The essay “Witness, Trauma, and Remembrance: Holocaust Representation and X-Men Comics” brings up some interesting points about not just about how the Holocaust has been made part of the X-Men’s narrative but also the differences in how each of its creators portrayed Judaism in comic books. X-Men was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963. From earlier class readings, Jack Kirby seems to be a more observant Jew who consciously puts aspects of his faith in his work. Stan Lee, on the other hand, appears to be more of an ethnic Jew and less a religious one. I have even seen him identified as being atheist but I am unsure how true that it. But Stan Lee does indicate in interviews that he has never purposely giving his characters Jewish identities. Yet there are many characteristics of the Jewish faith that can be read into his comic books. Chris Claremont, who re-vamped the comic book in 1974, is much more overt in making Judaism part of the X-Men narrative, especially when it comes to Magneto’s back-story.
In her essay, Cheryl Alexander Malcolm writes, “When…Professor X introduces the mutants by their given names followed by their superhero ones, he implies that the X-Men are humans first and mutants second.” (Baskind and Omer-Sherman, 146) I think that by giving some of the X-Men characters a back-story that includes the Holocaust, Claremont makes the characters more human and less superhero which I like because it makes a person better able to identify with the character.
But for all the good characteristics in the X-Men series, Malcolm points out many of the negative Jewish stereotypes, Stan Lee seems to give some of his villain characters. I wonder if there is a bit of self loathing in Lee creating these characters or am I reading too much into it?
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