Confessions of a Comics Junkie: The Racial Politics of Mutations (or, Mutant Passing)
One of the reasons I have always preferred Marvel over DC is the fact that it’s world, however absurd at times, at least tries to explore what might happen if a bunch of people with extraordinary powers popped up in our neighborhoods. In short, humans have a tendency to freak out. In a weird, unexpected way, the Marvel Universe (Earth 616, not the other versions, which I’m not currently following) is an exploration of evolutionary change, the likes of which we haven’t seen because the last major change in our species “group,” as far as we know, was before written records. I’m talking about the Neanderthals.[1] We’ll never know exactly how humans reacted to those funny-looking humanoids, though we’re pretty sure there was some violence, some sex, and probably some group hugging in certain parts of the world. And in a similar way, we don’t know exactly how humans would react to the rise of mutants; instead, we
