Conservative X-men
The X-men are reflections of modern liberal ideas, namely the persecuted minority. They are persecuted for the way that they were born and that makes them an excellent metaphor for how race, gender and sexuality divide people. The idea is what makes the comic appeal to the outsider crowd and continues to build the series strong fanbase. Despite whatever stories may happen, the X-men as outsiders works naturally as they survive in a world that fears them. At least until you have one writer (Grant Morrison on New X-men) that attempts to unify the mutants into a cultural movement while also increasing the mutant population followed by an editorially mandated move (see House of M) that reduces the minority to an endangered species due to a mutant going crazy. The first part of the mutant cultural evolution was a great and realistic idea and the second part was inherently problematic and can be interpreted as some underlying fear about the acceptance of a growing minority.
But what if the X-men were redesigned as heroes of the Conservatives agenda? Could it work with one of these ideas that Republicans and Tea Partiers hold dear, say – gun rights, anti-abortion, small government, privatized healthcare or religious freedom? Can there be Conservative X-men?
Gun-men
This might be the easiest analogy to mix in and use as support, one where the X-men support gun rights. Look at Cyclops – his eyes are a gun! Look at Boom Boom or one of the other X-men – especially the ones who literally have gun limbs! And for a moment it works, until you realize that the metaphor is flawed.
Guns are weapons that people choose to wield. Nobody, minus a few mutants, are born with guns. I mean, if this was Ted Nugent’s Gun-men, the mutants would have to be born with guns from birth and weapons would have to be exclusive to the Gun-men. This would incidentally make their persecution by the military interesting. “Let’s get those Gun-men with our nonviolent pillows!”
Secondly, guns can always kill and unless you get extremely far fetched, not every mutant can kill. Guns all have the ability to kill to varying degrees from ones that were originally designed for hunting to automatic weapons that wouldn’t leave meat behind if you tried to even if you missed a deer. With mutants, you don’t have Dazzler killing people with her strobe lights.
If you have the government hunting down every person who chooses to have a gun, you don’t have the X-men.
Unborn-men
With X-men, you can’t really make an analogy to the abortion issue unless you have the X-men as fetuses trying to avoid death – which would be the worst X-babies comic. Or the best. The only way this story might work is if the Mutants had to go back in time to prevent an abortion that their enemy was trying to give to the future leader – which makes Days of Fetus Past 2: Judgement Day pretty hilarious.
If you have to send someone back in time to prevent their own abortion, you don’t have the X-men.
Small Government-Men
“Oh no! The evil Colonel Stryker is using his Washington Insiderness to take down the mutants who don’t like the large government!”
There isn’t part of that sentence that seems serious and it doesn’t work because if the government is taking down political dissidents, it isn’t a democracy, whether Democrat or Republican. There are universal beliefs of what a government should never do. That is a country I have issues with (and I do have issues when the government does that).
If you have a large government that is deeply totalitarian and is really a dictatorship, you don’t have the X-men. Unless they are going to prevent it.
Privatized Healthcare-Men
Honestly, if the government was offering to cure mutants I think that would be something the Conservatives might support, to make a race where everyone is the same. It would be horrible, however if there was a chemical that could make “the gay go away” they’d support it, as the Conservatives have supported the “cures” in the past.
But in reality, that isn’t about privatized healthcare. This is so far from the topic and threads of sanity that it is off topic. Fighting these types of death panels might actually be funny, but it wouldn’t be the X-men. The only minority would be the health insurance providers fighting a government that wants to shut them down. But corporations aren’t people and using personifications of companies still doesn’t work because you can’t have people being persecuted because they want you to pay them in case you get sick.
If you have a government trying to kill people who want you to pay for health insurance instead of getting free government care, you don’t have the X-men.
Religious Freedom-men
There is no sane group out there that is trying to permanently eradicate all religion. The government supports safe, religious freedom and if anything, it is the mainstream religions that fear the branches of the non-Christian religions. There is still discrimination against the Jewish people when Christians believe what they do – and that is the same for the most part with Islam.
So maybe religious persecution might work, but only in personifications. And if you ignore the fact that people aren’t born following a religion. They, or more often their parents, choose what they are going to believe.
If you have mutants fighting to protect what they believe, you almost have the X-men
(but if you are part of the religious majority, your religion isn’t really being persecuted).
