I’ve always been a bit of an outsider. I never really found a group that I completely “fit in” with. The ability to move through life seamlessly with other people, people who had “best friends,” that smooth relationship compatibility has evaded me my whole life.
In 3rd grade, when kids started to section themselves off into cultural groups, I found myself wandering aimlessly between groups, never finding a place where I truly belonged. I certainly wasn’t “Latina enough” to be with the that crew, despite my outward appearance. And the White kids didn’t quite know what to make of me either. So I found myself with the group of other “outsider” kids - others who also seemed to struggle with the social stratification of our generation. I don’t really remember talking with those friends about our outsider status. I also don’t remember talking with other mixed race kids about our mixed-ness. Perhaps this is because we didn’t have the language to discuss these topics at such a young age.
What I did have was an understanding of otherness thanks to the X-Men. By the mid-90’s, I had developed a fascination with the ragtag gang of societal outsiders that filled my TV screen on Saturday mornings. Of course, this was a fascination that I was not allowed to explore in reality because I was a girl and girls weren’t allowed to be into superheroes and comic books. So, I explored my fascination quietly, watching cartoons with my brothers and male cousins while secretly making up alternate storylines in my head (I swear I developed the character of X-23, aka Wolverine’s daughter/clone, long before she ever appeared in comics in the early 00’s). As I got older, I spent hours in bookstores, devouring graphic novel collections of my favourite storylines, with a thirst to catch up on decades of story arcs that explained the origins of my favourite mutants, even though I never entered an actual comic book store until I was in my 20s.
It was more than just the “otherness” of the X-Men that drew me in, I also envied the fact that they had each other. Even the most loner mutants (even villains like Magneto) always had a home with the X-Men. It was this comfort having a chosen family and a place where they belonged when the rest of the world turned against them that really got me. And then there was their ability to literally fight for others and dedicate their lives to social justice, which always took priority over their own needs and wants. Their experience of belonging when they found each other was on another level and something that I had never experienced in real life. And, to top it all off, in their world, otherness was a literal superpower.
And what was I if not a genetic mutation of a sort? There I was, a product of multiple different cultures, without a firm grasp of any of them, and ostracised by my peers because of this otherness. It’s no wonder that I found myself reflected in the stories of the X-Men. There were even degrees of otherness within the mutant community - there were characters who “passed” as human and those who never could, characters of all races and ethnicities, Jewish and Muslim characters, LGBTQ+ and disabled characters. And ALL were welcome among the X-Men. Talk about inclusion!
I could go on and on about the inclusivity of the franchise, which was firmly rooted in the civil rights battles of the times during which it was birthed, but the character I most saw myself reflected in, strangely enough, was a more recent addition from post-Vietnam War era of my childhood: Wolverine. Here was a guy who was also misunderstood, who was lovable on the inside but sure had a hard time showing it, and who was ferociously loyal to those he cared about, to a fault. His metal claws were astonishing and made him the best there was at what he did, but what he did wasn’t very nice. But above all, he was indestructible, with the ability to heal and survive any trauma life threw his way. He felt pain just like everyone else, but he miraculously recovered every time and lived to fight another day.
Wolverine is a classic anti-hero - the bad guy that we can’t help loving. His cemented protagonist status in the movie franchise (thanks in no small way to the charisma of Hugh Jackman) tells me that I’m not the only one who loves the guy. But long before the cinematic iterations of my favourite brooding loner brought him to the mainstream, I was obsessed with the yellow-and-blue spandex-ed version of him in the 90’s Saturday morning cartoon.
Not only was Wolvie a loner who secretly wanted to be around others (not unlike me) but he was also a guy with a past that he wasn’t too sure about. He was angry, but didn’t really know why, and he was surrounded by people who cared about him, even when he couldn’t admit that to himself. I envied that, that he had people who cared for him despite his surly manners and white-hot temper. And then there were his healing abilities. You could throw anything at him and he’d just keep getting back up. He didn’t quit. (In my 20s, I found a motivational poster featuring Wolverine with the word PERSEVERANCE underneath. I bought it, of course, but it unfortunately got lost in the shuffle of moving states/countries.)
Somehow, my 9-year-old self knew that if I was going to survive in this world, I needed to be a lot more like Wolverine. I needed to be able to face the world with ferocity and be able to heal myself despite the traumas I must have assumed would be coming my way (I wasn’t off to a good start). But I also needed that soft underbelly of loyalty - Wolverine’s greatest weakness and most endearing quality - if I was going to ever find that chosen X-Men-like family that I so longed for.
When I’m speaking publicly about racism, I often find myself going into a sort of fugue state, whereby I can’t remember what I said afterwards. At times I’ve likened it to being in a state of flow, where words just flow from me because they are coming from a place so deep within that I’m barely conscious of and they only rise to the surface when I surrender to them. Now bare with me, but I can’t help but compare this to Wolverine’s berserker rage, where he goes on killing spree and demolishes whatever baddies are in his way, often remembering little of his actions in the aftermath. While my fugue state is far from violent, it is similarly fuelled by the depths of countless traumas that I have buried deep within, one on top of the other like the corpses of Wolverine’s enemies, in order to be able to function. There is rage there for me too, but I channel that rage into action by committing myself to telling these stories in order to catalyse change in others. I am grateful for that passion that rises up from deep within and also for that unlikely mentor who showed me the way tap into that rage and do some good with it.
It might be fair to say that everything I know about fighting for social justice while navigating otherness and identity, I learned from the X-Men and Wolverine. I still find myself channeling my inner-Wolvie in times of difficulty and I alway standing up for what’s right and not letting the worst of humanity get me down. But I also know that my rage can be channelled into a force for good in the world, and I think my superpower might be my ability to bring others along with me in that journey.