IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN COMIC BOOK JOURNALISM: THE POLITICS OF X-MEN: RED; Comic Watch, April 18, 2020

Bethany W Pope, Comic Watch; IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN COMIC BOOK JOURNALISM: THE POLITICS OF X-MEN: RED

"It’s extremely rare for a run of a mainstream comic to result in a story with as much philosophical complexity and clarity of vision as Tom Taylor’s (shamefully abbreviated) X-Men: Red. Because the author set out to tell ‘the best X-Men story’ he could, and because he managed (somehow) to gain something close to free-reign from editorial (as well as having the good luck of being paired with some truly remarkable artists; most notably Mahmud Asrar) the end result was not only the best continuous X-Man story of the decade, but something which will (in time) surpass Whedon’s revolutionary run on Astonishing in terms of fan-regard. In this article, I am going to pick (a little) at the weave of the story in an effort to isolate and reveal a few of the integral threads which form the weft of the narrative.

The central thesis of these eleven issues is that the act of compassion is a more powerful tool than the most brutally cinematic superpower. Empathy is the thing which slaughters fear. Looking at your enemy and seeing a person, woven through with hopes and loves, fears, the usual mixture of frailties, transforms disparate (possibly violent) mobs into a functional community by revealing that there is no ‘us versus them’. There’s only ‘us’. The X-Men are the perfect superhero group to make this point, because their entire existence is predicated on the phrase ‘protecting a world which fears and hates them’. The X-Men have always represented the struggle that othered groups (racial minorities, religious minorities, women, members of the LGBTQIA community) have faced when trying to live in function in a world that is slanted, dramatically, in favor of straight, white (American) men. Such a group is a necessary force in the current, fractured, geo-political climate."

Advance Review: X-MEN - RED #1 Brings 'Compassion, Warmth, & Clear Purpose to JEAN GREY's Mission' (8/10); Newsarama, February 1, 2018

David Pepose, Newsarama; Advance Review: X-MEN - RED #1 Brings 'Compassion, Warmth, & Clear Purpose to JEAN GREY's Mission' (8/10)

"Call me a traditionalist, but whenever the X-Men seem to veer away from their central mission - about the peaceful coexistence of man and mutant - the franchise winds up getting stuck in its own idiosyncrasies. And while jaunts into space and time have led to fun wrinkles like the Shi’ar or the Age of Apocalypse, let’s be clear - those are detours to the X-Men’s central themes of diversity and inclusiveness. So it’s refreshing to see Taylor tackle these ideas head-on, with perhaps an unlikely lead - Jean Grey. For so many years, she’s been framed as either Scott Summers’ love interest or a WMD-in-waiting, but Taylor takes a new angle on the character: Jean not just as a telepath, but as a thinker. She’s had a second chance on life, but the world has only gotten darker since she last walked among the living - and thanks to her innate mutant abilities, Jean’s able to bring together ideas, countries, and teammates in a way that feels ambitious and inspiring."