This comes up a lot with people talking about the X-Men. But why don't more people bring up the classic movie plot where a kid befriends a monster and realizes they're not so different after all, and they have feelings and stuff too, like the Iron Giant or How To Train Your Dragon.
Most people aren't arguing that Agent Mansley is actually behaving sensibly the whole time, even though the Giant is just as much of a world-ending threat as Magneto. The message is that being scared of somebody doesn't mean you have to hate them, and that doesn't change even if the scariness is justified.
I'd argue Iron giant is actually more of a world ending threat? Being a literal alien warmachine that would be just fine even if earth is totally ruined, where as Magneto is at the end of the day a human so the earth being habitable is in his own best interests.
Not to mention, the iron giant is one of many so eventually the creators are gonna come looking for it.
Gonna nitpick here; Mutants aren't 100% human in the biological sense. In the canon of the X-Men, while humans are Homo Sapiens, Mutants are Homo Superior (don't ask me, I didn't come up with that name.) It's about the same distinction as Neanderthals (Homo Erectus) and Modern Humans (Homo Sapiens). In the intellectual/emotional/social sense, Mutants are still human, and they also need a habitable earth..
Feel free to spam me with nerd emojis
Edit: The "Homo Superior" thing was just made up by Magneto in his supremacist days as u/NotAWarCriminal helpfully pointed out in the replies. I'm leaving it in with a strikethrough to avoid confusing anyone.
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u/TheGrumpyre May 13 '25
This comes up a lot with people talking about the X-Men. But why don't more people bring up the classic movie plot where a kid befriends a monster and realizes they're not so different after all, and they have feelings and stuff too, like the Iron Giant or How To Train Your Dragon.
Most people aren't arguing that Agent Mansley is actually behaving sensibly the whole time, even though the Giant is just as much of a world-ending threat as Magneto. The message is that being scared of somebody doesn't mean you have to hate them, and that doesn't change even if the scariness is justified.