A teenage girl excuses herself from a family activity in the living room.
She sends a glob of blood at her mother, slicing her throat.
The scene ends with the girl huddled in the corner, terrified of what shes become.
At first, the teens weak fists do no harm to the groundskeeper.
But as these themes get twisted byThe Boys cynical worldview,Gen Vonly underscores everything special about the X-Men.
Garth Ennismade his version of Xavier into a paedophile.
Despite the trauma of her powers manifesting, Marie Moreau remains a sympathetic character.
Take, for example, a Godolkin Town Hall meeting shown in the first seasons penultimate episode.
Neumans platform involves regulations for Supes, something that Coleman considers un-American, limiting their freedom.
Humans are not our fucking peers, shouts a young man in a red hat.
X-Men Forever
To be fair, the controlling metaphor of the X-Men doesnt always work either.
However, the Town Hall scene inGen Vreally highlights the limitations ofThe Boysexploration of the issues.
For all its effective satire,Gen Vcannot really do much more beyond that.
It fails when trying to visualize hope, empathy, or heroism.
The X-Men, however, can do all of these and more.
The registration argument used in the town hall scene fromGen Vhas many antecedents in X-Men comics.
Nothing demonstrates this better than a small ad that ran throughout Marvel Comics in 1987.
The black and white, rectangular ad showed portraits of four children below a headline that read Its 1987.
Do you know what your children are?
Over the fourth portrait is the word Mutie scrawled in red.
Despite these fears, the franchise has found notes of grace and humor.
Theres nothing to say thatGen Vcouldnt tell similar stories about its compelling roster of youthful Supes.
