A Geek History of Time - Episode 27- The X-Men and the Civil Rights Movement (Part 2)

Episode Date: August 25, 2019

In this episode, Damian lauds Stan Lee for his anti-racism, but deducts some points for well-meaning cluelessness. Ed calls Jim Shooter a jackass. Good times.

Like they they advertise one match when crashing a car into one of the wrestlers. Not a total victory of Russia, which now we're seeing. He goes on. He's a gigantic bag of flaccid dicks. Sorry, contidence. Which when you open them up, you find out that they're all cockroaches and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if anybody else is ever going to laugh this hard at anything we say.

We can actually both look out my window right now and see some very pretty yellow flowers that I'm going to be eradicating. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect a nursery to the real world. Where we connect a nursery to the real world in our last episode we started talking about the X-BEN relationship to the Civil Rights Movement and I mentioned the term I used was the golden 12 in talking about integration and members of the minority trying to work to you know integrate into the greater society or the larger society, dominant society. And it turns out I had the number wrong. It's the golden 13 is the term that was used and I want

to open by talking about them before we get into talking. As you mentioned we're going to talk about Stan Soutbox. Yes. And I'm really excited about that, but I want to make sure to give proper mention to who this group of men was. In June of 41, Franklin Delano Roosevelt cited the executive order number 8080 to the prohibited racial discrimination by any government agency. In January of 44, responding to pressure from Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlye Stevenson, who was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at the time,

they began an accelerated two-month officer training course for 16 African-American and listed men, and the class average graduation was 3.89, grade point. Okay. All 16 members of the class passed the course, but only 12 of them were commissioned in March 1944. John Walter Reagan, Jesse Walter Arbor, Samuel Davis Jones, Darian Damon Ivey III, Graham

Edward Martin, Philip George Barnes, Reginald Goodwin, James Edward Hare, Samuel Edward Barnes, George Clinton Cooper, William Sylvester White, and Dennis Denmark Nelson. We're commissioned as Ensens. Charles Bird Lear was appointed as a warrant officer, which I could get into the technicalities of what a commissioned officer versus a warrant officer is, but it would take up too much time. So they were the first commissioned and in the one case, warrant officers in the United States Navy to serve in combat in the US Navy. Now, Navy policy at the time prevented them from being assigned to combatant ships, so

they wound up being detailed to run labor teams on shore. But after the war, Truman officially desegregated the US military in 1948, and at the time of the Golden Thirteenth Commissioning there were approximately 100,000 African-American men serving in the United States, Navy's, and the listed ranks. And so they were the pioneers for that particular avenue of working toward equality and getting out of a segregated U.S. military. And unfortunately at the time it happened, they were only allowed to go halfway Right prior it should be noted that prior to all of this African-Americans were only allowed to serve as messmen aboard US Navy ships

prior to the Decisions that were made during the war to try to see there was a program during the war to try to see, there was a program during the war to try to see whether African-Americans were capable of handling duties, the paternalism is just disgusting. Well, and I'd like to point out the financial aspect of this too. I mean, banning a person from being on a combat ship means that you don't get battlefield commission essentially, right? Well, yeah, yeah So your ability to advance is severely curtailed yeah

And as a result your ability to feed your family. Yeah is is hampered purely because you have a different skin color yeah Wow, So yeah. But I wanted to make sure to correct my error, because it's the golden 13 rather than golden 12. And I wanted to give, I wanted to name who these guys are, who had completed the course and opened that particular set of doors.

Well, thank you. So who are you? Sorry. I jumped into that before introducing myself. My name is Ed Blalock. I am a World History teacher in the US history. I don't teach eighth grade. I'm a World History teacher at the seventh grade level here in California.

How about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher as well as a world history teacher at the high school level here in California. And last week we started talking about the X-Men. Yes. And talking about how it tied into allegorically into the civil rights movement. Yes.

Because that was very much on Stanley's mind as he was writing it. We ended just before I got to the end of the comic book really where Stanley would have people write letters in but then he created for himself a column space and he called it Stan's soapbox and it was kind of his bully pulpit. soapbox and it was kind of his bully pulpit. Yeah. Um, and one person actually calls it his fireside chats. Oh, I like that. In the back of his comics. Yeah, me too. It's charming. Sometimes he'd respond to specific letters. Sometimes he'd news on his comic creations. Sometimes he'd grab society by its clean, shaving neck and force them to confront ugly shit about themselves Wow 250 words or less. Oh wow all right in one he simply featured a picture of Luke Cage

Okay, and introduce Marvel's first African-American superhero who had his own issue Really say that on on purpose because Black Panther was African, not African American. American, yeah, good point. So, so Black Panther carried all of the exotic foreigner tropes. Right. And also a successful Black man. I mean, let's not argue, right? Yeah, let's not forget that. Like he was on par with other world leaders. Oh yeah, I was ruler of a nation. Exactly. So there is that. There's also a bit of separatism going on there,

Black Panther ruler of a nation, et cetera. Yeah. But Luke Cage was specifically a Black American superhero. OK. And he was working class too, you know. Whole very much. Heroes for hire. Yeah.

Not for nothing. Yeah. And it's wildly awful by today's standards. At the time, I always remind people it was something. Yeah, we it well. It was not perfect by any stretch, but it was something. Yeah. So in December 1968, I can't figure out which comic this was on the back of. I just, I did some searches online. He said, quote, let's lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills

plaguing the world today. But unlike a team of costume super villains, they can't be halted with a punch in the snoot or a zap from a ray gun. I love how he's saying this in 1968, but he's still using early 60s, late 50s, just either he's out of touch or he's charming. The only way to destroy them is to expose them.

The only way to destroy them is to expose them, to reveal them for the insidious evils that they really are. The bigot is an unreasoning hater, one who hates blindly, fanatically, indiscriminately. If his hang up is black men, he hates all black men. If a redhead once offended him, he hates all redheads. If some foreigner beat him to a job, he's down on all foreigners. And by the way, the word all is capitalized in his column. He hates people he's never seen, people he's never known, with equal intensity, with equal venom. Now we're not trying to say it's unreasonable for one human being to bug another.

But, although anyone has the right to dislike another individual, it's totally irrational, patently insane, to condemn an entire race, to despise an entire nation, to vilify an entire region. Sooner or later we must learn to judge each other on our own merits. spies an entire nation to vilify an entire region. Sooner or later we must learn to judge each other on his own merits. Sooner or later if a man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance. For then and only then will be truly worthy of the concept that man was created in the image of God, a God who calls us all his children. And normally he ends with Excelsior,

here he ends with Pax et Ustistiat. Ustistiat. Oh wow, peace and justice. So that is 1968, December. You might remember that by December of 1968, King and Kennedy are both dead. Both been shot, yeah. Here he is in May of 69. For many years we've been trying in our own bumbling way to illustrate that love is far greater force, a far greater power than hate. Now we don't mean you're expected to go around like a pure wedding polyanna. I love the lady. Yeah. Tossing posies that everyone who passes by, again, pure-witting Pauliana posies passes by, but we do want to make a point.

Let's consider these three men. Buddha, Christ, and Moses, men of peace, whose thoughts and deeds have influenced countless millions throughout the ages, and whose presence still is felt in every corner of the earth. Buddha, Christ, and Moses, men of goodwill, men of tolerance, and especially men of love. Now consider the practitioners of hate who have sullied the pages of history. Who still venerates their words? Well, if he'd waited till now. Yeah, unfortunately.

Where is homage still paid to their memory? What banner still are raised to their cause? The power of love and the power of hate. Which is most truly enduring. When you tend to despair, let the answer sustain you. Excelsior. Now I find it interesting that in 1969, May of 69, he's mentioning Buddha, Christ and Moses, considering what's going on in Israel.

At the time. Okay, yes. There's a six day war. There's a lot of conflict there. Christ, I mean, he's speaking to Americans. Yeah. Also, Moses, he's in New York and 50% of the Jews who came to America settled in New York. Yeah.

