Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Brent Eric Anderson
Colourist: Steve Oliff
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Price: $6.95
Publisher: Marvel Comics
ISBN: 0-7851-0039-3
X-MEN is easily the most popular American title of the past twenty years, or I should say 'titles,' since it's often forgotten that one chief reason the books sell so well is that they crowd shelf space, and their backlog floods the back-issue bins. There were eight ongoing X-MEN titles and half-a-dozen specials coming out when I quit regularly buying them five years ago, and the latest X-MEN releases still take up over three full shelves at my shop.
X-MEN has a noble premise and a universal theme: people hate and fear what they don't understand, and the way to deal with that is through education. The leader, Charles Xavier, is a scholar, a professor, a thinker, and a very wealthy man who shelters and co-ordinates dozens of mutants (people born with superpowers) in his vast estate.
Beneath the surface, however, X-MEN has holes in its philosophy as big as a Mack truck. Xavier lies to the world about the fact that he is a mutant, and his students interact with the world through the use of secret identities, spending most of their time learning how to fight and hunt down evil mutants. In fact, there are very few 'real humans' in the stories at all. How this is supposed to teach courage and racial/social integration is mystifying. While X-MEN preaches about love and harmony between all people, its message is undercut by implicit tones of cowardice and hypocrisy.
I am of the opinion that the real reason X-MEN sells so well has nothing to do with the series' implied sermons on honour and justice. The real reason is that the X-Men are better than everyone else (they even call themselves Homo Superior) and readers enjoy this adolescent fantasy of being the best. The X-Men aren't just stronger, fiercer, more capable and more able. They're also more right, more just and more admirable. Considering their track record of defeating enemies and returning from the dead, they're also the most invincible and the most impervious. In fact, the all-time most popular character, Wolverine, doesn't even age.
'This is in truth a very old-school X-MEN tale.' So, if I were a hip and trendy comics reviewer, and X-MEN: GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS were the latest hot release on my review list, what I laughingly call my mature tastes would impel me to discredit it based on all these reasons. For make no mistake: this may look like a hot commodity, with its sharp title and daring cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, but it is in truth a very old-school X-MEN tale, with all the trappings and flaws that have kept the on-going titles consistent (or stagnant, depending on your point of view) for the last thirty-odd years.
The copyright page on GOD LOVES says 'First Printing: August, 1994,' which is basically a lie. The story was originally published years earlier as MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL #5, but the copyright notice makes no mention of this. I can only assume Marvel was being intentionally deceptive about the date, as if to pass this story off as new and relevant. That's hard to respect, because it is neither.
The story revolves around the villain, a one-man jazz band of stereotypes, named Reverend William Stryker. Formerly a U.S. Army Rangers master-sergeant, Stryker is a white, wealthy, suit-and-tie-wearing, world-renowned evangelist who fathered a mutant after working at a nuclear test base, killed it seconds after its birth, killed its mother too, and became convinced God saved his life when his own suicide attempt failed. On page 5 he finds out about the X-Men and decides to kill them, using a group of 'ordinary human' murderers called the Purifiers.
The story's main gimmick is the capture of Xavier, Cyclops, and Storm (the team leaders), and the alliance of the rest of the X-Men with their sworn enemy Magneto, who of course wants to take advantage of the alliance by convincing the mutants to leave Xavier to follow him. The book ends after final confrontations with the Purifiers, Stryker, and Magneto, defining yet again what it is the X-Men stand for and which lines they will not cross.
This is a textbook Claremont story, and anyone who wishes to sample his style of writing could do a lot worse than to start here. The verbose writer has rarely been better and certainly has been a lot worse (FANTASTIC FOUR, anyone?). I am nostalgic for the days when comics used to have eight or nine panels on every page, and GOD LOVES is in that tradition. The characters look like real people. They do not pose or have fancy gestures. They serve the story, period. And that's a very commendable thing.
What makes GOD LOVES unique? For one thing, it is an entirely self-contained story, complete unto itself and thus accessible to even the newest reader. Second, it features a never-since-seen twist at the end, in which Xavier doubts his own faith and has it reinforced by Cyclops and the other students - the students leading the teacher.
And third, the story is printed without the interference of the Comics Code Authority, perhaps the only X-books to do so until next week's X-FORCE #114. As a result, we are offered a Claremont story without outside restrictions, and are privy to what Claremont's X-MEN might be if totally unleashed.
Or are we? Two children are gunned down, but the deaths take place off-panel. The content of the characters' speech and actions are almost exactly like the standard. In fact, the only adult language occurs when one character says, "nigger-lover", and another says, "bitch". The only ultra-violent scene is Xavier's dream sequence, in which his demonised students crucify him, eviscerate him, and burn him alive, a sequence set entirely in red tones to remind the readers it isn't real. Sex is never mentioned. Hardly dangerous material by adult standards.
Not that X-MEN necessarily needs bad words and adult material to function, but the absence of a CCA stamp suggests provocative content. I have to wonder if, as suggested by the false publication date, this product is being advertised as something it is not: a truly mature and adult-oriented work that tackles personal responsibility head-on, rather than hiding behind pat moral fables and easily-rejected platitudes. At least when X-MEN can't get its hands dirty in the monthly books, the creators and editors can use the CCA as an excuse. So what's the excuse here? A book with a title like GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS couldn't possibly be aimed at anyone but adults!
But maybe adhering to certain guidelines is all we can expect of a writer who introduces a group of dark-skinned characters, uses them as a violent gang for two pages, slaughters them, and all the while reminds us how Hispanic they are by making them say Spanish words like "chica," "jefe," and "mi hermanos" in the middle of their otherwise English speech.
GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS is an important book, for its historic nature and the insight it offers into the entire X-MEN franchise. It is an example of what the X-MEN could have become, with its relatively genuine social conscience and rendition of old characters, like Magneto, as the truly old-looking and weary people they are. It has a small, workable cast, and a dynamic structure. It offers a complete story. These are all things that have been very difficult to find in the X-books of recent years.
But ultimately, GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS is an example of an opportunity lost, a chance for the industry to mature that was compromised from the start.
This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.