I regret that I can't really recommend them now, but Chris Claremont's X-Men comics were my favorite thing ever when I was an angsty teenager.
The reason it didn't seem like trashy exploitation to bring in the Holocaust was that the entire series was about being a persecuted minority. There were even mini-arcs and character arcs that mapped specifically on to various minority experiences: being an invisible minority, being a visible minority, coming out, going underground, not being able to go out with your lover in public, being out and proud, etc.
Plus, Jewish superheroine Kitty Pryde! There was a great bit where they face Dracula (um, yeah) and she holds up a cross because that's traditional, and he goes "Bwa-ha-ha, it is not the shape but faith that gives a cross power, and you do not believe in what it represents, hello, dinner!" And then he goes to bite her neck and burns his mouth on her star of David necklace!
And, of course, Magneto, whom Claremont clearly thought was Jewish though as I mentioned, other writers sometimes thought otherwise. Having, you know, been in a concentration camp always made his "let's take over the world to make it safe for mutantkind!" schemes seem completely reasonable. (Although I do question his choice to never change the name of his organization, "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants." Unless that was the mutant version of embracing an insult, like transforming queer into queer pride.)
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-25 01:40 am (UTC)The reason it didn't seem like trashy exploitation to bring in the Holocaust was that the entire series was about being a persecuted minority. There were even mini-arcs and character arcs that mapped specifically on to various minority experiences: being an invisible minority, being a visible minority, coming out, going underground, not being able to go out with your lover in public, being out and proud, etc.
Plus, Jewish superheroine Kitty Pryde! There was a great bit where they face Dracula (um, yeah) and she holds up a cross because that's traditional, and he goes "Bwa-ha-ha, it is not the shape but faith that gives a cross power, and you do not believe in what it represents, hello, dinner!" And then he goes to bite her neck and burns his mouth on her star of David necklace!
And, of course, Magneto, whom Claremont clearly thought was Jewish though as I mentioned, other writers sometimes thought otherwise. Having, you know, been in a concentration camp always made his "let's take over the world to make it safe for mutantkind!" schemes seem completely reasonable. (Although I do question his choice to never change the name of his organization, "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants." Unless that was the mutant version of embracing an insult, like transforming queer into queer pride.)