Week 11: Chris Claremont and Brent Ericson's "X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills" (1982)

We're taking a bit of a left-turn with our next book, but an interesting one and one that will complement our other readings quite nicely. Reading a graphic novel in a literature survey isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it's typically a "prestige" book like Art Spiegelman's Maus or Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, not an actual comic book with superheroes in spandex running around zapping one another. Nonetheless, X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, the fourth in Marvel Comics' graphic novel series intended to be both: eschewing monthly comics' newsprint for a larger format printed on heavyweight glossy paper. Brent Anderson's art is far more realistic than the typical cartoon style, seemingly painted rather than drawn, and Chris Claremont's story surpasses his already-high standards, offering up a legitimate statement about right and wrong, politics and morality.

There's a lot of backstory here, but you don't really need to know any of it and that's part of the beauty of this self-contained, non-canon story. The X-Men — young people who've opted to use their superpowers, granted via genetic mutation, to help defend a human race that fears and hates them — are led by the powerful telepath Charles Xavier. Their chief protagonist, and co-star here is Magneto, a Holocaust-survivor with the power to control magnetic forces. The team made their debut in 1963 and went on hiatus in 1970, reprinting older tales, but in 1975 Claremont resurrected the title, introduced a new, multicultural cast of characters, and made it one of the world's most popular comics titles. His 1975–1991 run as writer and chief-architect of the series (collaborating with artists Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, John Romita, Jr., Mark Silvestri, and Jim Lee, among others) is widely held as the gold standard for both the X-Men themselves and superhero comics in general. Part of why that work is so highly-esteemed is Claremont's use of the comic medium as a vehicle for social commentary, with the mutants' outsider status serving as a symbol for racism, homophobia, xenophobia, fears during the early AIDS crisis, etc. Claremont explains the core philosophical differences between his chief protagonist and antagonist in a 2000 New York Magazine profile: 

Magneto wants to protect mutants by any means necessary — usually by taking over the world — while Professor X believes humans and mutants can learn to live together. "To use Martin Luther King's idea," says Claremont, "judge them by the content of their character, not the color of their skin." He pauses. "Or the number of arms they have."

This ideological divide is at the heart of God Loves, Man Kills, in which a popular televangelist leads a crusade — both publicly and privately — against mutant-kind. Sadly, it's a message that's every bit as timely now as it was thirty-seven years ago.

We'll spend just one day with the graphic novel, which you can find here: [PDF]

• Thurs. November 7: God Loves, Man Kills

And here is a little optional reading that might help frame the book:

• Alex Abad-Santos talks to the book's creators about its significance in 2017 for Vox: [link]
• Den of Geek revisits the graphic novel in 2008: [link]