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If you've spent any time online reading about pop culture during the past decade or so, you probably have noticed that many people like to be perpetually mad about anything that doesn't fit their worldview instead of simply moving on to stuff which they actually enjoy or trying to become, you know, better human beings. The latest 'hot' topic concerns the X-Men comics and the upcoming Disney+ animated series X-Men '97.

One would think that comic book readers would acknowledge the original source material (and pretty much every following iteration) as the most progressive stuff that Marvel Comics has ever put out. The fighting against social and racial injustice is pretty much embedded into the characters' DNA. And yet, we still have to deal with 'fans' who are purposefully misreading (it's the only explanation) the comic books and everything that came after them.

Marvel's executive editor Tom Brevoort is one of the major figures who's had enough of hearing about this nonsense, and dedicated quite a few words to those who keep beating that drum as part of his March 3, 2024, Substack post: "They aren’t making a good faith argument, they’ve just come up with an all-purpose term, an infinitely adaptable scarlet letter that they can hang on anything they don’t like for any reason."

Well aware that his words will probably fall on deaf ears, he went on to explain what the X-Men have always been all about: "This is a book about oppressed outsiders, each a minority of one for all that they share the X-gene and a commonality of purpose, who are hated and feared because they are different and who have to constantly struggle to find acceptance within a society that does not understand them and wishes that they would just go away. Every X-MEN comic book published since 1963 would is about these themes to one degree or another. Without them, it wouldn’t be X-MEN. So while our primary objective is always going to be to entertain and to thrill, this is always going to be a prevalent stratum in every X-MEN story."

This is the type of stuff that needn't be said in 2024, but it's important to have veterans of the comic book business — who ironically have shepherded much of the comic books the 'anti-woke' types have enjoyed for decades — pushing back against the ridiculous noise that often piles up and drowns out the more important things happening in that space.

As a footnote: If you're excited about X-Men '97, don't forget to check out issue #1 of the four-issue prelude comic book series coming out on March 27, 2024, one week after the cartoon's premiere.

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