When I was informed that Marvel was doing an all-female X-Men comic, I was pretty excited. This opens up some huge opportunity for women in comics. Both the editor and the assistant editor are women, so maybe we’re going to go somewhere with this. I should say before I start this critique that I wasn’t entirely disappointed; there are some great things happening in the first issue. Here are my main thoughts as of the first installment in the new series:
All female X-Men team of Marvel NOW
Positives of Female X-Men Team
1.) So far, no one in the comic has drawn obvious attention to the fact that these are all women. This is a plus, because that means it’s seen as normal, which is what we want to see. We want female superheroes to be normal, not surprising or a novel concept. No one has come forward to say, “OH LOOK, A BUNCH OF VAGINAS FIGHTING CRIME!” This is most definitely positive.
2.) These heroes don’t plunge headlong into things without thinking. Storm, especially, has great concern for the fact that they’re going to be dealing with civilians and wants to make sure they aren’t about to harm anyone by helping their friend.
3.) The origin story. Excuse me while I go academic nerd all over this origin story.
This IS the story of women’s history, laid out in one simple, beautiful paragraph spread over two pages in a comic book. If you’re at all familiar with gender studies, you know that we live in a patriarchal system wherein men are seen as the dominant sex and women are seen as submissive by nature. This obviously isn’t the way things naturally are, and for more information, please feel free to e-mail me or ask questions in comments, because I don’t have quite enough room to explore the theory here.
But what you have in this single opening is history. “Against nearly impossible odds,” both sexes have survived. Women make up 40% of the breadwinners in the United States according to a recent study, and the Internet exploded with backlash from a number of political and sociological groups stating that this is somehow a bad thing and will impact children negatively. What’s really funny about that is there’s no evidence to support that theory, because women have never been this prominent before in history. Chew on that for a moment: we don’t know the statistical outcome because we don’t have that data. At all. Ever. Anywhere.
“One was forced out, to evolve on her own, to find her own place…” If you have no knowledge of the Suffrage movement, both here in the US and overseas in the UK, you need to read up on it. Women were literally tortured because they wanted to vote. In the Middle East and parts of Africa, we’re still seeing this. Women can be killed for speaking out. It’s seen as not only a crime, but a mortal sin. There are religious mandates that keep women out of power in a number of institutions. Women have historically been forced out to evolve on their own. They’ve had to carve out their own place, and they’ve written their history in blood, sweat, and copious amounts of tears.
“The other, the victor, would come to inherit primordial Earth.” Do I really need to pick this one apart? To the victor go the spoils, and history has been written by and for white, upper-middle-class men with privilege, money, and power. This has very recently changed, and the change has been fought tooth and nail by those who have written history up until this point. It’s a war still being waged in our schools and on our streets, and we see it every day even if we don’t realize it.
“She never forgot. Coded into her DNA was a fourth imperative. Revenge.” That just gives me the shivers. Coded into her DNA. There’s a suggestion there that without equality, revenge is the natural state of things; that we, as human beings, seek to right what we see as wrongs and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get there. I’d like to think that’s not entirely true, and that we can make change through peaceful means, but I have to remind myself that this is a comic book, not a theory or philosophy text. But let me tell you what, it’s kind of hard to remind myself of that when the prologue is just so on point.
Ambivalence of Female X-Men Team
1.) You have endless possibilities for storylines and you choose to toss a baby into the mix when all of the main characters are women. Really? That’s what you’re going for? The only reason this is ambivalent and not outright negative is because it’s Jubilee who finds and cares for the infant, which makes sense when she tells the others why she saved it and decided to care for it in the first place. The title of Woman is not synonymous with the title of Mother; that’s a social construct. And I guess I’m disappointed because of all the things I was expecting or hoping to see in this series, six female superheroes playing mommy was not one of them.
2.) The clothing. The only character wearing anything slightly unrealistic is Storm, whose cleavage is located quite epically front and center during a few panels in the comic. Everyone else is at least dressed for sensible crime fighting. I honestly don’t really care what they wear as civilians; you can dress however you want. But again. Please. Please. Anyone getting ready to go out and fight crime isn’t going to do so with any part of their body nearly falling out. Can you picture Wolverine in a costume where his scrotum is almost fully exposed? No? Then don’t put Storm in one where her breasts are almost toppling over the top of her outfit.
Negatives of a Female X-Men Team
I’ve actually got nothing to put here. Overall, I enjoyed the story and I can’t wait to see where it goes. I’m interested to see where they’re taking this arc. It’s not entirely what I was hoping to see, but I’m willing to keep reading and see what road the writers are taking me down.
