What do Malcolm X and Martin Luther King have to do with Science Fiction? Well, that is an odd question whose key answer is X-Men. Upstairs of a trendy café in Brixton, once a week, Black History courses are taught. Last themes exposed by Black History Studies movement: Science Fiction VS Black Fact. Among all more or less proven parallels made by Hakim ‘The film Doctor’ & Dr Lez Henry, one caught our attention: What if X-Men was inspired by American Civil Rights movement?

Little X-Men booster shot
The X-Men fight for peace and equality between normal humans and mutants in a world where anti mutant bigotry is fierce and widespread. Mutants have two emblematic leaders Professor X and his archenemy Magneto. They have opposite views and philosophy regarding the relationship between mutants and humans. While Professor X works towards peace and understanding between, Magneto views humans as a threat and believes in taking an aggressive approach against them.

Reflection of social issues
The conflict between mutants and normal humans is often compared to real-world conflicts experienced by minority groups in America such as African Americans. Here, the figure of Professor Xavier would be a fictional person inspired by Martin Luther King and Magneto to the more militant leader Malcolm X.

In fact, in an April 2011 LA Times issue, the stars of ‘X-Men First Class’ were referencing the Martin and Malcolm duality. In the first movie, Magneto quotes Malcolm X with the line ‘By any means necessary.’ The X-Men’s purpose is sometimes referred to as achieving ‘Xavier’s dream’, perhaps a reference to King’s historic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

Comic’s writers point of view
X-Men was actually born in the early 60’s, even if there was no clear intent from then, Marvel Comic’s mastermind writers Stan Lee, has hinted that the analogy may have been subconscious. Few years ago, he stated that the X-Men were “a good metaphor to the civil rights movement”.

Chris Claremont who continued Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s job at the X-Men’s helm for 17 years, came of age in the Civil Rights and later Black Power Era. There seem to be racial inscriptions in his writings. Those made the Malcolm and Martin analogy become really popular.

For sure, it is just an inspiration, Professor X and Magneto are simplistic, reductionist and even stereotyped versions of the historical Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. It is important to consider X-Man as a non-static story. African American struggle for civil Right is not the only backdrop borrowed from reality. Mass genocide, Nazi Holocaust, slavery, apartheid, Gestapo, the Kennedy years, Cuban Missile Crisis. A lot of the X-Men’s deeper political aspirations become grounded. X-Men are stand-ins for the larger human question of ‘How do the oppressed deal with their oppression?’