The Mutation of Religion

Nick Spencer’s Ultimate X-Men run has a deeply religious undertone, but it is one that reaches to all aspects of religion and is helping the story add to the mythology of mutants in the Ultimate Universe.

Religion has been a major theme of Spencer’s run, with both sides of the mutant community dealing with the sudden appearance of “God” who is playing these factions like chess pieces and we don’t know who is real and who is fake. But it is this inclusion of a holy deity that stands out in the book. Mutants in the Ultimate Universe are at a moment of great pain and confusion about their existence. Their entire lives they were told they were the next step in human evolution, that they were only a finite minority, someday they would be the majority and be truly accepted. They were the chosen first people of a new era. This is how many religions have risen up and spread throughout history and  mutants in their current state are not far off from being a religion.

Kitty Pryde is functioning as a messiah like figure, cast against her will into leading the mutants in a world that hates them. She has her trusted inner circle of Bobby Drake and Johhny Storm and her own “Juda” in the form of Rogue who is hearing the voice of “God,” who may not be all he seems to be and could lead Rogue down the path of damnation. We know from future solicits and interviews with Spencer that things are only going to get worse and that Kitty is going to be forced to lead a young group of mutants into battle for their very right to exist. The persecution they face from those around them seems unlikely to end, and many are filled with self loathing for what they are or can do.

These people have believed one thing all their lives and suddenly find it to be false, now they are facing a new idea of what and why they are. They are the creation of man, a lab mistake, not wanted by anyone and feared by all. So they are looking for a new system of belief and Kitty seems to be the unlikely figure who is offering them hope. They have converted from the Church of Xavier to the Temple of Pryde.

Is the Scarlet Witch the temptress who will cause the damnation of the mutant race or is she simply another pawn in the plan going on behind the scenes?

However all this is happening in a new world where they might not be far off from the next stage of human evolution. The Eternals and Celestials have risen in the east, presenting another take on religion in the form of Taoism.

Xorn and Zorn are the dueling brothers and the leaders of The People, a genetically-altered species of superhumans that were produced by the Southeast Asian Republic (SEAR). The People have split down the middle into the noble Eternals and the corrupt Celestials, offering the gifts of power to any who want to join them. These factions are the balance of good and evil in the human soul, those whose powers are used for betterment, join the white side, and those whose power corrupts are on the black. This emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (道), the source and essence of everything that exists. They are the balance of good and evil in the world and are considered a threat to those around them, much like when a new religion rises up and gain power. Leaders don’t yet know if they should fear or respect them.

The team known as Ultimate X have become runaways, fleeing from those they have worked with and those who have accepted them to journey to the SEAR and be with the people other like their own kind. They are, in a sense, returning to the promised land similar to tales from the Torah and in Judaism.

Other hints of religious undertones in the book are the apparent “resurrections” of Xavier, Scarlet Witch, and Magneto. Magneto himself seems to have reappeared in a cave in Egypt, a religious staple, and Quicksilver could lead his people across the desert in an upcoming issue and readers would not bat an eye. There is the rise of the prodigal son of Jimmy Hudson as the new Wolverine, who himself was the first mutant, the creator and patient zero of the X gene.

Even the main enemy of the first arc is the Reverend William Stryker, a man chosen to lead a holy war, a crusade against those he apposes, while himself being a mutant against his knowledge. This is similar to Paul the Apostle, one who opposed Christianity before joining it and spreading it around the world. Could Striker’s death help unite his people as the Nimrods he sent after mutants force them to join and work together? Is this the larger plan of “God” who has spoken to Stryker, Rogue and is perhaps posing as Xavier and Magneto? Is the Scarlet Witch the temptress who will cause the damnation of the mutant race or is she simply another pawn in the plan going on behind the scenes?

I am not sure where Spencer is taking his run, but the mythology behind it and the stories he is telling are some of the most compelling I have read in the X corner of the Ultimate Universe. It’s a compelling comic and I hope more people give it a read.

Adam Schiewe

The Mutation of Religion