But also Buddha, and we're at war in Vietnam. Yes. And as a matter of fact, we were Propping up trying to remember what year it was that it ended but at the beginning of our Presence there we were propping up a government run by a Catholic. Oh, no, it's him. Yeah, he died while Kennedy was still president Yeah, but we were propping at the beginning. We were propping up the dim regime, which was Catholic, which it had been essentially instituted by the French before the French left, and they were actively oppressing the Buddhist majority in the country, which is the reason that Robin Williams made a joke

about guys in the Lawrence Roeb's bursting of flames was because those were self-immolation protests against the dim regime at that time. We had been propping this. The famous picture and video of Tic Quang Dork as being the one who did it, he held his pose while burning to death And yeah, I mean it's incredibly

And yeah, that was in protest that was that was not a protest to the war that was in protest to the regime That we were that we were busy backing. Yes. Yes So now up to 1969. Here's what's in the zeitgeist This is the hate that he's talking about Up to 1969, here's what's in the zeitgeist. This is the hate that he's talking about. August 1964, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are killed by the KKK and Mississippi, with local police as accomplices.

They literally handed these three men over to the KKK. Yes. February 1965, Malcolm X is assassinated by Thomas Hagen, also known as Mujahideed Abdul Halim, Thomas Johnson, also known as Khalil Islam, and Norman Butler, Muhammad Abd al Aziz, of the nation of Islam for criticizing their leader Elijah Muhammad. March 1965, Bloody Sunday.

This is where the police acting as sentinels on a bridge, beat lawful civil rights marchers for crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Yes. August 1965. A lot of shit's going down from August of 64 to 65. Watts goes up in flames during what some called the riots, others called the rebellion. Catalyzed by the arrest of an African-American man suspected of junk driving, the community was railbellying against the de facto Jim Crow, facto Jim Crow poverty that LA had kept them in. June 1967, the loving decision gets rendered, and

racial discrimination and marriages considered unconstitutional now. April 1968, Martin Luther King is assassinated by James Earl Ray. Most major cities went up in flames with the exception of Baltimore because James Brown put on a concert and leaders of Baltimore asked him specifically, can you do it for free on TV to keep people home? And I want to say Andy and Appless because that's where RFK was. And I might have just flipped the two cities, cities I don't remember. No I think you got it right. Yeah I think it was I think I think James Brown concert was Baltimore if I remember it correctly. So Stan Lee is sitting here watching all of this. Oh yeah. And talking about love being more powerful than hate. Here he goes on March 10th in the

back issue or in the very back of an Avengers issue 1970. From time to time we receive letters from readers who wonder why there's so much moralizing in our mags. Oh hey, wait. They take great pains to point out that comics are supposed to be escapist reading and nothing more. But somehow, I can't see it that way. Stanley, the guy who created them. Yeah. way. Stanley, the guy who created them. Yeah, it seems to me that a story without a message

however subliminal is like a man without a soul. In fact, even the most escapist literature of all, old-timey fairy tales and heroic legends, contain moral and philosophical points of view. At every college campus where I may speak, there is as much discussion of war and peace civil rights and the so-called youth rebellion as there is of our Marvel mags per se. None of us lives in a vacuum. None of us is untouched by the everyday events about us, events with shape our stories just as they shape our lives. Sure, our tales can be called escapist, but just because something's for fun doesn't mean we have to blanket our brains while we read it.

AccelCR. God bless that man. This one I can only presume is the late 1970s, I cannot figure out the date and the issue. But I feel good. Okay, alright. From where I sit, bigotry is one of the many stains upon the human as scutch and which must be eradicated before we can truthfully call ourselves civilized.

It comes in many forms and shapes, but it's most easily recognized in the form of cruel and mindless generalizations. Such is when you hear some yo-yo say, all Germans are like that, or all women are so-and-so, or all blacks, or Catholics, or Jews, or redheads, or whatever, or like this. Okay, that's twice that he's mentioned redheads. You know, yeah, and he's absolutely both sizing it in some ways. Like he carries the lead.

What's making all the headlines is how America is treating black America. Yeah. He's like, it's kind of like when people say, I don't care what color you are, if you're black, red, purple, it's like, wait, wait, what are you going into fantasy colors? Yeah, like, like, let's stick with the ones that we find. The ones that are like, you know, thing. Yeah, so he's kind of doing that.

But he's also, you know, I wonder how much of that, you know, cause, you know, it came up last time talking about this is mass media. Yeah, and you wanna try to appeal to a mass audience. Very good point. And by pulling the punch a little bit, maybe giving, you know, the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down a little bit. That's probably true. And also, you know, and it's ridiculous to pick on redheads.

Yeah. There are four, it's also ridiculous to pick on these. Yeah. Yeah. For it's also ridiculous to pick on these others. Yeah. OK. Well, they may not be aware of it, but the turkeys that talk that way, and it's always done in disparaging put down manner,

of course, are bigots, plain, and simple. Anyone with an IQ slightly above a creatins has to know that all of any type of humans are never always the same. There are good people and bad people and all categories in between and you'll find them amongst all races, all religions, all sizes, shapes, and sexes. You want it as like someone? By the way, that last part and sexes kind of opens the door to being like more than just binary. Yeah, I noted that. Yeah. You wanted this like someone?

Be my guest. It's a free country. But do it because he or she has personally given you a reason to feel that way not because of skin color or Religion or foreign ancestry or the shape of their toenails or any other moronic mixed up mindless motive Again, a lot of mixed up mindless motive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a little ration was was one of his one of his favorite tales Boy, that's how he memorized names well Yeah, and made almost every superhero sound like a porn star. I don't know what you're talking about. Because if you justify your hatred by smearing everyone in any given group

with the same brush, then you're a bigot, Charlie. OK. Interestingly, he chooses the name Charlie. Right. So during the publication of the X-Men We have him contemporaneously making statements about bigotry and racism etc I specifically kept it within the time where he where they were published, right? Yeah This isn't Rose colored remembrances of his accidental wokeness either these were happening at the time on purpose

Yeah, he was writing this. And the X-Men become one of the many comics in which he takes on such thing. But it was really the first one to do it in so interwoven into the very identity of the heroes. Young College Age Heroes in the 1960s. I remember and I couldn't find find it again but i remember specifically the expan ended up in the south and like clam and cleat us and their whole kkk band uh... truck drive in flannel wearing hat wearing tried to hang bobby really yeah and and uh... there's interesting it's interesting that bobby

is the one that most directly winds up consistently having those kind of issues because you remember. He's the youngest, too. Yes. And of the original team, he's the youngest. And he's also the one, and I'm going to get into this when we talk about the allegory as it relates to LGBTQ issues is he's also the one who winds up having his parents clearly disown him.

That's true. When his mutant powers are revealed, both in the comics and in the X-Men film. That's very good point. X-2. Yeah. And so, and then he's the one that gets, you know, picked up by Clem and Cledice and there, and there, clan buddies. Yeah.

For, for a lynching. It's, I just, I find it interesting that, that is a good point, yeah. That poor Bobby Drake is the one that keeps getting, it's like, you know, you couldn't, you know, hit, hit Cyclops with that hammer, you know, like an angel, angel walking around with a pair of wings coming out of his back. He's clearly not, not a mainline. Yeah, he's not from around here. He's not a human, like, you know, but no, no, it's got to be Bobby Drake. That is interesting.

Maybe it's because Bobby is the most able to pass for white, I'm going to say, because Cyclops always has the eyepiece. Bobby is the most able to pass for white, I'm gonna say, because Psycho always has the eyepiece. Gene Gray is the woman, so no, you can't do that. The twist is horrifically huge hands and feet, so he just looks off, and Angel has the wings, whereas Bobby Drake doesn't always look like the snowman. That's true, so.

