X-Men When many people hear about the X-Men, they think of a silly kid's comic book, but that is not so. X-Men, actually most comic books in general, are a unique blend of two classic art forms; drawings, sometimes even paintings, and storytelling. A comic artist must be able to convey the right mood and feeling for his or her art. They must also be able to fluidly tell a story and fit it all in the allotted number of pages. The stories often probe deep into the human psyche, questioning what is right and what is wrong or showing human frailty. That is not all. In a series like the X-Men, where there are at least a few hundred characters, past and present, leading and supporting, even dead and alive, the writer must keep track of a character's experiences and their personality. They must also keep track of continuity, making sure they don't contradict past events. This last rule is only loosely followed sometimes. All in all, a long, ongoing story can be like a soap opera. My favorite example of this is "The Summers Family," Which goes a little something like this: There are two brothers, Scott and Alex Summers, who were orphaned as children when they were pushed from a plane being attacked by an advanced alien race. Their mother died but their father went on to become a space pirate. Later, Scott falls in love with Jean Grey, who becomes an omnipotent primal force, the Phoenix, who commits suicide to save the universe from herself. Meanwhile, a bad guy has made a clone of Jean named Maddie, who marries Scott. They have a baby, Nathan. Jean returns from the dead, not actually having been the Phoenix, but actually a body template. Scott leaves his family and joins a team of super heroes with Jean and some other old friends. Well, Maddie becomes a bad guy and apparently dies. Later, the baby, Nate, is infected by another bad guy with an incurable virus, so he's sent 2000 years into the future where he grows up then comes back to help fight the good fight. Nate was brought into the future by a group of people pulled together by his older sister. His older sister is Rachel, who was born in an alternate timeline where almost all the good guys were dead. Her parents were Scott and the real Jean. She came back to prevent her time from ever happening and ended up about 2000 years in the future because a friend was stuck traveling about in the time stream. Meanwhile Alex feels that he cannot live up to Scott's standards so he constantly tries to escape his shadow. He gets brainwashed into being a bad guy, recovers to lead a group of good guys, and gets brainwashed again. Great family history, no? Oh yes, there may be another brother around somewhere. The X-Men are all mutants, Homo Sapien Superior, the next evolutionary step for human beings, a minority group of people with a genetic quirk, an X- Factor that grants them extraordinary powers. Some are blessings, like the ability to control the weather or to fly. Some are curses, such as the ability to blast uncontrollably strong beams of force from the eyes. Blessed or cursed, mutants are a group of people who are feared for their differences. Some mutants strike back against humanity in a harmful manner. One group who attacks regular humans is the Acolytes, formerly lead by the X-Men's oldest enemy, Magneto. They have attacked hospitals and orphanages just to cleanse the genepool. Some strive to bridge the gap between mutant and human. These are the X-Men, a group of mutants, formed by Professor Charles Xavier, the world's strongest telepath, sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them. The X-Men comics are not just about prejudice either. They tackle many social issues, such as abortion and AIDS. The original team of X-Men consisted of five teen-agers and Xavier (Professor X). These were not as popular as other titles of the times such as Superman, Batman, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, and The Avengers. The early stories were basically about a supergroup that went around facing super bad guys and some prejudice now and then. After sixty-odd issues, X-Men started just reprinting old stories. This went on for about thirty issues when the book was going to be canceled. The X-Men were saved by the creative team of Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and Terry Austin with Giant Sized X-Men #1. Giant Sized X-Men #1 introduced an all-new, all-different X-Men. This boasted in a new team of mutants. The new team of X-Men was multi-racial and multi-national, whereas the original team was a bunch of white American kids. It was also a very radical team, considering the time period (the late seventies). Since the book was scheduled to be canceled, the creators decided to be a little bit radical in their approach to this dying comic book. The person who took over field command was Storm, an African native. Think of that, a black woman leading a superhero comic book team, a role she usurped from a young white male (Cyclops). It was quite a change from the norm. There was also a young Russian, Colossus, during a time when Russians were taboo in America. The others in the team were Wolverine, a Canadian, whose violent nature was very different from the boy scout types like Superman. There were also Sunfire from Japan, Banshee from