X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills Author: Visit Amazon's Chris Claremont Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0785157263 | Format: PDF
X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills Description
- Series: X-Men
- Paperback: 96 pages
- Publisher: Marvel (May 11, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0785157263
- ISBN-13: 978-0785157267
- Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.5 x 0.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
There are items in the media that everyone should read/see/listen experience in their lifetime. Listening to U2's Joshua Tree, reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, watching Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, or read Art Spiegelman's Maus. These items, are, in my opinion, essential to opening ones mind to a richer life and experiences. If you want to drill down in one particular category, go ahead, be my guest. Not everyone enjoys music or films or even (heaven forbid) graphic novels. If someone liked Maus and they wanted to read more, the next graphic novel I would suggest you pick up the classic and highly influential X-Men story God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Eric Anderson.
The graphic novel is a stand alone in the X-Men universe and really doesn't have anything that happens before it or after it that you need to know going into reading it. The story follows the beginning of a genocide of mutants, lead by fanatical religious leader William Stryker. Stryker is leading a fanatical group of people who kill without sympathy anyone, man, woman and child, for being a mutant. After we see a brutal killing in the opening panels, Magneto, leader of a mutant resistance group in the regular comic series, decides it is best to join forces with his nemesis, Charles Xavier and his X-Men, in order to stop this burgeoning holocaust. After Stryker kidnaps the two of the X-Men and Xavier, the rest of the team follows Magneto to stop this bandwagon's momentum in its tracks by any means necessary.
Many people will probably recognize this story line and characters from the movie X2. This story has been admitted favorite of Director Bryan Singer who directed the first two X-men films.
"God Loves, Man Kills" is a stand alone X-men story first published in 1982 written by X-Men legend Chris Claremont and illustrated by Brent Anderson.
Preying on the public's fear of mutants and their extraordinary powers, Reverend Stryker has started a chilling crusade. But know one knows exactly how carefully Stryker has planned, nor how far he is prepared to go for purity of the human race...
"God Loves, Man Kills" is a dark, thoughtful tale. It was one of the first works to heavily blend themes and parallels of real world racism into the X-Men universe and explore grey areas in such issues. There are a lot of unsettling scenes here. Stryker doesn't distinguish between mutants - as far as he's concerned they're all evil. Emotions flare and actions escalate in response to palpable fear, danger, and hatred.
As a result the X-Men find themselves in the line of fire with one of their greatest foes. This is both interesting and groundbreaking - the resulting philosophical differences and discussions echo throughout the subsequent twenty years of comics.
However, for me, this graphic novel isn't as good as it could've been. There's something about the story that seems off. Could be the pace, the way a few events unfold, some of the characterizations, etc. Likely a little of all of the above. I'm a big fan of Claremont so the wordiness, thought bubbles, and unique style he uses weren't an issue (but may be worth looking out for if you've never read Claremont) but the pieces didn't quite come together for me and I feel the ideas are much better than the execution.
Anderson's art also doesn't resonate with me here. I have really liked some of his later stuff (Astro City, for example) but things seem overly dark and muddled.
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