Until he activates his power, right? Right. Much like Johnny Storm. Also, he's the only one who's like, yeah, you're right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, and there's, I remember there's an X-Men days of future present, which was not a good series. No. Um, A-hab came in. It was weird. Yeah, it was. Um, but there's a scene where he and, uh, human torch, uh, do kind of a high five handshake. And it's like, hey, fire and ice, back at it again. You just see sizzling coming between them.

It's kind of cool. Need effect, but in the midst of a truly not good series. Yeah. But so December 1963, which means it was published in November 1963, which means I don't know how far back it was planned out. Hate Monger steps into comics. Okay.

And he has a big pointy purple hat. Right on it. Right. He first battles a fantastic fort, and he's a clone of Hitler. people get on rod serling for being too on the nose. I'm just gonna say if you're gonna pick on rod you kind of got to pick on stand. Oh yeah 100% but some anvils need to be dropped Now like yeah, wow, yeah, okay? Interestingly, huh guess what one comic he never shows up in Captain America. No X-Men What yeah? What you can't be two on the nose

Yes, you can no no have you you can't you can't have someone who's so clearly a cutout for the KKK fight against people who are clearly a cutout for oppressed minorities. You can have them fight against the wholesome nuclear family. You can have them fight against Captain America. You can have them fight against the Avengers. You can have them fight against them.. You can have him fight against them. All right, but making the subtext into overt text. Can't do that. Can't do that.

Now, much later, the mutant registration becomes a plot point in the 80s. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are dead by this point and mutanthood starts to dip into gay rights. Which is your end to it. Which is your end to it. Yeah, but I wanted to pull this quote and I apologize if I'm stealing your thunder. But Professor X says, I must also object to your contention that this quote cause is not my own.

A person does not need to be black to understand that apartheid is wrong. People of all religions are rightfully horrified and repulsed by the crimes perpetrated against the Jews during the Holocaust. Similarly, one need not be a victim of AIDS in order to have compassion for the hundreds of thousands of people, those who have suffered, and those who have died from this disease. Now, when was... Okay, I don't have that quote in my materials. This was from the 80s.

Okay. I'm not... It's got me to be... Okay, because... Because... Because of the 80s. OK. I'm not, it's got me later eight. OK. Yeah, because, yeah, because of the present too. Because the timeline, well, they are. And the timeline, I now I want to find out precisely when that was, because the registration becomes a plot

point that I'm not remembering. OK. OK. OK. I've got a picture of the panel on my computer, but I can pull that up for you. But he says, when the time comes that people are restricted to quote, helping their own, is the day I believe there will be no hope for any of us. Oh, wow. Now back to MLK, from my favorite thing of his, letters from a Birmingham jail.

Yes. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutually tied mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Yes. That's the same thing. Stan Lee is writing what's going on at the time as best he can, similar to Livy the historian without doing his own fieldwork. Same thing. So he's making a pretty good use of the resources he does choose to use. Magneto on the other hand was Malcolm X and WAB Dubois. Dubois? I, the Latinist in me, makes me second guess everything now. I want to say Dubois,

but I could be one. I think it's Dubois. Anyway, after the reboot of the X-Men, so this is after an X-E75, it comes out that he survived the Holocaust. Yes. Now that topic wasn't fair game in 63 for the most part. And it's not really. Well, it was too recent in public memory. Yeah, and interestingly enough,

most people wanted to forget about it. Well, yeah. I mean, the impulse to want to is entirely understandable. But anyway. So it's not until 92 that his ethnic origin is a fixed feature of his mythos, by the way. It's only 92 that. Really?

Yeah. That late. But as early as 81, which is the same year that Martin Luther King Day becomes a federal holiday Except maybe an Arizona He was a survivor of the Holocaust in some way So is it one they be claiming that but then they get into his actual he was actually in fact Jewish yeah, okay He's lived through the Holocaust. He's seen the worst of humanity

He doesn't think mutants should have to prove themselves. Why should we? Look what you all do. His experiences make his ideologies such that separation is better and safer for his people. He even ends up with a a meteor base. Yeah. Talk about separation.

Oh yeah. Quote, I remember my own childhood. The gas chambers is Auschwitz. The guards joking as they heard my family to their death. As our lives were nothing to them, so human lives became nothing to me. All right. Now, comic code is still in effect.

Yeah. It's interesting to note. So now that quote, just now now when when when was that quote that was ninety two really yeah because i'm trying to remember exactly when it was but it was some at some point while if i remember correctly while i was in high school

uh... professor x had you know comic book death or off stage something. And Magneto actually wound up leading the X-men. That was 86. Okay, and so Magneto's, I wanna see if I don't know if you've got it there in your notes, but if we're talking about

the allegory of him as Malcolm X, the public perception of Malcolm X affecting his Portrayal and his his appearance in the comic books. He winds up being the leader of the X-Men Right he winds up going from you know leader of the brotherhood of evil mutants totally on ironic none of the two being seen as no, no, he is an extremist but to being seen as, no, no, he is an extremist, but he goes from being a villain to being an antagonist. Yeah. In that sense.

And he's also redeemed. Yeah. And then they put him on trial for crushing a Russian sub and sinking it. Yeah. And there's a lot of things that happen there. And the X-Men end up standing up for him because he's been redeemed.

And then he ends up falling away from the path again. Yeah. Yeah. All that is essentially from, once you have the Mutant Registration Act in the early 80s, essentially from then on, you really see him changing over time from, like you said, a villain to completely un-reconstructed mustache twirlingouralling, and he turns into an antagonist who is misguided, who is clearly not doing it the right way. Now this is long after X and King are dead too, but you're starting to see the rehabilitation and the scholarship on their writings because it's been enough years that you can actually discuss these. You can get some separation and get some historical context.

So now I would point out that the comic book code authority managed to make a villain out of the man who is a victim of the history's greatest villains. Yes. He is Stan Lee's and later Marvel's understanding of Malcolm X and W.A.D. Du Bois. So he's a bad guy who can't get over the past. Okay. He wants to rule. Stan Lee tries, but he's ultimately hemmed in by the 60s culture and comic book tropes.

Another quote of Magneto from much earlier from I want to say 64. The human race no longer deserves dominion over the planet earth. The day of the mutants is upon us. The first phase of my plan shall be to show my power to make homo sapiens bow to homo superior. Actually I'm sorry I apologize that's after 75 because homo superior doesn't get into Lexington you know yeah now consider what this quote sounds like to white ears in January of 63 we don't go for segregation we go for separation separation is when you have your own you control your own economy you control your own politics you control your own society you control your own everything you have yours and you control your own society, you control your own everything. You have yours and you control yours,

we have ours and we control ours. We want the same for ourselves as you have for yourselves. And when we get it, then it's possible to think more intelligently and think in terms that are along peaceful lines. But a man who doesn't have what is his, he can never think always in terms, He can never think always in terms, uh, he can never think always in terms that are along peaceful lines Or this He thinks his friend is his enemy and his enemy is his friend and he usually ends up loving his enemy turning his other Cheek to his enemy, but this new type he doesn't turn the other cheek to anybody He doesn't believe in any kind of peaceful suffering. He believes in obeying the law He believes in respecting people. He believes in obeying the law. He believes in respecting people

He believes in doing under others as he would have done unto himself But at the same time if anybody attacks him he believes in retaliating if it costs him his life Okay Can you see how those quotes sound like? The human race no longer deserves dominion over the planet earth the day of the mutants is upon us to to fragile segregationists to people who are in to your life has been built around white supremacy yeah oh well yeah any self-separation sounds dangerous because what are you gonna do if we're not

controlling you yeah right and someone who's confident in that, who says, quote, in October of 63, we believe in a fair exchange, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a head for a head, and a life for a life. If this is the price of freedom, we won't hesitate to pay the price. By any means necessary.

Yeah. Or in 64. There will be more violence than ever this year. Malcolm told reporters. White people will be shocked when they discovered that the passive little Negro that they had known turns out to be a roaring lion. The whites had better understand this while there's still time. The Negro is at the mass level already to act.

