10 Marvel Graphic Novels You Must Read Before You Die

4. X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

One of the literary readings of mutants in Marvel Comics is that they're an allegory for any number of oppressed groups in the real world, including the LGBT community but most popularly cited as being analogous with the Civil Rights movement of the era when the X-Men comic debuted, with peace-loving Professor X and militant Magneto being roughly equivalent to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Which is actually more of a retroactive thing, since when the book launched it was more just yet another title off of the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby assembly line, another attempt at winning big in the same way they had with The Hulk, Avengers et al.

It wasn't until this original graphic novel - yes, our first proper graphic novel! - by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson that this subtext was imbued into the text.

God Loves, Man Kills is very explicit in drawing parallels between the X-Men and other "hated, feared" groups, as controversial Reverend William Stryker who uses his firebrand preaching about mutants being an ungodly abomination, fuelled by his own disgust at (and murder of) his own deformed mutant son and wife.

God Loves, Man Kills includes things like a plot to wipe out mutantkind using psychic powers, kidnapping and the reluctantly heroes teaming up with their fiercest adversary, but otherwise it's as far away from a typical superhero story as you can get.

This was intentional, as the book was never designed to be canonical, and an early version even called for Magneto to be killed off at the climax. Thankfully such histrionics were avoided and this remains a powerful, disturbing story about the evil that men do and the corrupting influence of religion when interpreted hatefully.