With the news about X-Men ’97 turning Morph into a non-binary propaganda piece, the internet’s been set ablaze with arguments over whether the X-Men were always intended to be woke. While Stan Lee’s intentions have been discussed quite a bit, not many people are discussing the iconic Chris Claremont era when analyzing the wokeness content and whether it’s “always been this way” as SJWs are trying to say. However, much like Stan Lee’s words, Chris Claremont never intended the X-Men as some kind of LGBTQ pride book.
The first rumor that was easily debunked is that Stan Lee had Professor X and Magneto as an allegory for Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and that the X-Men were meant to highlight the civil rights struggle in America in the 1960s. This was not true in the least, as the X-Men were simply created as another team book after the success of the Fantastic Four, using a familiar formula of a group of men with one beautiful woman for them to pine over in what was simply another boy’s action comic book in the superhero genre.
The civil rights allegory was never a part of the original script, but the civil rights allegory became talking points for Marvel during the 1980s and 1990s during Chris Claremont’s tenure on the book. Stan Lee did not create the characters like this, and Magneto to “not be a villain” even though he eventually said, “[I] did not think of Magneto as a bad guy. He was just trying to strike back at the people who were so bigoted and racist. He was trying to defend mutants, and because society was not treating them fairly, he decided to teach society a lesson. He was a danger of course, but I never thought of him as a villain.”
Stan Lee designed Magneto as the leader of a group that called themselves The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in the original run. Stan Lee’s later words are a retcon, trying to make some kind of public relations out of the X-Men once the book became wildly popular under Chris Claremont’s tenure. Magneto had nothing to do with Malcolm X, but the character and Professor X were actually framed after Jewish leaders David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin.
Chris Claremont modeled the X-Men in a United Nations-style world where the characters came from all over the globe, working together from different backgrounds and cultures, as was a progressive dream in the 1980s. It closely modeled Star Trek, where characters would have their cultures and yet be able to do more together. This was evident in making a character a Russian like Colossus and a German priest like Nightcrawler, among many others. As usual, the idea that the X-Men were about black civil rights was very much overstated.
However, it wasn’t about exploring deviant sexualities for either Stan Lee or Chris Claremont. That, like everything else, came much later, and the wokeites rewrote the history to try to make it part of some LGBTQ movement when a book that was very much geared toward underage readers was never focused on such matters.
Chris Claremont himself confirmed this when he was speaking at an LGBTQ-themed convention in 2012 called Flame Con. Here, while trying to court and appeal to the rainbow flag audience, he told the attendees he didn’t always intend for the X-Men to be a stand-in for the LGBTQ community, but, he said, “You know there’s a space between every panel. You can go wherever you want. And who am I to get in the way?”
This is clearly stating this whole deviant sexualized lifestyle was not ever considered part of the equation. Fans will go where they want with their thoughts, and he’s not going to judge them for it, but Chris Claremont did not intend for the X-Men to be woke.
As Morph gets rewritten as non-binary, this is a completely new phenomenon by the new cult in Hollywood trying to convert everyone—including kids—into these lifestyles. Wokeism is a religion, and they consider anyone who disagrees with heretics. This is why people like Stan Lee and Chris Claremont were so careful when around these groups to tiptoe around these subjects, but none of these characters were ever meant to be gay from the beginning, let alone even further down the path of mental illness.
What do you think of Chris Claremont and Stan Lee confirming the X-Men were not originally intended to be woke? Leave a comment and let us know.
NEXT: X-Men ’97 Morph Actor J.P. Karliak Is An LGTBQ Activist And Founder Of Queer Vox Voice Casting
Excellent piece! I hope you don’t get doxed & cancelled for it!
Your statements about Claremont, Lee, et al are completely at odds with their numerous and very public statements as well as the context clues within the comics themsvelves (such as the use of the word “lemen” to describe the relationship between Mystique and Destiny). Northstar also was EXPLICITLY (per Byrne) a gay character AT THE TIME HE WAS CREATED.
Stick to Hol*caust denial. It’s what you’re best at
Anyone who says it’s always been this way is a f@gg0+ who is buying into propaganda history made by people who hate normal Americans.
It’s exactly the same line made by the futurian crowd who pushed the idea of message fiction hard scifi as being the only scifi, the ones who pushed for the completely superfluous separation of fantasy and science fiction as separate genres in order to facilitate the bastardization of wonder stories.
That’s the Truth. Same can be said for every other Classic Comic series. X-men was Never about Civil Rights. Just learning to control their Powers and how to use them.
Honest question hasn’t Claremont said his original plans were for Mystique to be a lesbian and conceive Nightcrawler by turning into a man and then getting Destiny pregnant also I think he said Kitty Pryde was supposed to be gay or whatever.
Originally yes but at the time that was considered controversial. I miss those Days.
You lack any form of critical thinking that you make the dumbest person in the world look like albert einstein. your lack of research and subjective perspective makes this one of the worst articles ever made. kudos to you for making such horrible writen work!!
Please stop projecting you Liberal Democratic Amoeba.
Please stop projecting your anti-LGBT bigotry onto fandom.
Stop projecting your insecurities onto others.
I’ve recently read the first 20 issues or so of the original X-Men comics. It absolutely did not start off as “woke”. In fact they’d cancel it today for being all white, sexist and probably lots more.
chris claremont couldn’t write a comic without making it a lesbian orgy
A simple Google search will show you several videos of Stan Lee himself saying they were meant to be diverse and anti-bigotry. Did the author even try?
No, he didn’t; he just wants to project his anti-LGBT bigotry onto all of fandom.