Ireland, Nightcrawler (no, he is not a worm) from Germany, and Thunderbird, an Apache Indian. One thing that made this group of X-Men stand out was that on the first mission for the new team, issue #95, they killed off Thunderbird, an extremely new and radical thing. About 40 issues later they killed off one of the large mainstay characters, Jean Grey, who was a founding member. Of course, as I explained earlier, she came back a few years later, but it was a really big thing at the time. That X-Men team went on many adventures, saved galaxies and all reality, and built up a huge supporting cast, paving the way for spin-off books. A current list of X-Men books includes the following titles; Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force (originally New Mutants), Excalibur, Generation X, X-Man, Wolverine, Cable, and Deadpool, not to mention a lot of four issue limited series titles. So, you may be asking, where does all the social stuff come in? Well, it started coming into play early on, with the first group of X-Men. People began to realize what it could mean to have people being born with great super powers. They began to feel afraid and obsolete. One man, Dr. Bolivar Trask, played on these fears and built giant robots to capture and control mutants. I believe this was around issue #15. They were called Sentinels and have been a recurring problem for they X-Men. This parallels to the United States government taking action against other groups of people they did not understand, such as the Indians forced onto reservations, or the blacks that were oppressed with laws until very recently. Another government action was the Mutant Registration Act, which required mutants to check in with the government to the government could keep tabs on them. One storyline dealing with racism is called Days of Future Past (which I recently bought for a total of $21, one issue is even autographed by the artist). This story illustrates a consequence of racism out of control. In it, the Sentinels are programmed to protect humans from all mutants. The Sentinels figure that the best way to do that is by taking over the humans. In the end, all the heroes are dead and the Sentinels prepare to launch an attack on the rest of the world to save it from the mutant menace just as Europe is about to launch nuclear missiles at the conquered North America to keep the Sentinels away. The world is a nightmare where people are killed or shipped to concentration camps for being born a little differently from most others, when racism wins out over reason. Another template of a society gone mad with racism is shown in the island country of Genosha. At one time Genosha was a thriving country, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. It seemed perfect, everyone seemed happy. But things are not always as they seem. Genosha was secretly taken care of by mutates, mutants who were made to be subordinate through mindwiping techniques. The whole country, even the transportation systems like the railroads, were run off mutate energy. All the low jobs were given to the mutates, who didn't even have mind enough to speak in protest. Eventually the X-Men helped to free the mutates, but, after failing to live peacefully together, a civil war broke out, leaving the once prosperous nation in ruins. The normal humans are not the only people guilty of racism in X- Men. The first villain ever fought by the X-Men was Magneto, a mutant who sought to rule over the mutants and crush humanity for being inferior. After being defeated time and again and even switching sides once, Magneto decided to gather up mutants and live off of Earth and away from humans on an orbital space station called Avalon. It was eventually blown up and Magneto lost his memory then joined the X-Men again. Magneto mirrors many things tried by minorities in America. His attempts to fight back are like the Black Panthers and some Indian tribes. His separationist views are like some of what Malcolm X thought. Then there is the inevitable attempt to fit in, which seems to work as a temporary, surface fix. Another group who struck back out of fear was the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, lead by Magneto, then Mystique, and now Havok. Mystique's Brotherhood was even more militant in some ways than Magneto was. They attempted an assassination of a presidential candidate which, if successful, would have set the Days of Future Past storyline into actuality. They were as much, if not even more like the Indians and Black Panthers than Magneto (until they became a government sanctioned group in return for full pardons). Havok's group is too new to assess right now. Social organizations have also been involved in the racial issues, as they often were long ago. There have been two prime examples of this. One was a story called God Loves, Man Kills, where the preacher tells his clergy that mutants, having strange powers, are all hellspawn and condones hunting them down and killing them to keep the threat away and to put a little chlorine in the gene pool. This is like the Ku Klux Klan or a racist church one may hear about in movies or television shows. The other example is also a church but it shows a school of more open thought. In this church, the preacher recognizes