The X-Men Go Back to Their Roots With a Modern, Queer, Twist
Spoilers for Marvel's Voices: Iceman #2 ahead
The Krakoan Age of the X-Men has made the mutant allegory for LGBTQ+ discrimination more abstract, sine mutants are now separated from mainstream human society, but Marvel's Voices:Iceman is finally re-centering the real-world similarities between the oppression faced by both Marvel's mutants and real life queer people. Marvel Comics has always used the oppression faced by the X-Men as a metaphor for the marginalization of vulnerable identities, and it is encouraging to see Marvel finally acknowledging just how queer Krakoa really is.
Since their creation by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two legendary Jewish comics creators, the Merry Mutants of Marvel have faced discrimination and marginalization that mirrors the real life experiences of oppressed communities, first as an allegory for being Jewish in America, then for racial inequity, and more recently as an allegory for LGBTQ+ oppression. The subtextual allegory worked incredibly well for decades, but was disrupted by the Scarlet Witch's «Decimation» event of the mid 2000s, and has become more concretely a "mutants vs. humans" storytelling device in the last several years.
Related: The Original Five X-Men Get Perfect New 'Titles' in Marvel's Universe
When the mutants left the mainland and settled on Krakoa in Jonathan Hickman's acclaimed 2019 relaunch of the X-Men, House of X/Powers of X, mutantkind for the first time was able to safely gather and express themselves, breaking free of the societal norms and judgements placed on them by humanity. However, because of this, there is not as much implied or explicit anti-queer or racist experiences happening to the mutants which, to be clear, is amazing for them, but it has made it
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