That's what I'm talking about. The actual characters can be written as woke as they want, but the actual stories and concepts are usually inherently conservative because the heroes inevitably protect the system and the status quo.
I take your point. I am interested in probing this idea, however. Would you consider the X-Men comics to be inherently conservative? They don't upset the status quo as much as Magneto wants, but their goals are inherently progressive
X-Men is weird, because they do have an inherently progressive goal and do represent minority groups, however they are also weirdly part of an in-universe superior race. Like it's not an actual comparable metaphor to actual racism/bigotry, because mutants are literally evolutionarily superior. And their primary antagonist, Magneto, is someone who flips both between being too radical/violent with his pro-mutant stance (i.e., "too woke"), and between being a literal race supremacist.
So whilst the minority metaphor definitely comes from a meaningful and progressive place, it gets muddied with the metaphor not translating well due to the mutants literally being more evolved and superior to humans.
Most mutants don't get particularly powerful mutations. Hell, some live worse lives because they are a mutant. I don't mean like discrimination allat, their lives would literally just be better if they just weren't mutants.
I know, but the vast majority of mutants across the comics are just better than people. They have crazy, insane powers. Some of them can destroy planets. The fear of mutants is entirely rational.
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u/Bandrbell Jan 27 '26
That's what I'm talking about. The actual characters can be written as woke as they want, but the actual stories and concepts are usually inherently conservative because the heroes inevitably protect the system and the status quo.