X-Men: More Than Meets the Eye

I know, I stole the slogan for Transformers but the X-Men deserve it more (Michael Bay's Transformers is exactly equal to what meets the eye, which is of course 2+ hours of awesomeness, but still relatively shallow as the genre goes). The X-Men, on the other hand, has always been a profoundly interesting series. Whether it be the series of excellent films (X2 being the best, but the rest are great as well) or the unusually great cartoon from when I was a kid (I got the first two volumes of it for my birthday yesterday and it's just as good, if not better, than I remember). The series was created in the 60s by Stan Lee (the same verifiable genius who brought you Spider-Man, the Hulk, and virtually every other superhero that you've heard of from that time period) who wanted it to subtly reflect the Civil Rights movement. He wanted kids to see the harsh treatment of the Mutants in the comics and hopefully draw a connection between that and the issues at hand during that time period. The series has since come to reflect such issues as genetic engineering, the holocaust, and more. And you thought it was just about spandex-wearing wisecrackers.

Since I have an especially large amount of time on my hands today, I thought I'd touch on (at least briefly) each of the X-Men films a bit. Why? Because a lot of people my age have seen them, and I want them to view the films again with some deeper things in mind than "Wolverine's claws are cool" and "Mystique is really hot" (both true).

So to begin with, the first film (not surprisingly titled X-Men) sets up the major characters and establishes the fear of a possible war between humans and mutants (for those who don't know, i.e. those born more than 21 years ago or those 21 and younger who lacked a childhood, mutants are the heroes and villains of the story who have genetic mutations that cause them to have powers and are thus separated from society). The most interesting character in the whole bunch is the main villain, Magneto. As a wise comic book writer (I forget which one) mentioned, "the best and most realistic villains think of themselves as the hero." This is exactly the case with Magneto, a holocaust survivor (this is especially apparent at the beginning of the second film when he's seen reading an exact representation of how he views himself, T.H. White's famous King Arthur story, "The Once and Future King"). He witnessed firsthand the senseless killing of his family and a large portion of his entire people, simply because they were different from those with power. The way he sees it, mutants are doomed to experience this at the hands of humans.

Professor Charles Xavier (founder of the X-Men), on the other hand, believes that humans and mutants can peacefully coexist. He and Magneto were once friends, and to some extent still are, but their ideologies differ to such an extent that they inevitably become enemies. As the viewers, we follow the story of the X-Men, and all of our heroes are the X-Men, but one can see Magneto's point. Because a lot of humans in the film want to send mutants to internment camps, experiment on them, etc. This obviously hits a bit close to home when considering the holocaust. And still on another hand (the X-Men series requires a three-handed thought process, not surprisingly) you can see the humans' point too. If there was a guy like Magneto walking around who can control magnetism, and thus all metal, whether he was an extremist nut or not I'd probably still want to lock him up. And Mystique, a character who can turn into anyone? For all I know, she could be in the oval office tomorrow. I'd probably want to lock her up too. Not because it's right, but because it might be necessary. And therein lies the dilemma. So who do you cheer for when you see everyone's point of view? Well, the side with Wolverine of course (he's the man). However, one must wonder how we would feel about the story if it was told from a slightly different point of view, and with characters that weren't quite as openly heroic (ala The Wire). Would we still feel the same way? I've always said that the power of film and television could make you feel pity for Stalin or think George Washington was a jerk. Throw the right musical score in there, get the right actor, and you can make the audience feel whatever you want.

Ideologies aside for a second, X-Men has one of my favorite endings of all time. It involves Magneto, locked away in his plastic prison, playing a game of chess with Professor X. This is brilliant in the fact that the entire series is essentially a chess game between the two men (in fact, in the third film Magneto states, "the pawns always go first"). They have a conversation concerning the eternal nature of their conflict, possible future problems, etc. Then Magneto knocks over his king as Xavier leaves. Xavier won that round, but the pieces can always be set up again. Still, at the end of the day, here are two men who highly respect each other and do not wish the other one harm, but who are at odds.

Now, let's look at the second (and best) film: X2. The movie is subtitled on the DVD but not within the movie (for unknown reasons) X-Men United. The reason for this is that for a large part of the film's finale, Magneto and his band of mutants have teamed up with the X-Men to fight a common enemy. The common enemy is looking to eradicate all mutants, and thus must be stopped by any means necessary. However, as soon as the sinister plot is foiled (and it makes a lot more sense than just "I want to kill all mutants because I'm evil because the script says so" but this is going to be a long enough blog entry as it is) Magneto turns around and tries to use the same machine to eradicate all humans, and thus must combat the X-Men in the process. This is all of about twelve seconds after they fought side-by-side. Kind of crazy, and yet it sounds a whole lot like what happened in the wake of WWII between the U.S. and Russia. The film even has a defector in the form of Pyro, a young member of the X-Men who feels that Xavier doesn't recognize his talents and ergo joins up with Magneto.

This brings me to another interesting aspect of the series: personal identity. This is especially true in the case of Wolverine. Is he simply a rage-filled animal or is he a man? In the newest installment of the series, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we see the reasons why he chooses to volunteer for a dangerous procedure that bonds an indestructible metal onto his bones. I won't talk about this film too much, since not everyone has seen it yet, but it's quite good. And I feel comfortable talking about the "Birth of Wolverine" scene, as it's more than slightly shown to us in X2. In the scene, Logan (Wolverine's human name) flatlines for a little bit before he starts to come back to life (his predominant mutant power is accelerated healing). In this scene, Logan (the man) dies and quite literally returns to life as Wolverine (the beast). It's appropriate that he experiences this procedure when submerged in water, because it's evocative of what I like to call his "Baptism by Rage." This is the start of a personal conflict that exists within him, which resolves itself a little bit at a time over the course of all three original films. It's not until the end of the second movie, when Wolverine chooses not to kill Stryker (the man who made him an animal) and instead leaves him and rejoins the group (thus becoming a man once more). And it's really not until near the end of the third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand when Wolverine is the one to make the pre-battle speech and refers to himself for the first time as part of the X-Men, that he really becomes a leader (it serves as a nice bookend to the scene in the first movie where he scoffs at the title "X-Men").

And finally, in overall terms the whole title can be looked at in a different way (completely unintentional by Stan Lee I'm sure, but something I thought of today anyway). Consider if instead of X-Men, it was Ex-Men. As in, former men. Or, former members of the human race. They're no longer part of humanity technically, as their genes are different from ours. But they were once human, and that part of them will always remain. Like most comic book stories, X-Men uses overly stylized ways to show us real life. And they achieve this better than most. For what is Magneto really, but a scared little boy afraid to lose his family? Who is Wolverine but a man trying to master the anger within? And who among us can't relate, at least on some level, to these issues? The films and the characters are all so rich and interesting, that I could likely write a book about them (and intend to someday). Perhaps the most interesting, and most tragic, aspect of the conflict (both in real life and in fiction) is that it will always go on. To illustrate this, I'll simply leave you with the small measure of comfort we were left with at the end of the first film; when Magneto states that the prison can't hold him forever, Xavier responds, "And I will always be there, old friend."