It’s racial segregation, only cooler.

Look, I may sound like an insane Green Lantern fan, but I’m actually not.

No, I lied, I fucking love Green Lantern. But I do enjoy other comics too.

For instance, X-Men. You’ve heard of them, and probably seen them on your television or movie theatre a couple times. Wolverine. Professor Xavier. Magneto. If you haven’t heard of those three I don’t think you should be reading this post, let alone reading this blog at all. Cause this kind of thing is going to be a common theme for the time being.

So yeah, I’m going to tell you all about the X-Men and how I came to familiarize myself with the mythos of the Mutant Menace and just how awesome they actually are as misunderstood members of the next step in human evolution.

This is a long post. If you don’t give a shit about comic books, stop reading now. Or, you could continue reading. Could learn something. Up to you.

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Basically, think Rodney King or Martin Luther King Jr. Think Klu Klux Klan. Think xenophobia—even more relevant, Islamophobia in relation to contemporary American culture. Think Holocaust and persecution of the Jews in WWII.

And you’ve got the X-Men.

Writing comic books is a flimsy business. And I don’t mean flimsy as in weak or bad, I mean flimsy as in it’s actually not a very solid process. It’s quite fluid in terms of the plot and history behind the characters as a whole. That’s in no small part due to the vast, extensive cultural history that comic books have. All of them. Especially the big guys—Marvel and DC.

In the case of the X-Men, I’m not the top authority to consult on complete historical background of the X-Men comic book runs or their characters. But hey, you’re not looking for a top authority, cause you probably don’t even care at this point.

I’m setting this up, because the X-Men are a cast of characters that, through comic book writers in the old days, Post-WWII towards the seventies, started a pretty different kind of superhero. This was Marvel’s way of saying fuck you to DC and their unstoppable forces, like the Man of Steel and the World’s Greatest Detective.

Not to say they don’t have their weaknesses, troubles, and hamartias, but Marvel’s a street-level company. With street-level heroes and street-level issues. What was the most predominant street-level issue in the old days?

Segregation, racism and discrimination against 'others'—that whole ugly thing. So, what sold in that era (and this is all my logical conclusion by the way, I haven’t researched any of this)? These street-level issues. Marvel wanted representatives in the comic book world to speak to those issues. Get sales by relating to your readers. Make them believe what’s happening in their world can happen to the world of superheroes, and vice versa. Suspension of belief can take you to very, very incredible places.

So, the X-Men were established as these group of humans who were different than everyone else. Some more visibly than others. It wasn’t just a case of black versus white. This was: do you have an X-Gene or don’t you? Are you homo sapiens or homo superior? Are you one of those who are born better than the rest of us?

Are we supposed to fear you and hate you, or not? That one sounds familiar. It’s meant to be. This is the core of the X-Men mythos. They’re the discrimination scapegoats of the Marvel Universe.

• PROTIP: A comic book ‘universe’ is where all of the publisher’s (i.e. Marvel or DC) characters and events reside in—think of it as a parallel to ours, where wondrous things that could never happen here, indeed do over there.

So, people born with a special gene in their DNA, usually in Chromosome 23 or something (I’m not actually sure) are born with amazing abilities that usually manifest when the individual hits puberty. Then, more often than not, all hell breaks loose. You might wake up with big-ass eyes, tentacles for arms, or collapsing into plasma. Or you could just discover you can read minds. Still, it’s genetic roulette. Risky.

Enter the X-Men. They’re the crusaders for social justice in the matter of Mutant-Human relations. They’re hated, yes, but it’s hard to kill them and get away with it. Their public image is too good. They’ve established themselves as superheroes, and all those mutant-haters can’t really do their task risk-free nowadays. Thank Professor Charles Xavier for that.

And if you’re a mutant, the X-Men will try to find you. Usually before someone else does. Either a lynch mob or Magneto, is what it was down to until recently. Magneto controls magnetism—if you know about science that’s pretty damn powerful (it’s not just flinging pans at your face). He’ll turn you into a bad guy. Nobody wants to be a bad guy. If you do, then I really hope you don’t manifest latent mutant abilities.

When the X-Men get to you, they’ll bring you to a safe haven, free from discrimination and persecution, or civilian justice at the hands of all kinds of bigots and extremists. Recently, it used to be a mansion owned by Xavier turned school for ‘gifted youngsters’. Recent major events have proven location changes are pretty common with this troupe. Here, you’ll get to go to school without judgemental stares or screams of horror, feel welcome, find some friends you can relate too, and also get kick-ass training based on your genetic power-set.

Genetic mutation in the Marvel Universe is what genetic mutation in our universe wants to be: awesome. Your mutations, if they have their downsides, have some pretty stellar upsides too. You can fly? Don’t worry. Xavier’s School has teachers who can fly. They teach you how to fly better. Telekinesis? Well, they’ve got telekinetics to help you telekinect things. Good, right?

