I grew up on the Chris Claremont years of the X-Men. The story of the “mutants” in Marvel’s universe, and in particular the story of the X-Men was a story of civil rights in America. It provided instructions on appropriate ways in which to pursue civil rights if you are a hated minority group. It always appeared to me that there was within its pages a commentary on the civil rights movement of the 60s (at least as perceived by “White America”) with a clear division between good and bad mutants: mutants who wanted acceptance and legal equality of course, but pursued it in a law-abiding (for the most part) and assimilationist manner, and those mutants believed that the injustice of the system demanded revolution and open rebellion: i.e., the X-Men (good mutants) led by Prof. Xavier, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants led by Magneto (for whom the American system was just a, thus far, nicer version of Nazi persecution he and his family had endured during WW2).
But I wonder to what extent this narrative also foreshadowed and now is our narrative concerning Islam, both in America and abroad? Was this not the division between good and bad mutants a repetition of the way in the which the (White) American consciousness had distinguished between between the Christian MLK, who sought peace, and the those within the NoI or, abroad, the Muslim Brotherhood (Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?), who were willing to use violence to fight oppression?