It is dangerous to deceive the white people into believing that all as well. We should be peaceful law abiding, but the time has come. He puts that in quotes. But the time has come for the American Negro to fight back and self-defense whenever and wherever he is being unjustly and unlawfully attacked. Yeah. That sounds a lot like Magneto. Oh, yeah. And it's really Magneto sounds like a fantastic

version. Yes, yeah, of that. Or this. And when you can bring me a non-violent racist, bring me a non-violent segregationist, then I'll get non-violent. But don't teach me to be non-violent until you teach some of those crackers to be non-violent. You know, and the thing is, to me, listening to that in 2019, with my background, my upbringing and all that, I hear that and I say, well, that just only kind of makes sense. But to any, to moderate, to a well-to-a to a moderate,

or a shaky liberal of white extraction in the 1960s, that would be, well, he's calling for revolution. He's calling for straight up rebellion. is this is incitement to violent. No, it's just saying if you punch me. I'm gonna swing back Well, that's competition. Yeah, yeah, but to anybody who who had been again completely inculcated in a culture You know prior to that Yeah, well, yeah, no Magn, Magneto is the white panic interpretation of what he's saying. And it's taking that and then taking it the additional step forward, which is we're not just gonna separate ourselves.

We're gonna wind up taking control and you're gonna wind up being our slaves. Yeah. And what I had written down here was you could draw a line from that rhetoric to a rhetoric of domination if you wanted. Yeah, you'd be wrong, but you could do it. Yeah, you know, and that's the kicker is that if somebody is speaking up for themselves, suddenly it's like, oh, God, why are they

challenging the status quo? Well, yeah. And therefore, if you're challenging a status quo, you've got to be a bad guy, right? Yeah. And for the comic book code and Stanley, that's very clear. Separation and self-defense by any means necessary leads to supremacy and domination. be a bad guy, right? Yeah. And for the comic book code and Stanley, that's very clear. Separation and self-defense by any means necessary leads to supremacy and domination.

So Magneto is automatically a bad guy who always wanted to rule the world because he didn't buy into the system. And so he was always defeated. Yes. Now it's because. Yeah. CCA. Yeah.

And because white fragility is white yeah and that and that is good and and and again stanley is trying to do something here but he is limited by who he is where he is and who his friends are it's also worth noting that x-men didn't run for very long in the sixties uh... by sixty 69 they tried everything, including introducing new members who were family to the original members. I'm sure if they'd thought of jumping over Tiger Shark they would have.

Nice. Thank you. But it petered out and it settled into reprints for a while. In 75 they come back this time with an international more colorful flair and this time it sticks. They figure out the formula. But by this point Stan Lee is not in charge of their stories either. No, Chris Claremont. Right. Now things have changed. And I'm going to get into that.

Oh good. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, that makes sense actually that you would pick up right around there because the disco. So, which I bring that up only half joking like disco was I just read recently it was somebody wrote something about it uh they said uh the attack on disco was really a reaction to homosexuals and people of color finding a type of dance that they really enjoyed yeah Yeah. So, but Stan Lee's gone, Claremont's in charge, things changed, everyone's adults,

and they didn't waste time on coming-of-age stories. No. You just the X-Men are all together now. By 1975, a good many of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement are dead. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, on and on. The Black Panther Party was fractured and devouring itself. Also by 75, when the X-Men returned with a bunch of adults who know who they are, they know how to use their powers already, and they have an international flair, including a real asshole from Japan. There have been other comic book characters who took on racism terribly but they did.

Badly, yeah. Black Panther and Luke Cage, right? Yeah. Black Panther shows up in 66 and for a little bit he changes his name to Black Jaguar. Yes. Because Black Panther is too close to the party that white people are scared of. It goes away quickly, but he also started covering up his whole body, including his face. For a while, he just did this. He had the count. So the superhero who was a black king from an African nation was largely invisible with his blackness. Yes.

He's taking on this weird blue black tone because of how comic book colors were colored at the time He got to be on the Avengers. He gets started with a bunch of the comics His own comic debuted in 1973. Do you know what it's title? No jungle action Hmm, yeah Luke Cage Hold I'm sorry. Yeah, sure. I need sorry. I need a moment. Sure?

That's... Wow. That's... That's so bad. Alright. You know, right now is actually a really good moment to try our first ad break. So, we're going to leave you with a thought of jungle action and we'll come back on the other side of this ad indeed And we're back

Sadly, we're back from jungle action. Well, no, we're also back from a fine advertising A fine from a fine pitch for yes,, but I mean, we're returning back into this. Back to jungle action. God help us all. So actually I'll go into power man. Speaking of well-meaning, but ham-fisted. Yes. So power man.

Yeah. He debuts in his own comic. Yeah. Luke Cage, Hero for hire, in 1972. Now, in the early 1970s, there's a type of film that's out called Blacksploitation and this is Marvel answering to that. As Blacks ploitation films go down and popularity, Marvel starts teaming them up with other folks notably Iron Fist as Kung Fu movies are going up. Yes. Since those two took

on issues of race and identity, a white guy doing Kung Fu and a going up. Yes. Since those two took on issues of race and identity, a white guy doing Kung Fu and a black guy in Harlem. Yeah, except I'm gonna point this out. The whole thing about the white guy doing Kung Fu was not really something they confronted. True. Iron fist is a regrettable example of, I don't wanna say white savior, but the white guy is showing up and being the chosen one in a prophecy based around a non-white culture. I mean, there's a whole set of unfortunate tropes tied to that. And

that's one of those places where, again, I think the writers meant well, but they were just blind to their own assumptions. They didn't have enough distance to actually look at the context and go, you know, hey, wait a minute, we're trying to write a comic about, you know, a working class and go, you know, hey, wait a minute, we're trying to write a comic about, you know, working class, African American hero and his buddy, and his buddy is a white guy who has like, completely appropriated a major facet of another culture. Yes.

Entirely. Maybe we ought to think a little bit about that But you know just yeah right straight over their heads But because of these guys. Yeah X-Men didn't have to keep going with racism components of being mutant no The children of the Adam are still dealing with identity and being outsiders But they're no longer hemmed in by the issues of racism.

In America, to the level they had been in their inception. And largely this puts the moral components of bigotry on the shoulders of Magneto. He's still a bad guy at this point, but he's leading a faction as well. So despite Stanley not writing it, civil rights movement, and its fractionalization, feeds right back into the issue of mutants with magneto being the real prime mover But at least he's starting to get really good lines in here you go in 1975 all right You human slaughter each other because of the color of your skin or your faith or your politics or for no reason at all Too many of you hate as easily as you draw breath. What's to prevent you from adding us to that list?

That might hadn't they added them to that list decades like a lot of time. Yeah, but he's probably talking to a moderate liberal type. Yeah, why are you doing this? I'm one of the good ones. Yeah, all right. Now by this point and on into the 80s, he's not wearing a mask. He wears very little orange and he's mostly wearing purple. Oh, that's true. So he's no longer signaling that he's insane or even out of step.

I had completely forgotten about the dramatic color change in his costume. And it's interesting to note that in the X-Bend films, he's wearing kind of a burgundy purple. Mm-hmm. Huh. Yeah. I, that, I, I had never paid attention to that until now. Color matters. Yeah.

Especially in a visual medium. Yeah. Granted. So, he's no longer signaling these insane. No longer signaling these out of step he simply a leader of a faction he's still a bad guy because history and the colors he's wearing

um... but there's no good response to him anymore there's no there's no fast-child response to him anymore it's it's a more it is a more shaded more nuanced kind of kind of response that you have to make. He's got a point. Yeah. And I think it's a reflection of where the conversation in our culture had gone. Partly, also the spectre of black activism and black separatism was far more distant because

of the fracturing of the civil rights movements. Okay. Partly because also 1968 was the signal to dominant culture that they didn't have anything to worry about because Nixon got elected. All right, yeah. And all those really can't believe about it. And all those activist leaders were killed. Wow. And then by 75, Fords and Charge. Okay.

