X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris ClaremontMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Despite watching the 1990s cartoon as a child and watching the movies, I have read relatively few X-Men comics since I started reading comic books in 2013. Most of what I have read has been of the newer works—particularly Brian Michael Bendis' run on the books. I have not read a lot of the classic stories though I most of what they are about because of how they have been adapted for film and television. This is one of the most famous X-Men stories written by their most prolific writer Chris Claremont as a stand-alone graphic novel. It is illustrated by Brent Anderson pre-Astro City. It's one of those stories that sticks with you from the word go.
The graphic novel begins in a way that few comics would dare do in this era to establish the atmosphere, with the lynching of two black mutant children by an anti-mutant militia under the orders of a disgraced veteran turned right-wing evangelical named William Stryker. Stryker's aim is the full extermination of all mutants and he uses his militia, the Purifiers, with the goal of carrying out that plan. Their bodies are quickly discovered by Magneto, the Malcolm X avatar of the X-Men world who declares full on war against Stryker. If you've seen X2: X-Men United then you know where this plot is going. It is certainly an interesting story to read in 2020. The art is very interesting look at early Anderson who've I've only ever looked at in Astro City. Despite this book being a fairly heavy book, it is still obviously a book set in the late-Bronze Age of Comic Books (which where the majority of Claremont's works come out of) and the social realism is very apparent. Claremont wrote this book in response to the rise of Christian fundamentalism in during the Reagan era. Interestingly he pits a religiously-motivated antagonist against the most famously-religious superhero team in comics (this book in particular uses Kitty Pryde (Jewish), Nightcrawler (Roman Catholic), and Storm (traditional/Nubian)). It creates a very interesting dynamic when they go up against Stryker.
The interesting about this book is that, like Batman: The Killing Joke, this was meant to be a one-off story not in-canon with the main X-Men story. Like Killing Joke the publishing company ignored that fact after it became a hit and Stryker and the Purifiers have been popping-up ever since. Even still, this story still holds it's relevance as one of the most significant stories of this franchise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srwfA...
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