hate crimes against mutants, and also to design a supercomputer for Professor X to use and inadvertently kill all mutants. It's pretty good, except for one part where Kitty Pride runs into a street gang that is literally made up of every non-white ethnicity you can think of, so that's racist, but hey, it was the 80s and you couldn't throw a stone without hitting racism.RATING: 67%
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4 comments:
Just wait for God Loves, Man Kills 2! God's back, and HE'S PISSED!
...oh, wait. That happened. Stupid Claremont.
But in all honesty, this is the first graphic novel I ever read, and still holds up pretty good. You're more than a little right about the slightly racist overtones of Kitty's "run-in" (weird in a story that's ostensibly racial allegory), but all in all it does more good than harm.
Also, it does the two things that Chris Claremont does best - make Magneto compelling as a villain, and write the female members of the X-Men well. So that's pretty good.
You know, despite the fact that I think I really like the X-Men, the only X stories I've ever really liked are this, Grant Morrison's run, Joss Whedon's run, and Nicieza's New Mutants/New X-Men run. And X-Force/Statix if you can count that.
I so could have used your skills tonight at trivia. :(
You're missing out, Glenn. There are other good X-Men stories, they're just hard to find. The X-Men in Australia was great, with the Reavers and Siege Perilous. I was a big fan of the X-Cutioner's Song (where Cable kills Professor X?), and Age of Apocalypse (where Legion kills Professor X?). You might've liked Generation X (swanky Bachalo art) as well.
And on a nitpicky note, that wasn't Nicieza. It was Nunzio DeFillippis and Christina Weir on New Mutants/X-Men. They did so well on that book, that they've basically done nothing else for Marvel since then.
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