Wrong. You see, everything in the Marvel Universe is everything on our universe on steroids—refer to the genetic mutation comment. So bigots are not just bigots, they’re super-bigots. Terrorists are not just terrorists, they’re terrorists with giant mechanical robots and unknown sources of billion-dollar funding. Hate is not just hate, it’s super-hate.

 

So, you put a bunch of mutants all in one place, and what happens? Bad things happen. Everything that’s happened to mutants in the Marvel Universe, prior to something called ‘M-Day’ which I don't know if you can take me getting further into, has been centered on the X-Men protecting that school from destruction of super-terrorist bigots with guns and a lot of money. And on top of that, a former mutant ally turned mutant extremist hell-bent on the ‘it’s us or them’ mentality (that’s Magneto). And he’s always pissed. If you don’t play on his side, you play on the other one.

Imagine if, in the decades of that turmoil, the hate run rampant, the protests, the media attention, the corruption—there wasn’t a happy ending? What if desegregation never happened? What if the hate grew stronger with each person different from us was born? What would the world look like?

The X-Men are a very good cultural symbol for comparison. This is if those things went wrong. If someone decided that they were a ‘menace to society’ and wanted them away from everyone else. Dead or gone, it didn’t matter. Beside all the other stories with the X-Men, and there’s a shitton, believe me—this is the heart of it all.

What they’ve always fought for is equality, respect, and peace. It’s something they still can’t seem to get. And it’s tragic, and it’s also great how comic book writers, contemporary ones anyways, don’t dare alter that reality with the X-Men, because, like I said, that’s the heart of it all.

There’s writers who come along and introduce HUGE crossover events where the X-Men fight unimaginable foes and universe-changing things happen that resonate not only for the X-Men books, but all across the Marvel Universe. That’s one of the reasons I read comics. Proof that it’s all connected, and that these characters’ actions mean something greater than the page that they’re featured.

But when those writers do those big events, for the sales and the new fans or whatever, they still have to maintain that presence of prejudice and discrimination that the X-Men have to fight with every day, in the face of the millions of lives they usually save with each foe they defeat, they still walk away with their heads hung low and going back into the shadows, because when everyone’s done yelling ‘Hurray!’ it’s back to the stares and the screams and the yells; ‘We don’t want you here!’ ‘Dirty muties!’ ‘Freaks!’

But hey, they don’t care. They save lives and kick ass. They can teleport, read minds, fire concussive blasts from their eyes, heal from wounds in a second, leap from great heights, alter probability, change into elemental forms, use heightened senses, move objects with a thought, absorb all kinds of energy, be indestructible, and fly faster than a speeding bullet even. And they were born with it. And they celebrate their mutations; their ‘powers’. They stick together, and even if they’re not equals to everyone else, they’re equals to each other. They respect each other, they fight bad guys together, and most of all, they stick together.

The X-Men have gone through some tough times. Most of them are gone now. A lucky few came back. Some new ones are just getting to know their power. They’re still here, though. They’re still Marvel’s token discrimination scapegoat.

And if they could talk, they’d say if there’s still one mutant left to bring back home, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s fiction, I know. Suspension of disbelief, remember?

• PROTIP: M-Day was a very large Marvel crossover event (when a story exists in several simultaneous runs of different comic books) that centered around the X-Men. A mutant with the ability to alter probability used her powers to her fullest extent—changing reality as a whole. She said three words. “No more mutants.” On M-Day, the mutant global population went from a 14 million to 198. The writers did it because other writers wrote in too many mutants for the Marvel Universe, and had to get rid of some. That’s comic books, folks.

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Thanks for reading. This isn’t layman’s terms, and definitely can be more condensed and understandable. Two things I’m not really taking into account. Sorry. If you understand the X-Men a bit more now, then congratulations. You may just like comic books. Don’t worry. You won’t be hated like the X-Men, despite popular belief.

Also, new X-Men: The First Class character profile trailers.

Beast, Havok, and Banshee. Save for Beast, most of those X-Men in the movie are not the actual first class of X-Men. If you were wondering, that roster was originally Beast (pre-blue fur), Cyclops, Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Iceman, and Angel. They were all in the last trilogy of X-Men movies. But movie franchises can take liberties if they want to. It’s still X-Men, and therefore, still awesome.

New trailer. Still awesome.

If you want to know more about some more Marvel, here’s a bit more about a certain Asgardian god-warrior with a really big-ass hammer.

[all of this via io9]

CiviliNation– Civil Digital Discourse

Everybody STOP what you’re doing!

Kay, not really. But if you want to learn about a new online movement that actually is really damn relevant to everyone who participates in the internet, look no further.

CiviliNation has a very specific goal; make sure the internet is a place free of abuse or harassment. Take away those bad things, and you have intelligent, thoughtful and educated discussion across the tubes of the interwebs.