So, or maybe it's all that we had left was existential dread because Nixon won and left Fords and Charge. I don't know. Either way, prior to their cancellation, the only new members to join the X-Men had been mimics literally a character named mimic Yeah, or siblings of current members. Yes Not straining too far from the topic at hand

But when they got reissued they went full international they had a guy from Ireland They had a guy from Germany. They had a guy from Russia, a guy from Japan, a gal from Africa, the whole continent. Um, a guy from Canada, a guy from a Native American reservation, and so on. So the world had shifted away from the idea that we're all the same, by the way. And identity was far more localized, and that's what mutants had become. Okay. From 80 to 90, they added a few more groups to be represented, but things were really shifting to this new territory.

Registration issue became a constant menace. There was this need to control mutants to restrict their movements, and I know you're gonna get into that. Keep tabs on them. That was what they chafed against now. Yeah. It was in a apartheid state, really.

Having to do a giant robot sentinels and people just born different with superpowers. By the 90s, they'd come a long way since being threatened by clemenous cronies in the south who wanted to hang them. Yeah. They were joined by a lot of former foes. Yes. Magneto, for a while. Also a couple of Roma characters.

Yes. A Jewish character. A southern bell, former villain. Mm-hmm.-hmm aliens alien robots That was a weird one whole a whole species of aliens that were clearly knockoffs of Alien franchise. Yeah, oh, that's right the brood More Native Americans a British aristocrat who got turned into a Japanese person. Oh, yeah Yeah, people who were lost in time.

Yeah. A disco queen? Oh, yeah. On and on. But you notice what's happening. More women. Yes. And more people from marginalized facets of society.

Yeah, well, from... Yeah, yes. And they're not as powerful. They're just not. so you need a bigger team And so they're different at the outset at the outset of that change. Yep. Yes. Yeah as time goes on oh, yeah That that goes that that that underpowered part goes out the window But yeah, and the more and more control is being foisted upon them, right?

Now the people who are joining the X-Men by this point are damaged. Oh, in various and sundry ways. Because we are too. There's former villains, there's anti-heroes, they're nuanced. People that you might find troublesome, but who seem to want to do the right thing. And this occurs sometime after the secret wars but really after the dark phoenix saga and it seems to parallel what you're gonna get into the panicked about AIDS in the eighties but you can't confront these issues because

comic book code right and you can have a lot of illusions to it if you do it right and I go back to that that quote from Professor X where he mentions AIDS, right, from last week. Yeah. They're generally in general nodding to oppressed groups all over the world, right? They're even discussing secret bigotry, homophobia, et cetera. But it's part of a larger issue of registration, the issue surrounding that. And that's where I kind of lop off. There's a couple things I want to show you and quote to you, and then I'm going to turn

it over to you. So I want you to look at this panel right here. All right. And feel free to zoom as you see fit. Oh yeah. Describe as you like. There's Mike Pence looking dude Actually, I should just say there's a you know standard cookie cutter Republican senator

Look in dude because they all they all seem to be cut from this mold very Mike Pence very very very Anglo guy with white hair in a business suit and he is clearly arguing in favor of mutant registration and there is a back and forth between the assembled X-Men who are standing on a stage with this guy. They just saved his life. Oh okay. All right. And he should feel lucky that they're there. Yeah. And he has back and forth with them about essentially them saying,

you know, you're very fortunate that, you know, we were here, we saved you. Would you do that to someone because the color of their skin and their beliefs is, I do nothing, Cyclops, I am an instrument of the Lord. So we're getting into dominionism and use of religion as a tool of oppression. And then he in the center of the page he says whatever man's color believes he is still human. Those children and UX men are not. And Scott Summers being, you know,

the paladin champion of Dudley-Dewrite of the Mounties, argues back with him and to summarize at the end, Scott finishes his response with, for all you know, we could be the real human race. And whoever this dude is, points at night crawler and says, human, you dare call that thing human? Yeah, so there there is a very clear very overt statement about the other ring of Minority groups now in this panel and I guess very probably a very next page of that same issue Are we now let those who put forward the proposition that we are descended from apes?

Who creates those nanti evolutionists to tell Tell us that our descendants, our children, will be born monsters and that this is natural. No, you moron. That's not what evolutionists say. I say no. I say never. Whereas God made us any deviation from that but hell. Okay, read a science textbook. Yep. Dipstick. So, so you see that? Yeah, well, you know, and it should be pointed out if I'm remembering correctly when that happened, this is either the 80s or early 90s. And in our political landscape, in our cultural landscape, this was the beginning of the period of mega churches, this was the, in into the height of the alliance between evangelical Christian mega pastors and the Republican party.

And, you know, those individuals make their bread and butter by picking on gays, picking on non-Christians, atheists, or believers in other faiths. They basically, yeah, they, yeah, abortion. Anybody who wants equal reproductive health rights for women, anybody who chooses to stimulate their genital nerve in a way they don't approve of, and anybody who's a creepy foreigner are basically the way they make their money by stirring up fear of those individuals and calling for their oppression and their

control. That's what we're seeing being portrayed here. Again, you really can't get very much more on the nose than that. Right. So I'm gonna read again. We are as God made us any deviation from that sacred template. Any mutation comes not from heaven but hell. Now this guy looks like which vice president? Oh Mike Pence. Yes. which vice president? Oh Mike Pence. Yes. And race ban and with longer hair and not as good a physique. Yeah.

So here's another quote, see if these things sound alike. Segregation or separation is thus a basic principle of biblical law with respect to religion and morality. Every attempt to destroy this principle is an effort to reduce society to its lowest common denominator. I forget who said that. Is that racist. Is that Wallace? Yeah. Yeah. That had to be. Yeah. This is just to forget who said that's come on. Like. Yeah. No, that's George. Motherfucking Wallace.

So I just son of a bitch. That's and that's's, oh, and that is by the way, after that's around 85, 86 because Kitty Pride's wearing the green suit and Aurora is wearing hardly any suit with the flowy and all that. And then Wolverine is wearing the brown and the orange. Yeah. Orange. Yeah. And brown because he's trying to retire.

Yeah, okay. So I'm going to end with this quote and I'm going to turn it over to you for the next part. This is from Psychology Today, specifically about the X-Men movies and the comic books. Okay. So I might be stepping a little into yours as well. Right, well. Well, there are frequent moments where the X-Men creative teams managed to turn a superhero soap opera into an opportunity to meaningfully engage readers and viewers of all ages with social

issues that are too often ignored by both the mainstream media and mainstream educational institutions. Even if the X-Men comics and films at times fail to adequately or accurately convey what scholars have learned about prejudice and group relations. They nevertheless open the door for historians and social scientists to weigh in and provide their own perspectives. An important point. A very one.

Very academically phrased point. But it is psychology today. Well, yeah, but yeah, I think an important note. Yeah. And so moving on, yeah. Chronologically and kind of thematically. Because we've talked about the relationship between X-Men and racism and the racial civil rights movement.

Well, chronologically, the development of the civil rights movement in this country expanded from the plight of African-Americans Into over time other other yes other marginalized and and oppressed groups within within our society and so in in 63 64 we see the beginning of the civil rights movement focusing on desegregation, voting rights act, and all of that, for focused on the plight

of African-American and the United Society. That then paved the way for the spread into the public consciousness of the LGBTQ rights movement, the gay rights movement. Now, I'm going to wind up using gay as a stand-in for LGBTQ frequently just because it's shorter to say it's faster and I will do everything I can to be as respectful as I can and in all cases, I also want to point out because I think it's worth pointing out that much like we're talking about Stan Lee, being a white guy in New York, trying to talk about the plight of African Americans and trying to talk about the point of view of African American civil rights leaders. We are a couple of straight, white, largely

straight. Yeah. Pass enough for straight. Yeah. White guys, middle-class middle-age white dudes. And so, you know, what I'm what I'm going to be saying here is certainly me coming from a position of I'm trying to be respectful if there is any place in which I slip up. I want to apologize for that ahead of time. Please, if you catch me slipping up, let me know. Yes. So that I can, you know, make a correction in a later episode and, you know, recognize that. Now that's at E.H. Blalock on Twitter. And on Twitter. Yeah. Um, and if you're shy about coming to him, you can hit me up at duh harmony on Twitter. On Twitter.

