X-Men: God Loves Man Kills

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills
Marvel Graphic Novel No. 5, 1982

'X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills' was written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Brent Eric Anderson, with letters by Tom Orzechowski, colors by Steve Oliff, and edited by Louise Jones.

This was one of the inaugural Marvel Graphic Novels, which were designed to take advantage of the 'Direct Market' model of distribution and sales brought about by the growth of dedicated comic book stores across America. 

By 1982 the X-Men franchise was one of the most popular and profitable in comics and it was not at all unusual that Marvel would elect to issue a graphic novel about the superhero team. 

The lead writer for the X-Men, the UK-born Chris Claremont, had begun working at Marvel in 1969, and by 1982 had specialized in producing overwrought story lines which relentlessly, and unimaginatively, hammered home the concept that the struggles of mutants against bigotry and hate were stand-ins for the civil rights struggles taking place in America.

In ''God Loves, Man Kills', the X-Men confront the Reverend William Stryker, a fanatical Christian preacher who nurses an abiding loathing for mutantkind. Stryker has sent covert 'Purifier' teams to hunt down and either kill or abduct mutants, and also is lobbying the government to classify mutants as a danger to the welfare of the citizenry.

Across the 96 pages of the graphic novel, the X-Men battle the Purifiers, and Charles Xavier's pacifism in the face of Stryker's persecution sorely is tested. Magento allies himself with the X-Men, a development that is crucial to the team's chances of defeating Stryker's unholy crusade.

At the time it came out, 'God Loves, Man Kills' garnered a great deal of praise, with some reviewers at amazon claiming that reading the book back then, and now, brings to them deep emotion, even tears.

However, for me, 'God Loves, Man Kills' comes across as badly overwritten, with Anderson's art struggling to have an effect, burdened as it is by too many speech balloons. As for Claremont's script, it is so sententious and moralizing that it soon veers, and stays, into a kind of unintentional self-parody.

The only engaging segment of 'God Loves, Man Kills' is when the action moves to the ghetto, and some black and Puerto Rican gang-bangers (!) who decide to involve themselves in a faceoff between Kitty Pryde and the Purifiers. Alas, this segment, however promising, ends all too soon. It's something that, if even in a faint way, approaches the admirably irreverent stance the writers at 2000 AD and Judge Dredd brought to the 'mutant' theme.  

Following release of the 1982 edition, Marvel subsequently published the 'God Loves, Man KIlls' graphic novel in other softcover and hardcover printings, including an 'extended' version in which Claremont and Anderson provide additional pages.

Summing up, to me, 'God Loves, Man Kills' is an exemplar of the orotund, self-indulgent writing that characterized so much of Marvel's output during the 1980s and 1990s. 

If only U.S. readers had had greater access to material from the UK and 2000 AD, then there would have been the chance for them to see that there was more to be had from comics than the gaseous virtue signalling of the X-Men franchise.