Something I Read: X-Men - "Age Of Apocalypse."
Wherein we use the lens of fiction to analyze both the horrors of gene-based dictatorships, the "Great Man of History" theory, and History From Below.
Hello, friends,
Recently, we spent some time talking about gas prices we’re misleadingly nostalgic for. That got me into a bit of a nostalgia hole that I’d like to talk about.
As I said in the subtitle, I promise there’s a point to this.
Today I’m going to talk a little bit about my experience with a fairly ‘up and coming’ intellectual property called The X-Men.
You…Might have heard of them?
For the grossly culturally unaware, the X-Men, a group which I’m not alone in feeling contains a slightly problematic gendering of its name, is a group of Mutants rallied under the leadership of one Charles Xavier. The thing is, Mutants are genetically differentiated from ordinary Humans, referred to as “Homo-Superior” in many contexts, but the bottom line is that they have a gene that typically gives them some kind of super-power. In a sense, they’re a different, “more evolved” species, but for all intents and purposes they’re just people with powers.
They exist within a world that is all too familiar with super-powers, but tends to only condemn those who are born as Mutants. This condemnation is an ongoing, long-term theme throughout the series. With a recently resurrected 90’s cartoon style version of the characters now airing on Disney Plus, everyone and their mother is complaining about how the X-Men have become ‘woke,’ or whatever.
In practice, they’ve always been ‘woke.’ The hatred that Mutants encounter by virtue of their birth has long been analogized as similar to any other discrimination that takes place in Human society. For example, the antagonistic “Friends Of Humanity” are a racial superiority organization dedicated to exploiting, controlling, or exterminating Mutantkind.
Well, I’ve just completed re-reading something I really only experienced through my childhood eyes: The Age of Apocalypse storyline. I can see how it sowed the seeds of my love for Dystopian literature.
Age Of Apocalypse switches the role of oppressor and oppressed: Instead of Humanity persecuting Mutants, the Mutants have seized control over the Americas and instituted their own nightmare rule.
Yes, there will be spoilers.
What Is The X-Men Age of Apocalypse Arc, And What Does It Say About Historical Causality?
Let’s remember that there’s super-powers in play, here, and let me explain some sci-fi mostly-fun stuff on this all-too-often-dismal publication. First up is a bit of a plot summary, but like I keep saying, I promise there’s a point. (See that subheading? See that term “Causality?” It’s not just a concept in Kentaro Miura’s Berserk)
That Charles Xavier person I mentioned is a mutant with the dream of Mutant-Human coexistence. He thinks that we can all get along and have a peaceful society with equality and freedom, and he thinks the powerful have a duty to protect the weak.
Not all Mutants agree with his perspective. For example, there’s Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto. Magneto, a German Jew born in the 1920’s, survived the Holocaust, which left just a tiny (sarcasm detectors, please work) impact on his viewpoint of how people with power disparities get along.
Xavier and Magneto were good friends once upon a time, but their different life experiences led them to different paths. Magneto became a Mutant terrorist of sorts, perpetrating all kinds of capers to establish a baseline of…Well, to be honest I’m not as familiar with all of his ambitions as I’d like to be. Sometimes he comes off as a supremacist, while other times he’s simply a split-offist, but either way he’s happy to let harm come to innocent people in many of his canonical interpretations.
Xavier forms the X-Men to oppose people like Magneto, and the two have all sorts of goofy comic book battles.
With me so far?
Now, fast-forward to modern day (which at the time of publication was at least the mid-1990’s): Xavier has a child named David. David is an exceptionally powerful psychic who has his own character arc that I can’t get into for the amount of time I’m probably going to occupy your attention. David is mentally unstable to say the least, making him extremely dangerous. In one outburst, he figures out that he can travel backwards through time. He figures that all he has to do is go back in time and kill Magneto and he’ll make his father’s dream come true. The two will have nice happy lives, all that jazz.
Except David’s plan fails.
David does go back in time, finding Charles and Erik hanging out and discovering who they are as good friends. This enrages him, but it doesn’t deter him. He makes his effort to kill Magneto and change the flow of time. The only problem is that the X-Men intervene with their own forces, and in the melee it turns out Magneto isn’t destined to die that day.
Charles is.
David kills his father and, for lack of a better term, the old timeline is frozen in a crystal of some kind (I have no idea?) while a new one ensues.
On the upside, one of the few things Erik remembers from this battle is that his good friend Charles had a dream of Mutant-Human coexistence, and he takes this cause up in his own way, forming his own X-Men team to protect Human- and Mutant-kind alike.
On the downside, Charles’ death impedes the overall movement towards harmony and allows a different Mutant, who goes by the fitting name Apocalypse, to launch a crusade that conquers all of America and devastates much of the world.
