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Mutant Prejudice in X-Men Comics Today… (Spoilers for Dazzler, Astonishing X-Men and X-Men Red)

Despite some clever PR over the years, the X-Men comic was never meant to be a superheroic allegory for prejudice. Professor X was never meant to be a Martin Luther King or Magneto a Malcolm X. That interpretation came later, mostly when the likes of Len Wein and Chris Claremont started working on the books and gave them a little more subtlety. But it's something Marvel has been keen to claim and use since, and certainly since the eighties, the X-Men began to wear their political colours on their sleeves. Even if sometimes the allegory took over – and real-life issues began to be used as an allegory for mutant prejudice.

Oh Kitty. The follies of youth. You wouldn't get away with it now – though it's fine for All Ages download on the Marvel Unlimited app. But three comics published today, X-Men Red, Astonishing X-Men and Dazzler X-Song One Shot tackle that head on.

Dazzler X-Song by Magdalene Visaggio, Laura Braga and Rachelle Rosenberg, a new tale of the mutant singer/songwriter, was originally intended to be published as one of the Marvel Legacy oneshots, at a time when the internecine mutant and Inhuman battles were still a little more recent, alongside the Inhumans Vs X-Men event and spinoffs. Rather that pitching mutants against an actual human race, it uses the Inhumans/mutants battle to demonstrate prejudice between one targeted group and another.

It's not an uncommon phenomenon for one targeted group to target another, one that you might have thought that could have found common ground with. Certain groups of feminist activists and trans women for example, or anti-Carribean immigrant feeling from Nigerian immigrants in the UK. Sunni vs Shi'ite street violence. Prejudice expressed against African Americans by Jewish and Asian groups in the US.

It's something that the establishment has been accused of encouraging, divide and conquer, the classic tactic of the British Empire. But it's a far more subtle and considered use of the mutant allegory from Marvel that we may have expected, even in the confines of a superhero comic and Dazzler plays this really well.

X-Men Red #5 by Tom Taylor, Mahmud Asrar and Rain Beredo is telling its own anti-mutant prejudice and finds some real world incidents to piggy back onto. With mutants being shot in the street, and governments enacting anti-mutant legislation.

The choice of Poland mirrors specifically recalls World War II, the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces in 1939 that began the conflict and the subsequent imposed government that persecuted and exterminated the Jewish population, many of whom tried to flee.

It even involves the Polish armed forces, though the comic notes that this behaviour and attitude is not restricted to Poland. The choice of battleground is a significant one, however.

While today in the more action-orientated Astonishing X-Men #12, Charles Soule's final issue with Gerardo Sandoval and Erick Arciniega, it ends with a new status quo for our mutants, with the man called X making some changes to his mutants. And seemijgly rejecting what Xavier once was in a fonal page that echoes and rejects the Martin Luther King comparison…

It does appear that this is quite the age of the X right now – in everything but the core books, that is. Though at least, there, Kitty Pryde reigns it in a bit now….

X-MEN RED #5
(W) Tom Taylor (A) Mahmud A. Asrar (CA) Travis Charest
MUTANT HATE IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH…
•  …and Jean Grey is caught right in the middle!
•  CASSANDRA NOVA's plan is finally revealed….but to devastating consequences.
•  And just because JEAN GREY's team finally knows what's going on, doesn't mean they can actually stop it.
•  Someone close to Jean is about to become Nova's latest pawn…but who? And why?
Rated T+ In Shops: Jun 06, 2018
SRP: $3.99

DAZZLER X SONG #1
(W) Magdalene Visaggio (A) Laura Braga (CA) Elizabeth Torque
DAZZLER ROCKS ON!
The Brooklyn punk scene has never been cooler with DAZZLER's new band taking center stage. But while she's trying to find herself and reconnect to the one thing she's always loved, Dazzler stumbles upon a truly toxic part of the underground punk scene. When a new and violent gang threatens the young Inhuman fans that follow her from venue to venue, Dazzler may have to turn to her own past to provide some guidance–and butt kicking.
Written by the Eisner-nominated Magdalene Visaggio, and drawn by the incredible Laura Braga, DAZZLER: X SONG is an energetic epic that you won't want to miss.
Rated T+ In Shops: Jun 06, 2018

ASTONISHING X-MEN #12
(W) Charles Soule (A) Gerardo Sandoval (CA) Greg Land
THE FINAL SHOWDOWN FOR…A MAN CALLED X!
•  It's XAVIER and PSYLOCKE versus PROTEUS!
•  In a battle for reality itself, which of these super-powered psychics will win?
•  And when the dust settles, what's next for the Astonishing X-men?
Rated T+ In Shops: Jun 06, 2018
SRP: $3.99

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