For example, if you’re an aspiring internet personality posting on YouTube, fear not of haters if you support CiviliNation, because if it succeeds, the trolls will be bashed out. And all that’s left will be constructive criticism from invested commenters who want you to become a better performer. And better yet, there will be a lot more visible support because, well, there’s no haters to hate on you.

Imagine forums without troll posts or flame wars; it’d be like walking into a utopia of shiny threads lively with happy commenters and stimulating discussion. No grammar Nazis. No trolls. Clean and true.

Tough task? Yeah. But an organization like CiviliNation might be able to bring about some change that could spark a lot more constructive debate than what we’re so used to seeing spill into the internet. It is for everyone, after all. So why can’t everyone feel welcome?

It’s stopping cyber-bullying, it’s promoting legitimacy of online discussion, and it’s providing users with a hope that one day they can share whatever wonderful idea they’ve been keeping inside because of the fear that some jerk is going to pop in and say ‘lol u gay.’

And that’s just lame.

You can check it out at their website at www.civilination.org. Please do. Learn about this stuff. It’s nice to feel knowledgeable.

And you know me, I hate haters. So help out. Spread the word. Make the Internet more awesome.

SWAG of the Week

[via TDW.]

C’mon, how can you Americans not like this guy?

TDW’s BAMF of The Day (My EPIC Rant of the Week)

Net Neutrality vs. The Biggest Douche In History

(aka. America)

A few days ago, the FCC released that they were going to allow corporate sponsorship online. What that basically means, is that if you use more, buy more, play more, or anything more, you pay more. Not you or me directly, maybe, but the content providers and distributors—YouTube, Google, Yahoo—and that’s not even going into the smaller digital content websites who rely on having efficient access to their content in order for them to profit from it.

This means that Internet Service Providers now have the power to limit, censor or block any content that they feel isn’t what they want being sent down their lines, so they can allocate their bandwidth allowances the highest payers, so they (the content guys) can get their shit sent faster down the line to the front end; the consumer.

Huffington Post—I know, it’s not the best source, but I’m gonna go ahead and jump on this bandwagon, if only for the moment—stated the three reasons why this is pretty much bullshit, and you can get the link right here to read more up on it, cause my voice is reason is probably not the best to follow, but don’t let that stop you from hearing me out.

Huff Post is really adamant about the ‘we demand free, equal internet you capitalist bastards’ and I’m not really opposed to that kind of mindset. To me, breaking it down into its bare bones reveals one thing—the big guys are taking advantage of the little guys, and leaving them in the dust. Where have we seen that before?

Oh yeah. All the fucking time.

But it’s different here, at least I think so. I’m not Internet economics expert, or a guru on Net Neutrality, hell the term is confusing as it is, but I know for a fact that the Internet is one big fucking thing, and the adverse effects of this move, while not apparent now, will be apparent later.

Very, very apparent.

My guess is a lot of lag, a lot of unavailable websites, and hell, we’ll probably end up paying even more for a set amount of bandwidth space we’re allowed to have per month. These are just wild guesses, but I use the Internet a lot, so I’m gonna assume these are realistic scenarios, and ones that will piss me off.

Net Neutrality, as I understand it (not very well), is the concept of data that is sent through the net—text, video, image, anything—should be charged, like a tollbooth, the same rate. The whole debate is a debate on discrimination of data, in that those content providers and distributors that are the main creators and handlers of that data are now going to have big giant painful things stuck up them by the carriers, who handle how that data gets to you and I.

Let this help your simple mind grasp the concept of ‘Net Neutrality.’

At first, when we get the ‘message’ it really appears that we shouldn’t care, but the carriers like a cab service they’re at the control room, sending out cabs. Some of those cabs are shitty fucking '86 Daewoos, and other ones, that the carrier can afford getting to you because someone else is paying them a shitton, is a Bugatti Veyron and arrives in style.

Fuck that, give everybody an Accord to get them. Shit.

Politically, this is not right wing, but it’s not left wing either, I mean, government control and all, but it’s the wrong type—this isn’t social aid funding or welfare development, this is corporate sector involvement, not to limit big business getting in the way, but freeing it up so they can fuck with our lives.

So, anybody fancy a cup of tea?

All in all, I blame Obama.

No, I’m joking, but it is kind of his fault. The dude hasn’t really done much except be black and talk about shit that he’s gonna do.

And then not do it.

Fuck you, man.

It’s his Christmas present to the digital world, and it’s a day late. Typical.

Nah, he’s a cool guy, but still, I have to put my hands up in the air sometimes, and say:

Like seriously man, the Internet’s gonna die.

It’s gonna die, man!

I don’t want it to die. =(

[via 4chan’s /v/ board originally, but the thread’s gone now, losers.]

Somebody make a movie about this.

We’ll call it, ‘The Weiner.’

[via. dailywhat]

In all seriousness,

He seems like an earnest politician. Truly, I don’t think you can disagree that the point he makes is a sound one. And his point against the Republican Party is valid.

American politics, you never cease to amuse me.