Arsenal
10-18-2007, 02:01 PM
As we continue to celebrate the 15th anniversary of X-Men: TAS, I present a thread dedicated to the X-Men's antagonists.
While the rogues, ne'er do wells and no-goodniks with whom the X-Men tangle run the gamut from petty criminal to evil space emperors, they can be classified into five major categories. The first of which is...
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/episode/sanctuary/20.jpg
The Revolutionary
The X-Men are unique heroes. They don't just fight evil, they fight for an ideology. Namely, equality for mutant rights. Since their creation, the struggle of mutants has been called a metaphor for the civil rights movements of minorities, women and even homosexuals. (In one essay I read, the Legacy virus was compared to the AIDs virus.)
Quite frankly, the X-Men's fight for equality is open to interpretation. But as ideological heroes, they tend to attract ideological villains -- either people who disagree with the X-Men's goals or think they are pursuing said goals incorrectly.
The most important of the revolutionaries is, of course, Magneto. I've often described Magneto as the Malcolm X to Professor Xavier's Martin Luther King Jr. In retrospect, that statement is wrong... or, at least, too broad.
Yes, Magneto wants his rights "by any means necessary;" but, in general, Malcolm X and militants like the Black Panthers were mostly concerned with self-defense. If their rights were infringed, they claimed, then, they would react with whatever necessary means were required.
Meanwhile, Magneto is not interested in self-defense.
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/episode/entermagneto/10.jpg
Magneto wants to take the offensive. Magneto doesn't want to protect himself from the oncoming fight between human and mutant. He wants to start it. Magneto is willing to fire the first shot in the revolution, even if that means becoming a martyr.
In that way, Magneto is more like John Brown than Malcolm X. You can even picture Magneto spouting Brown's most famous quote: "These men are all talk. What we need is action - action!"
However, Magneto is similar to one other revolutionary. When Magneto established Asteroid X, the intent was to completely separate mutants from humans and start over. That is not unlike Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement.
So while Magneto has a touch of Malcolm in him, he also has a bit of Marcus Garvey and John Brown too. And his comic book version has a megalomaniacal streak also, but that is played down in X-Men: TAS. When Magneto is finally given the chance to lead in "Graduation Day," he chooses to help his oldest friend instead.
But Magneto is not the only revolutionary. In fact, the next villains could not be any more different in opinion than Magneto.
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/bios/villains/foh/02.jpg
Graydon Creed and the Friends of Humanity want the same fight Magneto does. They just want the mutants to lose.
The FOH are an analogue for hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan or, arguably, the Nazis. Notice Creed's armband in the picture above. The only way it could be less subtle is if it bore a swastika.
Actually, comparing Creed to Hitler is not far off (which is odd because the more literal Hitler analogue, The Red Skull, also appears in X:TAS.) Creed has Hitler's self-loathing streak. While Creed is the child of the mutants he hates, Hitler's brown hair and eyes never matched his Aryan philosophy.
Creed was not the only mutant-hating human in the series, but President Kelly changed his ways.
Omega Red could definitely be considered a revolutionary. He takes a couple veiled stabs at capitalism, was clearly created during the Cold War and his name is Omega "Red."
Make no mistake about it, Omega's a commie; and when he fights, he is fighting for the spread of his ideology. (Remember, the difference between a revolutionary and a mercenary is a revolutionary fights for a cause; and the difference between a dictator and a revolutionary is the dictator has already succeeded in taking power.)
The last revolutionary--
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/bios/villains/mastermold/02.jpg
Master Mold is to robots what Magneto is for mutants and Graydon Creed is for humans. He forcibly wants to remove the groups he sees as competition from the table, so his demographic (in this case, automatons) can be dominant.
A case could also be made for Apocalypse as a revolutionary; but seeing as how the guy had an empire before any of these other kids were born (or in Master Mold's case, built,) you might need a stronger label for him.
Perhaps,
DICTATOR!
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/episode/timefugitives/29.jpg
En Sabah Nur and his fellow megalomaniacs will be the subject of the next installment.
