X-Men ’97 has finally hit Disney+, and the new series continues the legacy of the original in more ways than one. But are people finally ready to grok what X-Men has been about this whole time?
The first two episodes, which premiered together, pick up where the original animated series left off. Professor X is gone, and anti-mutant hatred is rising. While Jean Grey has her baby and Magneto takes over the X-Men, the anti-mutant group Friends of Humanity unleashes a devastating new weapon: a radiation gun capable of permanently suppressing a mutant’s powers.
Episode 2, “Mutant Liberation Begins,” contains multiple monologues that connect the oppression of mutants to forms of oppression in real life. “As a boy, my people’s homes were burned to ash because we dared to call god by another name,” Magneto says at a U.N. hearing, referencing the Holocaust before he describes being hunted for being a mutant. “In history’s sad song, there is a refrain,” he says. “Believe differently, love differently, be of different sex or skin, and be punished.”
Honestly, the show hits us over the head a little hard with the allegory, but maybe that’s exactly what we need right now. After all, bigots aren’t exactly subtle themselves. J.K. Rowling recently denied the Holocaust in her quest to dehumanize trans people. Alabama recently passed a sweeping anti-DEI bill that could plausibly bar any Black speaker from visiting the state’s college campuses. What sounds obvious to any reasonable person—everyone deserves dignity and human rights!—is obviously lost on these people, so maybe now is the time to shout it at the top of our lungs.
Every time X-Men (along with other Marvel properties) proves that it’s been “woke” all along, some people throw fits. If you honestly can’t make the connection between the oppression of mutants and the oppression of real people, then I don’t know what to tell you—but after that season premiere, arguments that X-Men has never been about justice are falling flatter than ever.
X-Men ’97 is now streaming on Disney+.
(featured image: Disney+)