Or you can hit us up at Geek History Time, or Geek History of Time. No Geek History Time. Geek History Time also on Twitter. Yeah. Now, um, the assertions I'm going to start with are not directly supported at all by authorial intent. Okay, when we're talking about the end of our theme of life. Okay.

Yes, none of the original mutants in the X-Men were written at the time of their original creation to be gay or lesbian or in any way queer. What they did outside of their blue and yellow spandex was tied up in cis-hat romance tropes. Very much so. Like all of it. Bobby Drake had several girlfriends. It's Jason Taylor with the Beast all the time.

Yes, yes. Gene and Scott had their relationship, which got predictably so-popored by Logan's appearance later on as the id to Scott's super ego. Yeah, ooh. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, again, talking about foreign lethario. Yeah. You know, think, you know, again, talking about foreign lethario.

Yeah. You know, the Saturnidians, man. The Saturnidians, man. The Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, the Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians,

Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnidians, Saturnid joke about the plumbing working. Any kind of romance or any kind of sexual subplot was always clearly and firmly straight. Okay. Anyway, okay, it's worth noting that under the authority of the CCA homosexuality could not be portrayed. That's true. And Jim Shooter, who was editor-in-chief for great number of years, had a stated policy of no gay characters during his time as editor-in-chief for great number of years had a stated policy of no gay characters during his time as editor-in-chief which will come back to when we

get to talking about North Star. But there's a writer by the name of Tom K. pun of gay star news who has the best quote I could find about this. If an LGBTI person loves superhero comics They love the X-Men. In a very great many ways, the X-Men embodied life experiences of LGBTQ, LGBTI people. First, mutants are hated and feared for a part of themselves. They didn't choose just like racial prejudice. This is prejudice.

Mutants frequently display the first sign of their abilities during puberty. Right. Usually mutants have to decide whether or not to reveal their nature to friends and family, doing so risks ostracism for their difference, but not doing so means hiding who they truly are and stifling their potential. And those who can't hide their nature face persecution and violence. Yeah. Okay, that panel that just had me looking at about night crawler who cannot pass for not a mutant, it's just not doable. The X-Men, the Morlocks, the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Evil Mutants, and all of the other

mutant teams, all form families of choice. The Moralox are the most obvious example of this being straight up, a gang of outcast mutants who banded together for protection. Much like within gay culture within gay circles, it is very, it is, it is common that you find a lot of people who have very, very fractious relationships with their family by blood. And so they have families of choice. And that becomes your support network that becomes your servant family, your servant family.

So, so the the the allegory is is there whether it was intended or not. And Chris Claremont himself has stated in interviews that while he didn't have a queer subtext in mind He saw the matter in which the subtext of queerness was taken by fans and he ran with it In new mutant's number 45 Teenager named Larry Bodine gets bullied into suicide for being a mutant He's a teenager his high school student he gets called a mutie. Now the thing is,

the people who call him that don't actually know he's a mutant. They throw the slur at him because, you know, it's one of the 80s in every movie. Yes. Yeah. Huh. odd that. And then Kitty Pride gives an impassioned speech at Larry's funeral that all but crosses the line into making the subtext. Text. Oh wow. Mystique is now canonically, now, got Redconned. But it canonically recognizes being queer, but she was ambiguously so forever.

Right. Having a relationship with Destiny, a female mutant, that when Mystique is in her true, true, in quotes form, again, brushes right up to the line of admitting that they're same sex lovers. Oh wow. Well, and she's a bad guy. A woman in control of her own sexuality.

It all ties into that vamp type stuff too. Oh yeah. Okay, which is queer coding. Yeah, oh yeah, it is totally queer coded. And there is actually a trope on TV tropes about what's the, what, how I'm trying to remember that. But essentially, it's the, villainous homosexual villainous,

villainous bisexual villainous queer. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like, it's in a lot of film noir. Yeah, yeah. So, the subtext was there. Mm-hmm. Okay, whether the writers always meant it to be or not, like we talked about with Tolkien and Allegory, authorial intent doesn't always carry through.

You can't control how your readers are going to interpret what you're putting out there. Now, before I start talking about the introduction of overtly LGBTQ characters into X-Men lore, we've got to look at some of the chronology of how the real world and Earth 616 line up with each other. Okay. So, 1969. Okay, what is largely recognized, almost universally recognized as the beginning of the gay rights movement the gay liberation movement is the Stonewall Stonewall riot or also referred to as the Stonewall uprising. Okay, the Stonewall Inn and Greenwich Village Happened on 28 June uh, happened on 28 June. Uh, later that same year, on October 31st, a protest outside the San Francisco Examiner's

office led to employees of the paper. This is the San Francisco Examiner. Okay. Dumping. Either a bag or a barrel, depending on who's telling the story of ink from the roof of the building onto the protesters down on the street. Oh shit. Police were called in to arrest the protesters. Of course. And activists who had been splattered used ink to write phrase slogans like gay power

and and other such stuff on the walls of the building and they smeared purple hand prints all over buildings all over downtown cost thousands dollars in property damage doing it. The incident is now known as the Friday of the purple hand for this reason and Stonewall in doing this research this is something I learned. Stonewall was not a one time, one night thing. The Stonewall riots took place over the course of several days and it involved multiple conflicts between protesters, rioters, whatever, you know, depending on which historian is writing it, and police, and led to activists within Greenwich Village, within the gay community in Greenwich Village deciding, okay, no

look, we have to start really constructing our own safe spaces where we're going to be protected from police harassment. Now there were other riots in other places prior to Stonewall. There was the Cooper Donuts riot in 1959 in L.A. which was also a reaction to police harassment of gay and transgender people. The black cat tavern riot in 1967 also in Los Angeles and again sparked by police harassment of homosexuals and transsexuals. Transgender people. But Stonewall, again, was a prolonged conflict with the police that captured, because it was in New York, which is the media center of the

country, it wound up capturing a wide audience and cast a broad shadow over the public consciousness. That's similar to the hard hat riots capturing the consciousness right around same time. Yeah. Um, but yeah, if it happens in New York, then it's really, really big news for the rest of us. Well, because it's really, really big news to the people who write the news. Right. That we all see. Um, and it's important to note that the Friday of the purple hand, of the Purple Hand happened after Stonewall because before Stonewall, it's kind of unlikely that activists would have been able to gather a crowd to protest the examiner. What they were protesting was the examiner's homophobic editorial policies.

Before Stonewall, nobody would have thought to try to get people together to protest it. Or they wouldn't have thought they could succeed. Yeah. And so it wouldn't have happened. Stonewall happened, which all of a sudden covers the public consciousness. And activists think, hey, wait a minute, we're not the only ones.

