Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics, X-Men | Tagged: david marquez, gail simone

Is New Orleans Becoming A Sanctuary City For Mutants? (X-Men Spoilers)

Is New Orleans becoming a sanctuary city for mutants, in Uncanny X-Men #16 by Gail Simone and David Marquez? (XSpoilers)

In the current post-Krakoan X-Men titles, the world has turned even more anti-mutant than usual, especially in America. As the government takes over the X-Mansion, imprisons, interrogates and tortures mutants, Uncanny X-Men has entrenched that history of anti-mutant feeling in New Orleans, going back a hundred years with even stronger parallels to the American Black experience than before. But in today's Uncanny X-Men #16 by Gail Simone and David Marquez published today by Marvel Comics, starts in a very different way. A push back against such hatred, and a brand new New Orleans.

As a political press conference from the Mayor of New Orleans takes a very different tone.

With individual anecdotal and recent evidence of the heroism of the X-Men in the city they are currently calling home…

With binders full of mutants… and getting mayoral support for a new initiative.

New Orleans is the USA's first mutant friendship city.

And a Friendship Fest to boot. This does seem to be an allegory for a number of things. The concept of a sanctuary city, a municipality that limits or denies its cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration law. Such as began in the USA with churches in the Southwest, when minister John Fife wrote to Attorney General William Smith, "the South-side United Presbyterian Church will publicly violate the Immigration and Nationality Act by allowing sanctuary in its church for those from Central America" over asylum seekers from El Salvador and Guatemala. And which saw San Francisco pass a City of Refuge resolution in 1985. Policies have included laws allowing undocumented immigrants to acquire municipal IDs or driver's licenses, or access to resources, including education and food banks. Or limit state and local cooperation with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bodies. More recently, President Donald Trump stated that he will terminate federal funding for cities that identify as sanctuary jurisdictions as part of a crackdown on immigration to the USA.

While an actual Friendship Festival was an annual celebration of the bond between Canada and the United States that ran in Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York,  connected by the Peace Bridge, and ran from 1987 to 2019 from the 29th of June to the 4th of July. Of course, the two countries are less friendly now. This version might also reflect the Pride festivals, held globally, to celebrate LGBTQ+ communities. As ever with the X-Men, it may be a mixture of all of them.

What the rest of New Orleans will have to say about all of this, well, that's to come. And they haven't met Mutina yet, but she will debut in the next issue. Uncanny X-Men #16 by Gail Simone and David Marquez is published today by Marvel Comics.

UNCANNY X-MEN #16
(W) Gail Simone (A/CA) David Marquez
…CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY The DARK ARTERY, gateway to an underworld of unspeakable evil, has taken one of the Outliers and it will take the Uncanny X-Men to get them back…IF they can survive the corruption process needed to enter! Plus, the secret of the ENDLING at last! It's MONSTERS vs. MUTANTS for the soul of an Outlier! Don't miss this story finale! Rated T+In Shops: Jun 25, 2025 SRP: $4.99

UNCANNY X-MEN #17
(W) Gail Simone (A) Luciano Vecchio (CA) David Marquez
HORROR COMES TO HAVEN HOUSE! When a brilliant but exploitative Hollywood director makes a surprise hit horror film featuring a serial-killing mutant girl, there are protests at theaters around the country and a rise in anti-mutant violence in those same communities. But IS it "just a movie," or is something much more insidious going on? Will a malignant force make the X-team their PREY? Will they get out alive, or will it all end in MISERY? Rated T+In Shops: Jul 09, 2025 SRP: $4.99

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