X Marks The Ghetto: Schism Re-illustrates Marvel’s Mutant Problem
By Arturo R. García
For me, the aura around Marvel’s X-Men franchise took a hit this year, thanks to the raceFAIL that derailed the otherwise enjoyable X-Men: First Class. After all, playing up a group of heroes as surrogates for the marginalized when they’re almost entirely white, cis-hetero folks was more far-fetched than any bit of sci-fi on the screen.
There’s something similarly problematic undercutting this year’s big story in the X-Men comic books, Schism. Much like First Class, Schism isn’t a bad superhero story so far, per se, but its’ focus on the team’s internal politics only highlights how Marvel’s creative process has done “too good” of a job of marginalizing mutantkind, both as a collection of characters and as any kind of representation of diversity.
Spoilers for Schism and other X-stories under the cut.
As Schism #3 hits stores today, here’s where we stand: bad stuff is happening, and mutants are getting blamed for it. Again. This time around, it’s an attack on a peace conference by Kid Omega, previously left brain-dead but now reconstituted and looking like the telepathic, telekinetic lovechild of Alfred E. Newman and John Lydon. Of course, there’s outside forces manipulating the conflict, and in issue #2 last month, we saw the X-Men attempting to defuse some of the chaos, protecting a world that hates and fears them, as usual.
But the Kid and the crisis are just window dressing; the actual hook for the story is, this is The One Where The X-Men Take A Break. Like, split up – at least for the next big story arc – into camps led by Cyclops and Wolverine. The problem is, where the team goes, now seemingly all of mutantkind goes with it.
Part of that problem came about via canon: in the conclusion to the House of M crossover six years ago, the Scarlet Witch cast a spell that drained the powers of millions of mutants, leaving just 198 mutants at the time worldwide. In the years since, most of that remaining population has followed the X-Men to the San Francisco area.
But Marvel as a company has to be held responsible for the other part of this issue. Even before House of M, when mutants were flourishing, the company’s desire or ability to present many compelling mutant characters – good or bad – outside of the X-circle was, at best, severely lacking.
Aside from Peter David’s success with X-Factor and past miniseries like NYX and District X, most mutant involvement outside of the team’s old home in Westchester County has been limited to supporting roles in other superhero books: The Beast and Sub-Mariner have been part of various Avengers squads over the years; in the 1980s, most of the original X-Men briefly found their way into teams like the original X-Factor or the Defenders; and Marvel, it turns out, gave us a Lady Gaga-like character 30 years too early, when Dazzler had her own solo series. (Why was she able to put on such a great light show at her concerts? Baby, she was born that way!)
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