This is something we can stand up and say something about. Activists think, hey, wait a minute, we're not the only ones. This is something we can stand up and say something about. There are other people fighting in the streets over this. Right. You know, and so on multiple levels to anybody with an activist or social justice motivated mindset, this would be, okay, no look. You know what, if they're out there fighting with police and all this, then I need

Yeah, you stand up and and say no look, I'm not gonna put up with you You know speaking about us this way characterizing us this way, you know And so 69 was the big year for the foundation yeah of all of this in 1973 the APA declassified homosexuality is a mental illness right in 1975 Chris Claremont takes over the relaunch of the X-Men with the introduction of a new team which we've talked about storm right night crawler colossus Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird. We're all introduced for the first time in Giant X-Men number one. Right. Claremont, as the head writer,

wanted to make a point that mutants were different, like fundamentally different. Okay. More of the newer mutants had alien or even demonic appearances. Think of Nightcrawler. Yeah. Think of the, I can had alien or even demonic appearances. Think of Nightcrawler. Yeah. Think of the, the, I can't remember the character's name right now, but the villain who turns

out to be Nightcrawler's dad. You know, I mean they, I think that's it. You know, I think that's it. Yeah, they, they look, they look demonic. They look devilish. They couldn't or didn't see the point of fitting in with normal homo sapiens. Right. And a lot of this non-conformity codes as queer.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm just fundamentally different. I don't fit in. I don't care about all of the same things. I'm driven by all the same. Things my identity is fundamentally not the same.

Claremont doesn't take credit for intentionally coding it that way, but the subtext is almost impossible to miss in a lot of cases, and he has stated that he takes great joy in the way that fans have appropriated the subtext. So it's the case of the author actually saying, no, you know what? But that's better. I didn't think of that. That's bitchin. You run with that. Nice. In 1978,

Harvey Milk, the first gay man elected public office in California, and the first, I love the way Wikipedia had to parse this. openly gay, non-incumpet elected political office in the United States. openly gay, non-incumpet elected to political office in the United States. So, so there's a story there, or a couple of... Yeah. ...was assassinated alongside San Francisco Mayor George Moscow, and by former SFPD officer and failed politician Dan White. Well, now here's the thing. Dan White was part of the Old Garden San Francisco.

He was very much the Irish working class. That's who he represented in his district. And he had, I believe, quit and then asked for his gig back. And one of the things he was doing was going to Harvey to get support from Harvey. If you do this, I'll do this. And Harvey's like, no, no, you quit. Yeah, you're done. That's, you know, no, I owe you nothing. And his, are you going to cover what happened to Dan White as a result of this? Not quite. Oh, a little bit. Yeah. Okay. And when he went on trial, of course, the Twinkie defense. Yes. He tried to argue that essentially, or is it turning to try to argue that essentially he

committed a double murder Because he suffered from a massive sugar high. Yeah And we both have children. Yes None of whom has committed mass murder. No, although my son has committed at least one biological weapon attack on me and my wife after being exposed to too much sugar for his tiny little system to handle, but I don't think there was homicide in murder. Still didn't involve. No, it didn't.

No, no. Ruined a couple of shirts. Sure. It's about it. No, this is also, at the same time, 78. This is the this is the year that Mistik first appears in the comics. Now, wow. She's a shape shifter.

Right. She walks a moment. Capable of switching gender. Mm-hmm. Claremont intended for her to be Knight Crawler's father. This was his idea. Wow. Was that she was going to be night crawler's father

having morphed into a male shape to conceive him with her lover Destiny. Wow. This was his idea. The CCA said, no way. No way. She was sure to probably burst a blood vessel hearing the idea and a writer's meeting. The point is she was intended as being gender fluid from the get go. Claremont resorted to subtext because he couldn't get away with writing text. Yeah. In 1979, Dan White, our friend, in quotes, the assassin, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, which was the lightest possible charge. On May 21st, protests outside San Francisco City Hall turned violent.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage, injuries amongst both protesters, slash rioters, depending on what historian you're talking about and the police this is important because it's in the wake of these events that Diane Feinstein right earned the undying support of the San Francisco LGBT community I mean at large not necessarily every single individual right but by revamping the San Francisco police

department okay she she put a gay But by revamping the San Francisco Police Department. Okay. She put a gay friendly, either commissioner, chief in charge, had a sweeping reform of the Police Department, the Police Department, the rank and file in the union hated her. But you know, most union-focated her in San Francisco. Now, interestingly, she did that, But most of you infocated her in San Francisco. Now interestingly, she did that,

but she also blocked legislation within San Francisco to allow civil partnerships. Yeah, which is problematic as fuck when you get to the point of... 1981. Yep, OK. Over the course of the year medical professionals across the country begin to note cases of carpostes, sarcoma, and pneumocystis, carinine pneumonia amongst gay men.

This is the beginning of what would become the AIDS epidemic and it is at first labeled as a gay cancer. Right. Because of who the majority of patients in both cases are. Right. It's important to note. One doctor in New York, Dr. Ari Rubenstein, did notice a number of newborns showing signs of the same disease in December. The majority of them were children of women who were known to be using drugs and engaging in sex work. He got dismissed by his colleagues because these infants could not possibly have quote the gay disease. Right. That's some someone wise to love a bullshare right there. It really, really is.

It really is. And here's the thing. I, I, for, this is one of those issues where as somebody who's trying to express the history of something, you kind of have to choose between either like every single detail or go from mylwydin-inch deep. Right. And because of what it is that we're doing, I wound up going from mylwydin and inch deep. And there, I could not catalog sufficiently in the format of our podcast, just exactly how awful

the AIDS epidemic was. I mean, there's no way, and I'm not even talking about it on a global scale. I'm just talking about it here in the United States in the 80s. There is no way for me to be able to adequately express just exactly how terrifying and destructive and shattering this epidemic was. HIV forced the LGBTQ community to new levels of activism. Because the Reagan administration was apathetic to the point of malice.

The public used HIV is to excuse to stigmatize them. Right. And the disease killed tens of thousands of gay men before the federal government took meaningful action. Over the course of the 80s and 90s, the visibility of homosexuality and homosexuality and homosexuality increased rapidly.

I remember there was a reporter who straight up was asking the press secretary of Ronald Reagan, hey, this is surprising and a lot of gay men dying. Do you have anything to say about that? And not only did he not have anything to say about that they teased him yeah why do you want to know why do you care yeah yeah and he kept going back at it for months yeah

and never getting it never getting any kind of response it's not until rock Hudson gets it and got right to my next bullet point oh sorry all rock Hudson died in 1985 that same year suddenly out of the blue the Reagan administration found money to put toward AIDS research. That was the point at which they said, oh, hey, wait a minute, we got to, this is, oh my god, this is killing so many people, we've got to do something about this. Liberace. Yep. Died in 1987 of AIDS.

And once again, the baby boom generation and their parents, the silence, had to face the reality that there had been gay people living amongst them all this time. Here's the thing. It's very mystique. Well, yeah. Yeah. And here's the part that I find funny. And funny, funny in that it's not really funny,

but you kind of have to laugh. Sure. Think about Liberace. Think about the persona he presented. Think about the way he carried himself. Think about everything about his public persona. Yeah, it's an open secret. It's an open, well, but the thing is,

I remember my grandmother was legitimately shocked to find out that he was gay. You know, okay, so let me just make it a little or jovial for a second here. My son and my daughter do an excellent Liberace impersonation. Yeah, and they've never seen Liberace. So here's what happened in the 1950s. There's an episode of Looney Toons Yes, all the three little buffs. Yep. I Brother George was here that yes, and both my kids latched on

Bugs Bunny. Yeah, yeah, well here's the thing I I'm kind of being flip but I like to think but I 1954 yo, yeah a pig imitating Liberace Coaches gay everyone knew Everyone knew but not everybody acknowledged yeah, and and then of course rock Hudson of course lived in the closet for Forever yeah, and the thing is straight America Finding out that these two iconic men right one. One of them, a Hollywood set, literally a Hollywood sex symbol. And the other one, a beloved friend, at the very least,

if not crush objects, two millions, the idea that they could be gay. Right. Was eye-opening. It was all of a sudden, no wait, hold on. You mean there, but there, I know them. You know, I mean, I don't there, there, I know them. You know, I mean, I don't know them, but I know them. Right. And that way that celebrities are like our imaginary friends.

Mm-hmm. And like I said, my grandmother was just shocked to a core by both the revelation about Rock Hudson, which is a little bit easier to understand. And, and and Lombarachi, and Rock Hudson coming out like saying, I have been and am a homosexual man, have this disease, like, that was earth shaking. Oh yeah.