that some of these mutants use their powers to help others and they should not be prejudged. The X-Men are even compared to angels in this story. This shows the organizations, such as churches, that are open to people, no matter who they are. As said earlier, the X-Men don't revolve only around prejudice, but they battle other social injustices as well. One is the fear inspired by the Legacy Virus. This is a disease that attacks a mutant's genetic structure and eats it away, much like the AIDS virus attacks and destroys a person's immune system. The X-Men have already lost some close friends to this disease. At first it was thought that only mutants could get the virus, like it was once thought that only homosexuals or drug users could get AIDS. Then a friend of the X-Men, genetic researcher Moira MacTaggert, a normal human, contracted the disease and panic spread like wild fire. Now all of the sudden every Tom, Dick, and Harry is afraid of catching that Mutie disease. For a while, as I remember, people thought one could catch AIDS by being near an infected person. That is how people see the Legacy Virus: get near a mutant and you'll catch that non-curable disease they all have. Another issue the mighty mutants have confronted is abortion. Is it right to prevent a life if it is known that the baby will have what is essentially a birth defect? In one storyline in X-Factor a doctor discovers a way to tell if a fetus will be a mutant or not. This information can be passed along to the parents who can decide if they want a mutant baby or not. In the end, Wolfsbane, a conservative Scottish Catholic lass, destroys all the research information the doctor has, preventing mutant abortions. Currently, anti-mutant hysteria is at an all time high. An ultra- powerful combination of Professor X and Magneto took control of an army of Sentinels and programmed them to round up super-powered people and destroy New York City. This amalgamated being, called Onslaught, decided he would get rid of all normal people and then decided to just kill everybody. To destroy him, Earth's popular heroes, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, sacrificed themselves. Most people view it in this way: a mutant killed all of their favorite heroes so mutants are all evil. It also did not help the mutant cause that a popular anti-mutant presidential candidate was killed on live television by an as-of-now unknown mutant. No, mutants are not riding high on America's popularity list. The X-Men are popular outside comic books also. There is a cartoon and a comic spin off of the cartoon, since it is geared towards younger people. As Philip always points out, there is an X-Men ravioli out there. Clothing, shoes, video games, toys, dolls, Pez dispensers, shoestrings, you name it, the X-Men are likely to have it. So why do I like the X-Men so much? It is a combination of a lot of things. Great stories, characters you can get attached to, beautiful art, a different perspective (everybody loves Superman, but nobody loves mutants), and social relevance. What else could make a better escapist's world? Not only all that, but they are everywhere you turn.
In these books, Telemakhos has learned about the importance of perseverance when becoming a hero. Perseverance is important to heroes because heroes have to keep going even when they are faced with challenges. Telemakhos learned about the importance of perseverance when he left on his journey to find his father. His decision to leave Ithika for the first time in his life with no help except a crew to run his ship showed his perseverance to find his father in the first place. When he got to Nestor's house and Nestor didn't have any information about his father's whereabouts, he didn't give up, he kept persevering on to Menelaus' house to find where his father was. A part of the story when this is specifically shown is when Telemakhos is leaving Nestor's house to go to find Menelaus. "But up when the young Dawn's finger tips of rose/ opened in the east, they hitched the team/ o...
Logan. At first, when she ran away with Joe, she felt as if she was finding her
The Transportation Revolution in the 1800s, sparked up industrialization and the building of railroads that stimulated every other industry causing an economic boom known as the Gilded Age. From the outside, America seemed like the place to go to make all your dreams come true. But in reality, in was an era of serious social problems mainly caused by an economy with a free market policy, low tariffs, low taxes, less spending, and a hands-off government. This type of economy would eventually lead to the development of monopolies. These monopolies would then, in turn, lead to worker uprisings ‒caused by the suppression of unions created mostly by unskilled workers‒ that would contribute to the rapid rise and downfall of America. An example of this suppression is the Homestead Strike of 1892; due to hostility created by the unions, the employer fired all the workers, and rehired them on the basis that there would not be any more unions. After the workers started working again, the conditions were still unbearable, so the workers shut down the facility. The police got involved, the workers were pushed back, and the facility was reopened union free.
