JVL highlights a contretemps I noticed a few days ago. It's both remarkably nerdy and remarkably sad, a combination that comes together all too frequently in the realm of comic books. (You should've been there for the Spider-Clone Wars of the mid-90s. Few survived with their dignity intact.) It turns out that one of Marvel's mutants, Havok, no longer wants to be called a "mutant," because "mutant" typically means something like "horrible freak who wants to kill me and eat my family and kick my dog" to most denizens of the Marvel Universe. As a result, many people are now very, very angry.
Full disclosure: I'm not really qualified to write about this as a critique of what Marvel and writer Rick Remender are trying to do artistically, having not regularly read superhero comics in about a decade. That being said, I do feel comfortable writing about this as an example of the ridiculousness of infusing politics into every aspect of your life. The reactions have been, how do you say? Ah yes: absurd.
"Uncanny Avengers #5 features the formal unveiling of the Avengers Unity Team, the public name of the book's Avengers/X-Men mash-up roster," writes Andrew Wheeler at Comics Alliance. "As part of the big reveal to the press, team leader Havok gave a little speech. And in that little speech he shredded the central thesis of minority identity politics. And that is a problem. ... Havok is a mutant, but he says the word is divisive and that it represents everything he hates. He asks people not to use it. He is, definitively and explicitly, self-loathing about his identity. ... That's not a message of inclusion. That's a message of assimilation. That's a message of erasure." Emphasis in the original because it is really really terrible.
I'm old enough to remember when mutants just wanted to be accepted as regular people and assimilate while villains like Magneto emphasized the differences between the two branches of humanity and created segregated villas (in space!) free from oppression and such. Times, apparently, have changed.
Of course, complaining about a writer doing something you find offensive isn't enough. You should also get in touch with Marvel in order to have this horrible awful no good very bad bigot (against mutants, I guess?) taken off the book:
If, like me, you have been offended by both Havok’s ignorant stance towards minority status and assimilation in Uncanny Avengers #5, and writer Rick Remender’s subsequent defensive outburst on twitter, then I’d urge you to write a formal complaint to Marvel at mheroes@marvel.com. I shall be doing the same. Thank you to Lady_Alternate for the suggestion.
Don’t forget that he also compared "the greatest hero of Japan" to "a walking atom bomb."
Like Orson Scott Card, Rick Remender has caused offense to be taken. Add another name to the blacklist! The heretic must be burned. He must be deprived of work and caused to starve. While praying for a scrap of bread or a sip of beer, perhaps he will achieve the enlightenment his enemies seek to foist upon him.
Remender's first response to the outrage—"If Havok's position in UA #5 really upsets you, it's time to drown yourself [in] hobo piss. Seriously, do it. It's the only solution."—has unfortunately been expunged from Twitter. But it's a good one. Whinging whingers deserve little better.