Join us next time, when, hopefully, Magneto will pluck that ugly unibrow he has goin' on.
While the rogues, ne'er do wells and no-goodniks with whom the X-Men tangle run the gamut from petty criminal to evil space emperors, they can be classified into five major categories. The first of which is...
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/episode/sanctuary/20.jpg
The Revolutionary
The X-Men are unique heroes. They don't just fight evil, they fight for an ideology. Namely, equality for mutant rights. Since their creation, the struggle of mutants has been called a metaphor for the civil rights movements of minorities, women and even homosexuals. (In one essay I read, the Legacy virus was compared to the AIDs virus.)
Quite frankly, the X-Men's fight for equality is open to interpretation. But as ideological heroes, they tend to attract ideological villains -- either people who disagree with the X-Men's goals or think they are pursuing said goals incorrectly.
The most important of the revolutionaries is, of course, Magneto. I've often described Magneto as the Malcolm X to Professor Xavier's Martin Luther King Jr. In retrospect, that statement is wrong... or, at least, too broad.
Yes, Magneto wants his rights "by any means necessary;" but, in general, Malcolm X and militants like the Black Panthers were mostly concerned with self-defense. If their rights were infringed, they claimed, then, they would react with whatever necessary means were required.
Meanwhile, Magneto is not interested in self-defense.
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/episode/entermagneto/10.jpg
Magneto wants to take the offensive. Magneto doesn't want to protect himself from the oncoming fight between human and mutant. He wants to start it. Magneto is willing to fire the first shot in the revolution, even if that means becoming a martyr.
In that way, Magneto is more like John Brown than Malcolm X. You can even picture Magneto spouting Brown's most famous quote: "These men are all talk. What we need is action - action!"
However, Magneto is similar to one other revolutionary. When Magneto established Asteroid X, the intent was to completely separate mutants from humans and start over. That is not unlike Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement.
So while Magneto has a touch of Malcolm in him, he also has a bit of Marcus Garvey and John Brown too. And his comic book version has a megalomaniacal streak also, but that is played down in X-Men: TAS. When Magneto is finally given the chance to lead in "Graduation Day," he chooses to help his oldest friend instead.
But Magneto is not the only revolutionary. In fact, the next villains could not be any more different in opinion than Magneto.
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/bios/villains/foh/02.jpg
Graydon Creed and the Friends of Humanity want the same fight Magneto does. They just want the mutants to lose.
The FOH are an analogue for hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan or, arguably, the Nazis. Notice Creed's armband in the picture above. The only way it could be less subtle is if it bore a swastika.
Actually, comparing Creed to Hitler is not far off (which is odd because the more literal Hitler analogue, The Red Skull, also appears in X:TAS.) Creed has Hitler's self-loathing streak. While Creed is the child of the mutants he hates, Hitler's brown hair and eyes never matched his Aryan philosophy.
Creed was not the only mutant-hating human in the series, but President Kelly changed his ways.
Omega Red could definitely be considered a revolutionary. He takes a couple veiled stabs at capitalism, was clearly created during the Cold War and his name is Omega "Red."
Make no mistake about it, Omega's a commie; and when he fights, he is fighting for the spread of his ideology. (Remember, the difference between a revolutionary and a mercenary is a revolutionary fights for a cause; and the difference between a dictator and a revolutionary is the dictator has already succeeded in taking power.)
The last revolutionary--
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/bios/villains/mastermold/02.jpg
Master Mold is to robots what Magneto is for mutants and Graydon Creed is for humans. He forcibly wants to remove the groups he sees as competition from the table, so his demographic (in this case, automatons) can be dominant.
A case could also be made for Apocalypse as a revolutionary; but seeing as how the guy had an empire before any of these other kids were born (or in Master Mold's case, built,) you might need a stronger label for him.
Perhaps,
DICTATOR!
http://marvel.toonzone.net/xmen/episode/timefugitives/29.jpg
En Sabah Nur and his fellow megalomaniacs will be the subject of the next installment.
Join us next time, when, hopefully, Magneto will pluck that ugly unibrow he has goin' on.