WriteWork. "The 19th Century 'Railroad Boom.'" WriteWork . N.p., 1 May 2003. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
Emotions are the first thing that someone thinks about when listening or reading a sermon, speech, or literary work. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God made a lot of people think about their actions and decisions. In the sermon, it was stated that the wicked man deserves to be cast into hell and God can do so at any time. The sermon states that the devil stands ready to fall on wicked people and they are under condemnation to hell if they continue on their present course. This is true, that God will cast people to hell for their actions, but there is a predestined time for such a thing to happen, and will not happen at any time. In addition, many people were reflecting o...
Jonathan Edwards's sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is moving and powerful. His effectiveness as an eighteenth century New England religious leader is rooted in his expansive knowledge of the Bible and human nature, as well as a genuine desire to "awaken" and save as many souls as possible. This sermon, delivered in 1741, exhibits Edwards's skillful use of these tools to persuade his congregation to join him in his Christian beliefs.
lingering thoughts of the past. During the chapter, Nick uses a flashback to tell about
During the 1800’s, America was going through a time of invention and discovery known as the Industrial Revolution. America was in its first century of being an independent nation and was beginning to make the transition from a “home producing” nation to a technological one. The biggest contribution to this major technological advancement was the establishment of the Transcontinental Railroad because it provided a faster way to transport goods, which ultimately boosted the economy and catapulted America to the Super Power it is today.
Sinners in the hands of an Angry God was an argument by a Christian evangelist who wanted to make sure non-Christians were so terrified of hell that they would immediately turn to God. In order for Edwards to accomplish his mission he had to give several appeals to the people listening. Edwards successfully did this and many people ended up becoming “born again
During the reconstruction of America after the Civil War, the government allocated land grants and premiums to encourage work on the railroads, which proved effective. However, such incentives led to a questionable quality of work. Land donations and loans offered to both companies would eventually become profitable with the addition of railroad tracks running through, and the la...
There is no refuting that the railroad companies transformed business operations and encouraged industrial expansion. The raw materials required for construction of the transcontinental railroad directly resulted in the expansion of the steel, lumber and stone industries. (Gillon p.652) The railroad stimulated growth in manufacturing and agriculture providing an efficient manner to ship raw materials and products throughout the country. Which in turn, increased consumerism and introduced t...
Though overall the economy was strong between 1922 and 1929, certain segments of the economy, especially agriculture, did not share in the nation’s general prosperity. Improved industrial efficiency, which resulted in lower prices for goods, was primarily responsible. Manufacturing output increased about 65%, and productivity, or output per hour increased by about 45%. The numbers of industrial workers actually decreased from 9 million to 8.8 million during the decade. The increased productivity resulted from improved machinery, which in turn came about for several reasons. Industry changed from steam to electric power, allowing the design of more intricate machines and replaced the work of human hands. By 1929, 70% of industrial power came from electricity.
American industries were booming post civil war. The transcontinental railroad was instrumental in the progress of the nation’s industrial movement, and the westward expansion. The railroad required tons of steel, and wood, which was provided though the steel and wood factories. The railroad created many jobs throughout the nation, according to PBS, "Railroads were the nation's largest non-agricultural employer. Banks and other industries were putting their money in railroads." This meant that industries other than the railroad and banks were spending money to get the railway build so they could continue their westward expansion.
Marks, John. "RacismEugenics, and the Burdens of History." personal.uncc,edu. Ix International Congress of Human Genetics, 20 Aug 1996. Web. 31 Jan 2014.
I became a student at Carmel two years ago as a freshman. Throughout those years I have changed and gone through many experiences. As my symbol, I drew a flower. At first, the flower started out as a seed. This represents my freshman year when I was just starting at Carmel and just beginning to make friends and find my way. As a sophomore, I started to branch out more and I was more comfortable at Carmel. I knew more people and was used to the routine of high school. Now, as a junior, I am starting to become more of the person I will be later in life. This year I will start to realize what I want to do with my life and where I want to be. Next year as a senior, my flower will be completely blossomed and I will leave Carmel as a different person than when I ente...