Back To Historical Causality - Great Men, Movements, And The Below.
When studying history, there’s two main theories that stand out: The “Great Man” theory, and what I like to call the “movement” theory, also known as “History From Below”. Both have some play in every event, but the “Great Man” theory holds that it’s really singular icons - President Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and (as much as we might dislike him) President Donald J. Trump - that guide historical progress. They act; history happens.
The movement theory does acknowledge the power these leaders have, but credits historical shifts to those who follow the leaders. It isn’t a single leader who makes stuff happen. It’s not even a collection of significant figures. No, it’s collectives of individuals who change the circumstances we live in.
On the surface, Age Of Apocalypse is rock-solidly about the Great Man theories. Xavier dies, history changes. It makes sense: Xavier is no small figure in Human-Mutant relations. Magneto is not the uniter Charles would have been. Apocalypse is far deadlier than Earth’s defenses can deal with.
But there are movements that surround this cursed timeline, pushing it to the future. Sure, Erik leads the X-Men as Magneto, but even that team isn’t alone. There are others, such as the X-Ternals, Generation X, and X-Calibre, who are essentially splinter groups from the X-Men. If you think of them each as a small battalion of a super-powered army, well, you’d be on the right track.
But they aren’t alone. They lead groups of Mutants and work with surviving Humans to resist Apocalypse’s ambitions. Each of these groups undertakes tasks which move the war against Apocalypse and his agents forward.
In the end, there are both showdowns between ultra-powerful super-Human beings, and large military apparatuses. You get Magneto versus Apocalypse, but you also get the Humans from Europe launching a major military operation against America to destroy Apocalypse’s empire.
The thing is: Every time a Great Man of History does something to move the plot forward, there’s a reaction from the Below. Every time the Below makes some kind of effort, it comes up against a Great Man of History.
Age of Apocalypse demonstrates both the personal costs of such movements, as well as the overarching ones. We see entire settlements of Humans liquidated, and we see heroes lose those they love. As each thing happens to a group, new great people arise.
No character in Age Of Apocalypse reflects that than my favorite, Nate Grey.
How Great Men Are Activated
William Shakespeare said “Some men are born great, some men achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
Nate Grey is a powerful but young and inexperienced telepath traveling with a group of performers led by the closest thing Nate has to a father, a man known as Forge. They are Mutants, but they keep their identity secret so they can slip between various communities and do two things: Entertain the masses, and perform acts of resistance against Apocalypse.
Forge promises that one day that the heroic Nate may be able to do more to help others, but maintains that Nate isn’t ready. Nate routinely disobeys Forge, going out of his way to help others, even at the risk of exposing himself to Apocalypse’s attentions. Sadly, he gets what Forge feared.
Nate’s group is infiltrated by Mister Sinister, one of Apocalypse’s highest ranking operatives. After trying to more subtly influence Nate’s path by encouraging him to be even more rebellious, Forge susses out Sinister’s deception. Sinister decides it’s his best course of action to straight-up murder Forge.
This does not make Nate happy.
Sinister thinks he’s prepared for this. After all: He’s the one who, using the genetic templates of two other Mutants, created Nate in a lab. Sinister had decided that Apocalypse’s “rule of the strong” had turned from basic racial superiority to outright genocidal slaughter, and he figured that Nate might be powerful enough to destroy Apocalypse. He might have lost control of Nate and allowed him to escape the lab, but Sinister thought for sure he’d talk Nate down.
Yeah. No. Sinister got melted by Nate’s telepathic rage.
Nate leaves the remnants of his troupe behind and sets out to track down Magneto in order to join the X-Men’s fight against Apocalypse. He proves pivotal in the final battle, singlehandedly taking on Apocalypse’s right-hand man, the fittingly named Holocaust. Even as nuclear bombs fall around the battlefield, Nate stabs Holocaust with a magic, multi-versal crystal of some type (even I get a little lost, sometimes) and gets pulled through to the main X-Men continunity’s timeline.
Apocalypse’s cruelties brought Nate out from a relatively background position into becoming a major player in the war against him. A Great Man (Apocalypse) unleashed a movement of chaos and cruelty that inspired someone from The Below to rise up and become a Great Man in his own right.
So What Was The Point Of All This?
A few things.
First, I just wanted to talk X-Men.
Second, I wanted to talk X-Men because it’s definitely political. The Age of Apocalypse covers a systematic genocidal effort complete with slave pens, breeding programs, genetic heirarchies, and a villain literally named Holocaust. The comparison to real events couldn’t be clearer.
It also covers how new leaders can be inspired to rise up and resist those atrocious systems.
What’s more Progressive than that?
I don’t know. Maybe you disagree. If you do, and if you’ve read this far, then you’ve more than earned the right to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading, either way.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a former hyperlocal journalist and sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.