Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center wants its Marvel superheroes to be straight white Christians, and it lashes out every time Marvel's creators fail to live up to that outdated expectation. Gabriel Hays devoted an April 1 post to ranting that a Marvel comic put Jesus Christ in its league of mutant superheroes:
Blasphemy against Jesus Christ Himself is now a part of the Disney/Marvel media empire’s descent into woke madness. The newest edition of X-Men comics features a story beat that explains that Christ wasn’t miraculous because He was the Son of God, but because He was a mutant with superpowers.
Basically, He’s like Professor X or Magneto, if their powers were multiplying bread and fish or raising people from the dead.
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But before the explicit blasphemy, readers are given an exchange revealing a bit of the disdain Summers has for religion. Praising her powers, Exodus claims he believes that the Holy Spirit has come upon her. “Your coming rekindled the fecundity of mutants. The Holy Spirit came upon you,” he tells her, to which she abruptly responds, “The Phoenix! The Burning Space Bird came upon me! There’s no need to get religious.”
Heaven forbid God really exists in any modern comic book world.
The real blasphemy happens when Exodus tries to woo her by stating that her mutant powers of resurrection have far surpassed those of the “Mutant Nazarene” who raised only three people from the dead in the New Testament: the widow of Nain, Jairus’ daughter, and Lazarus.
“The Nazarene Mutant inspired a church among the humans by raising a couple from the dead. I just watched you beat that in the last five minutes,” Exodus told her.
It’s obvious what Exodus is getting at here. The Nazarene Mutant, Jesus, of course, was not the Son of God, but an early mutant who used his powers to start a church and convince Christians He was God. Current mutants like Summers have far surpassed Jesus’ abilities.
Exodus adds one more nail in the heretical coffin, telling Summers that her powers have given mutants something Christ didn’t. “And now, you have given us an actual heaven,” Exodus states.
Great job, Marvel. The edgy atheist shtick is so 2013. So much for pushing the envelope with your medium, guys.
Never mind, of course, that comic book superheroes have regularly been seen as parallels to religious figures. Hays is mad that creators made a logical extension of that idea.
John Simmons used a May 11 post to complain that Marvel doesn't hate LGBT people as he does:
It’s official folks. Marvel is gay.
In honor of pride month, which will, unfortunately, be upon us in just over three weeks, Marvel just announced that it will have a pride-themed edition of the acclaimed Marvel’s Voices podcast (created by Angélique Roché in 2018) that will attempt to highlight the voices of LGTBQIA+ artists and creators and the impact of several gay superheroes in the Marvel universe.
There's even a poster for it!
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It is truly disappointing that Marvel, a company that genuinely brought fans some of the most well-produced, intricately developed, visually pleasing, and genuinely inspiring superhero stories of the past 20 years is now selling out for this harmful ideology to cater to a small portion of America’s population. There is always hope that their business could suffer should audiences be displeased with this new initiative (like what happened when Disney), but only time will tell.
It's unsurprising that Simmons thinks being LGBT is an "ideology" the way his homophobia and anti-LGBT hate is ideology-driven.
A May 25 post by Mike Ippolito ranted that Marvel's owner was pushing "wokeism" in a trailer for the new Thor movie in which "Thor is depicted as weak and hung up on his ex-girlfriend" because, apparently, superheroes aren't supposed to have human feelings and emotions:
Since the earliest days of cinema, films with male protagonists used to be respected and strong. In the 1980s, the stereotype was every male hero was a buff man with a tough attitude. There were no quirky one-liners but good characters that embodied masculine virtues that were respected. Unfortunately, modern cinematic male heroes do not reflect those traits but instead are treated like jokes for entertainment sakes. The new Thor trailer is another example of woke companies attempting to destroy the classic male hero archetype for cheap jokes. This trailer follows the blockbuster hit movie “Avengers: Endgame,” which depicted Thor as a fat, beer-drinking, depressed man instead of a strong, determined, and courageous man. Once again, another example of woke movie studios making their once heroic characters weak to appease their woke base.
It’s not surprising. Marvels Studios President Kevin Fiege wants diversity and wokeness to be the norm in Hollywood, and the new Thor movie is not any different. “Looking at the remarkably positive experiences we've had making sure that the room where it happens is not a room full of people that all look the same,” Fiege said “When that's not the case, when there are people from various backgrounds and genders, stories are better.” According to Fiege, diversity comes before quality stories.
While this issue may not seem inherently important, movies play an enormous role in the culture war. For better or worse, many turn to film for lessons about life, so when movies promote a woke agenda, more will support woke policies. Cinematic heroes used to inspire a young generation of men to be better. Now movies like “Thor: Love and Thunder” show that the strong, silent types are long gone.
Of course, being a strong, silent type is not really good for men or women, so perhaps it's a good thing that archetype is disappearing -- something Ippolito clearly doesn't want to admit.
