Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Marvel, Sidekicks and Mutants . . . Oh, my!

I've read that one of the main reasons that Marvel doesn't tend to have teenage sidekicks is because of the influence of Stan Lee, who dislikes them.  However, the fact that Marvel Comics as a whole adopted this policy amuses me.

I can get them not liking the idea of child endangerment.  But, frankly, this approach is just silly.  The X-Men have had dozens of teenage members.  And their death rate is comparable to DC's sidekicks, maybe even worse given the mass "depowerment" of mutants that resulted in plenty of deaths.

And, really, you might as well call the teenage X-Men sidekicks.  That is, if the X-Men were actually treated like superheroes.  But most of the times, they don't even get to be considered superheroes, because we wouldn't want to mess with the status quo and show mutants gaining more acceptance.  (Because we all know that the civil rights movement did absolutely nothing.  We still have "white only" water fountains, Jim Crow laws are still in effect, and the idea of actually having a black president is just plain silly.)

But then again, the lack of mutant acceptance is likely due to them tending to cause widespread destruction with their powers and the fact that the "good" mutants are often huge assholes (see Cyclops, Emma Frost, etc.).  And which is worse?  Being a regular sidekick, or being a teenage X-Man (an unofficial sidekick with just as much danger and having half the universe hate you because they're bigots)?

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