And at the same time, this was going on. The X-Men comics pushed a queer subtext farther and farther towards the line as I mentioned before. New Mutants number 45 was published in 83. Okay. That's the one with the teenager who gets called a mutie. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Oh my god. They know. Kills himself. Kitty Pride has this, you know, speech. Um, I can see why this doesn't run afoul too because you know, speech. I can see why this doesn't run afoul too, because not only is he killing himself based on faulty information that we, the reader, realize that they don't know that he knows. So you can put his suicide not on bullying and not on being tied to that actually.

It's an overreaction on his part. It's melodramatic or whatever. So it's safe to do it in that way. In the same way that like most movies that tackle racism in the 90s cast the black person as the racist. Yeah. And then it's safe for white America to kind of deal with it and then put it back and then go about their day. Yeah. Same thing. They're not, they're not being called out. Right. And it's the same thing here. It's a comfortable way of doing this so that you can then just put it back on a shelf when you're done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now we don't see subtext become text until Northstar comes out in 1992.

He came out that early. Yes. Wow. Now, it's important to note, John Byrne, who created the character, had originally intended for Northstar to be gay in 1979. Oh, kidding. But again, CCA and Jim Shooter, can't do it. Won't do it. And the thing is, Northstar is he is a support character on the Canadian Avengers. On the Alpha Flight.

On the Alpha Flight. On Alpha Flight. And he and his sister are a matched pair. So he's not even his own entity. So much as he and Aurora are their entity. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, his orientation instead of, instead of, no, no, he's gay. His orientation was hinted at very broadly and repeatedly.

Okay. But never straight up, it was never straight up acknowledged. There's one notable panel, for example, where somebody calls his home. And of course, he's, you know, Olympic level athlete, milling leader, you know, Matt and A. Idol trying to figure. So he's got this polatial, you know, you know, Matt and I, Idle, you know, figure. So he's got this palatial, you know, home. And he's in the pool and the phone rings. And a nearly naked guy with a towel around his waist answers the phone for him

saying, this is North Star's residence. Okay. You know, right. And there's and there are exchanges between him and his sister. Like, you know, over and over and over again, anybody who, you know, had any ability to read between the lines was like, oh, yeah.

Okay, well, you know, clearly he's not interested in the ladies, you know. But it never actually got set. Again, the love that Dairnot speak its name as the classical way of describing this. And so in 1992, five years after Jim Shooter got fired, Scott Lobdel finally got permission to have North Star clearly state that he was

gay in Alpha Flight number 106. Okay. Now, so Alpha Flight, you mentioned of course he's a member of Alpha Flight. Yes. That's a also ran amongst the Exxonant titles. It's a secondary team. It's not a big, not a big series. No. This is Alpha Flight. Darling one now? Yeah. But it's more of a cult thing. Yeah. Yeah. So as Alpha Flight No. 106, the issue sold out in a week. No shit. Yes. Okay. That's telling. Yes. Now, North Star was handsome, white, a star athlete, and a millionaire

along with being a mutant and gay. It's almost like the writers didn't want to push to any buttons at once. At the same time, there's a level of representation that I applaud them for there, though. I mean, you are, you know, it's kind of like when the only black people you see in a movie are criminals or junkies, whereas like, oh oh here's a black guy who is a successful

head of a corporation oh yeah there's a level of that so I like that their first gay character is not one who is a homeless person that you need to pity yeah or or a deviant or right whatever yeah yeah so but at the same time yes it is time isized. Yeah. So now it took 20 years for North Stern as long time partner to get married, but in 2012, they finally did, which was the first depiction of gay wedding in comics. Now, a lot had changed in public perception of homosexuality, LGBTQ people in the meantime. By 2012, drug cocktails that turned HIV

from a death sentence into a chronic and controllable medical condition. No. 2012 was notably the year that public support for recognition of gay marriages first hit a majority, 53% according to Gallup. Gayer characters on television had gone from being one note jokes to being the leads in their own series,

think of Ellen, think of Will and Grace. Yes. Okay. And I'm gonna stop it there. Good place. I get from, I go from here, we're getting, we're getting, we're going over time a little bit. And this gets into, I go into some intersectionality issues

that come up. Cool. But I think for now, that's a good place to pause. Right now, what's your takeaway? I like that, okay, so we have this running theme slash joke in our podcast where, authorial. Authorial and dead, don't mean crap.

Right, and at the same time, you got people that had authorial 10, yeah. coming out their ears. Yeah. And they were frustrated by the CCA. Yeah. They're a gym shooter.

Yeah. I just want to point out, I haven't had the opportunity to really express it verbally so far. Okay. But I really want to point out that like as far as I'm concerned, gym shooter really deserves at the very least a special place in purgatory as as the Catholic and the table here Maybe not a special place in hell the special place in purgatory because this is the X-Men Which was founded around

Or or not founded around but quickly became built around right a a core of Social justice and and pointing out you know segregation is evil and and you know the is evil and supportive civil rights ideals and he was just running Marvel comics with his blanket statement that none of you can't have any homos. Like, dude, what? Yeah. I'm sorry, fanboy says what? Like, you know, I just like,

what kind of gatekeeper bullshit is that? Now, I'm gonna push back a little bit. That's very presentest. Like, I agree with you 100%, but the go-to joke as late as 1995 on Friends was... Would you have been researching for another one? Yes, I have. Good God. Oh fuck me.

This research is going to kill me. But on friends was gay panic jokes. Yeah. That was the go-to in season one and checkerboard it of season two. Yeah. Like, you know, they started writing better jokes actually, but like, gay panic was still a thing in the mid 90s. So, it's clearly one of the safe places that you can still punch down.

And as a result, it's one of those things that's kept in the closet. It's kept in the shadows. Like, it really... Granted. Yeah. Alright. So, and keep in mind, the 90 90s you can very clearly defy divide it in the middle most places you can but like in the middle because after a certain point gay characters prior to a certain point gay panic okay and it's a real so but yeah I get back to a theory of intent though, and just like that he wanted to, and was not allowed, as early as you said, 79.

79, and that's, yeah, this is, this is burn. Right. Anybody knows anything about comics, knows that burn was a button pusher, and that kind of guy. But that's awesome. But still, yeah, no, it's amazing. That's so burn.

Just how, how, how to put this. I'm always astounded like the, the Heimlich maneuver. Yeah. Is just a little older than we are. Yeah. That's astounding to me. Like an ER is only about 20 or 30 years older than us. Yes.

You know, stuff like that. So when I find out that like for so long, they've wanted to do this thing. Yeah. And haven't until like damn near 20 years later, that's quite something too. So that's my takeaway is just like, wow, this shit has been rumbling for a lot longer

than we thought. Yeah. Most definitely. Well, since we're on the topic of comics, I'm going to recommend a comic to people this week as well. I said X-Men 1 through 24 last week. I'm going to recommend the comic book story of professional wrestling by Aubrey Siterson

and Chris Marino. It touches on a lot of things that we've talked about in previous episodes, but it's really, for me, it was skimming surfaces, but for any normal human being, it will offer... Everybody who's not arresting super fans. Yeah, it will offer a depth of understanding

that here to for is not been accessible. So it's really good and I recommend that. Okay. What do you recommend? I highly recommend that as we record this, it is the 5th of July. And I highly recommend that anybody who has not done so recently, go back and read the Declaration of Independence. Wow.

Hold on. And then the Constitution, if you're feeling frisky, it's a long document. But I would say Article 1, in particular, right now, I think, is particularly important, and the Bill of rights. But start with the declaration of independence and just re-up your education if you have read it before, if you remember it, if you don't remember it, make it so you do.

That's going to be my call to civic action. I'm not wearing my Captain America t-shirt right now, but it's tattooed on my heart. So that's that's my recommendation for everybody. Well for Geek History of Time I'm Damien Harmony and I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time keep rolling 20s. next time, keep rolling 20s.