[disinfo ed.'s note: this original essay was first published by disinformation on December 6, 2001. Some links may have changed.]
As biotechnology and corporate gene patenting replace the bomb as our nightmare of choice, Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000) initiates the evolution of its own history.
What is to be feared, what has a more calamitous effect than any other calamity, is that man should inspire not profound nausea; also not great fear but great pity. Suppose these two were one day to unite, they would inevitably beget one of the uncanniest monsters of the “last will” of man, his will to nothingness, nihilism.
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
The alien essentially, as extraterrestrial or monster, is neither natural nor supernatural but fantastic. It is frequently preternatural or anomalous, a permutation of the “natural” order such as the “maladjusted” X-Men. The X-Men are mutants freakish, genetic deviants who are feared by and often in fear of the very people they are trying to save.… Read the rest
