9 Things From X-Men Comics That Must Happen In The Movies

3. Genosha

The island nation of Genosha, just off the southeastern coast of Africa and a whisper away from the Seychelles and Madagascar, was one of the richest and most prosperous in the world, with a high standard of living, a thriving economy, and a safe distance from the internal problems that beset other nations. It seemed like a paradise€ until you dug a little beneath the surface. Genosha, you see, was a secret police state, basing its affluence on slavery. Created in 1988 as an allegory for the apartheid of the South African state at the time, children with the genetic x-factor for mutant powers were identified at an early age, stolen from their families and forcibly brainwashed and physically converted into €˜mutate€™ slaves, psychically bonded to their oppressors, their bodies and abilities edited and modified to fit specific labour needs. No emigration was allowed: citizenship was for life, and anyone attempting to leave the island paradise was captured and killed by the Magistrates that were the island government€™s strong right arm. Naturally, the comics see the island falling foul of the X-Men when they get greedy, and begin human trafficking: kidnapping and processing free mutants from outside of their own borders. The island€™s police state is dissolved, the secret police disbanded (right in the face) and the capitol building brought to the ground, because the X-Men, unilateral regime-change merchants that they are, don€™t do anything by halves. In later years, Genosha (like South Africa after it) stands as an example of humans and mutants attempting to peacefully co-exist post-apartheid and slavery€ well, at least until it€™s repeatedly wiped out, over and over, by lazy writers in need of a convenient place to stage a nation-destroying slugfest. Still, as a potent metaphor and allegory for all kinds of political, civil-rights-invoking storylines, Genosha is the perfect point for cinematic storylines to utilise.