The Moral Majority and “X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills”

Writing about the lynching of Mark and Jill, two Black children, at the beginning of Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson’s X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, John Jennings points out the use of the word “Mutie,” a label that the Purifiers put onto the dangling bodies of the two children. Jennings writes, “the slur “MUTIE” has come to represent for many, all racial, ethnic, homophobic and xenophobic slurs that strive to ‘other’ whole groups of people. This marking of the other has always been important to dehumanization.” Reverend William Stryker stokes the fires that lead to the lynching of Mark and Jill, and to the oppression of other mutants. Stryker uses the Bible and Christianity as a guise to stoke these fears and violently oppress mutants.

I’ve written, years ago, about the opening scene and its connections to history. Here, I want to expand on that post some while also looking, specifically, at Stryker’s reasoning for his anti-mutant crusade and what his language and positions have to say about the world we inhabit. Our first introduction to Stryker comes immediately after Mark and Jill’s murder. We see the building that houses the “headquarters of the worldwide evangelical Stryker Crusade” as Stryker reads Deuteronomy 17:2–5, with some omissions (not in italics below).

2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates…