Shalom Magazine

X-Men, a comic created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1963, has become a superheroic entertainment phenomenon that includes 48 years of comic book history, as well as several animated cartoon series developed for television, countless videogames, and a Hollywood movie franchise that’s leading summer 2011’s blockbusters with X-Men: First Class. And although X-Men is part of a billion-dollar industry today, its humble beginnings were quite different.
Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) began working for Martin Goodman at Timely Comics, a company that would later evolve into Marvel Comics, where superheroes like X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Thor were born. Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg) was an illustrator for Goodman. Lee and Kirby were both the children of Jewish immigrants, as was Goodman. In fact, the comic book industry itself is a child of Jewish parents.
Goodman’s Timely Comics was one among many comic book publishers started by Jews—including Jack Liebowitz (born Yacov Liebovitz) and Harry Donenfeld of National Comics (now DC Comics) and John Goldwater and Louis Silberkeit of Archie Comics. Comic books today may be a billion-dollar industry, but when men like Goodman and Liebowitz started out, comics were considered "low-culture," similar to early Hollywood film, also developed by Jews like Paramount’s Adolph Zukor and MGM’s Louis Mayer and Sam Goldwyn (born Samuel Goldfish). Jewish immigrants coming to America were all fleeing persecution, regardless of their country of origin. But anti-Semiticism didn’t stop at the American borders. And though Jewish people today make up a high percentage of medical doctors, attorneys, college professors, writers, and financial professionals, it was the "low culture" spheres (deemed less influential and therefore more available to Jewish immigrants and their children) where Jewish Americans began to flourish in the early-mid decades of the 20th century. X-Men is particularly representative of Jewish struggle. The premise of X-Men is based on a group of humans who are genetically different called "mutants". Throughout the storyline, societal fear and anxiety over that difference manifests in a myriad of ways, including "Days of Futures Past" (Uncanny X-Men #140-141, January-February 1981), part of the comic book series that finds mutants locked away in dystopian-future concentration camps during a mutant genocide. One of the original characters in X-Men, Magneto, is a Holocaust survivor. Magneto’s birth name was Max Eisenhardt which, like his comic book forebears, he later changed to Erik Lehnsherr. Magneto’s early life is the main influence that shapes the character’s overall goals. Magneto is considered a villain because of his severe distrust of humans. His struggle is representative of the two very different attitudes that emerged amongst Jews post-Holocaust: Do we try to assimilate, helping non-Jews to understand us, or, do we aggressively protect ourselves from other humans? Magneto’s caveats issued in early X-Men comics were validated 20 years later in the 80’s with the mutant genocide of "Days of Futures Past." That same caveat is repeated in four of the five X-Men films, including X-Men: First Class, which has earned more than $150,000,000 in its first week of release. The film begins with Magneto as a boy in Germany, being studied by a Nazi doctor. It’s no coincidence that the film officially opened one month after Israel’s Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. All four of the film’s producers are Jewish, including Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men films as well as having a hand in writing the most recent release.
Jewish comic book writer, Chris Claremont first called attention to Magneto’s struggle in 1978 with Uncanny X-Men #113 where Magneto refers to his time in Auschwitz. Prior to that, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were restricted by the 1954 Comic Code Authority, essentially censoring the literature of comic books. In 1971, the code was amended. And that’s when Magneto’s rage against humanity was finally able to find true form. Magneto seemed less like a criminal and more like Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, who strongly believed there was to be a second Holocaust in the United States and urged an emergency mass-exodus of American Jews to Israel. As audiences continue to take in X-Men: First Class this summer, few will understand the Jewish heritage in X-Men’s past, present and future…because, yes, more X-Men films are on the horizon. And though a seemingly unlikely place to find Jewish struggle, that’s where the comic book industry began. Whether you’re a fan of superhero-escapism or not, comic books are a strong part of Jewish history. One we should be proud of.

Dr. Rebecca Housel is known as "The Pop Culture Professor"; her books X-Men & Philosophy, Twilight & Philosophy and True Blood & Philosophy are translated in 7 languages and sold in more than 20 countries. Read more from Rebecca Housel on her website and blog: www.RebeccaHousel.com