Allegory in Science Fiction

[BBally81]

Any excuse to gush about Astro Boy, one story could be about the shaky politics and relations between mankind and robots or you get a simple story of Astro fighting some giant ants.

[CharlesPhipps]

Re: How allegory works (and doesn't work) in comics.

The Mutant Registration issue basically is one of those things that shows you how you view a subject's allegory.

Is Registering a mutant like registering a gun or registering someone as trans?

Because in the Marvel universe, it's sold to the public as the former but it's really the latter because the government is full of bad actors who want to murder children. And we live in a time where, yes, that is not a joking fear a the government of the US is full of bad actors who want to murder children.

It's sort of like Batman: No Man's Land where the criticism of the comic was the US government would never abandon a major US city to disaster due to incompetence and prejudice against the primarily impoverished citizens.

And then Katrina happened...

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah I have no projected issue with the mutant act.

If inherently dangerous people were being born then we would find a way to have provisions that are non-invasive to people’s liberties. People that are born into marginalized social groups which have historically had excessive demonstrations before the public aren’t much different

[CharlesPhipps]

Yeah I have no projected issue with the mutant act.

If inherently dangerous people were being born then we would find a way to have provisions that are non-invasive to people’s liberties. People that are born into marginalized social groups which have historically had excessive demonstrations before the public aren’t much different

Yeah, on the other hand, when you are a hated minority then when someone is gathering information, it can and often is a prelude to genocide. See China gathering information via Facebook.

But that's the proviso.

Mutants CAN be dangerous but most AREN'T until they are targeted. Rogue and Nitro are the exceptions.

[hammerofglass]

Although given X-Men is set in the US the people who want mutants registered and controlled are of course dead set against registering or controlling actual firearms...

[McAvoy]

I get it. If we had mutants like what we see in X-Men with some of them having planetary level abilities, or even just continental level is an incredibly serious threat. Not to just regular humans but also mutants and all other life on Earth.

[CharlesPhipps]

I get it. If we had mutants like what we see in X-Men with some of them having planetary level abilities, or even just continental level is an incredibly serious threat. Not to just regular humans but also mutants and all other life on Earth.

The irony is the allegory fails because the premise is Registration was started by Professor X. That's Cerebro's whole point to find and identify mutants.

However, it's a very different lesson when Registration is done by the minority registering them for said minority.