Good Guy, Bad Guy

Avengers vs. X-Men
Round 6
Story by Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Benois, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Jonathon Hickman

We live in a world obsessed with blame. Right not, this very minute, think of all of your problems, and the think of who you blame for them. If it is some figurehead being or person you've never met in your life, you are taking the easy way out, and you are quite possibly deluded on your existence.

But, it's so easy to live in a world with good guys and bad guys, isn't it? That's how we were raised. Cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, princesses and evil queens, wizards and big scary trolls. If you had a really messed up Sunday school experience, maybe you even played God and Satan. Good vs. Evil, basically, is what it can be boiled down to, if you are okay with always thinking in such polarized terms. So, picture this:

A group of people begin to make their cause and presence known on Earth by visiting countries and nationalities and areas of the world in the deepest struggles and turmoil--starvation, poverty, oppression, drought and crop failure, energy crisis--and solve all their problems, without being asked. Without asking anything in return. When asked by other governing bodies what they want, they simply say "We want a peaceful world, in which our kind can feel safe." Reasonable, right? Solve major world issues for the betterment of mankind in exchange for not being persecuted.

These are the "bad guys". Supposedly....

In the Avengers vs. X-Men's 2012 series, the X-Men feel that the time for mutants is at hand, mainly because the Phoenix Force, "the cosmic entity of death and rebirth" that once inhabited Jean Grey, is set to return to Earth. In a mishap caused by an Ironman/Giant-man Phoenix-killing weapon, the full power of the Phoenix Force is fragmented between five X-Men: Scott (cyclops), Emma Frost, Colossus, Namor, and Magik. And you'd think with such power of life and death at their disposal, and with them being the "bad guys", things are about to get ugly.

But you'd be wrong. At the beginning of Issue #6, the members of the "Phoenix Five" are wandering around the globe, fixing major problems without engaging their enemy Avengers.

Round 1 cover, copyright Marvel.

The issue overall is fairly low on action, dealing instead with the political and personal turmoil that comes with fighting an enemy that may not be an enemy. Fighting an enemy who isn't fighting.

As the tensions and issues progress, the U.S. President seems to side with Tony Stark, who feels that the power that the Phoenix Five wields is too much and too dangerous without some sort of governance, and that their plans ultimately involve destruction. But the Avengers begin to split in their opinions of the X-Men, led predominately by Scott. Black Panther refuses to be a part of an operation against them, since, as King of Wakanda, he would be declaring war against them, and they have only done good with their powers. And Beast refuses to hurt his fellow mutants and former friends if they haven't done anything wrong. Even Wolverine and Captain America stay relatively quiet and undecided on the issue, gathering intelligence and going through the motions, without seeming convinced that the Phoenix Five are an imminent threat while their not harming anyone.

In a comic series with the word "versus" in the title, I expected to be a little more clear that there was a good team and a bad team and exactly what they were fighting over. So I was shocked and conflicted to find that there wasn't a good team, a bad team, a reason they were fighting--if they were even fighting at all! But isn't that how life is? There aren't black and whites. There aren't good guys and bad guys. We're not always fighting over something concrete. And sometimes we don't even fight at all.

I have always taken offense to the fact that people who aren't immediately paranoid that someone is out to get them are labeled as 'naive', while people who may be looking out for themselves on a regular basis are seen as 'paranoid'. Again, dealing in the market of polarization, when real images are most often viewed in varying colors, or at very least, gray scale.

Is it naive to try to see the good behind your so-called enemy's actions? Is it paranoid to think that the people who are helping you have a hidden agenda. Maybe.

Maybe. The quintessential gray answer.

But if you've lost your ability to even see where the other side is coming from, then you may have lost the ability to think for yourself, to sympathize, to find solutions. You have come to a point where all you want to do is point a finger at someone and place your issues upon them.

I don't think I need to even give examples here. Any of you readers can probably think of about half a dozen issues happening right now that the good guy vs. bad guy blame game could be applied to--now more often than usual, assuredly, since we are a few short months away from a major election.

Can you put yourself in the other guy's shoes--even for a second? Can you see and understand, if not agree with, where they're coming from? It will be uncomfortable. At least as uncomfortable as if you were to physically put yourself in another person's (or mutant's) shoes. But since when have we become so averse to discomfort? Discomfort is that area where we grow, we learn, we challenge ourselves to see and do things differently than has been done before. Discomfort isn't bad--it's not pain, it's not wrong, it's just us getting used to something different. Adapting.

And as any mutant can tell you, if you don't adapt.....



I only read one issue of this series, but I foresee a follow-up post on this title in the future. Until then, I encourage you to read this title, and comment on this post. I also encourage you to put yourself in your enemy's shoes the next time you go to blame them for your issues, or call some sort of destruction against them. I'm thinking that the world could use a little more gray, a little more discomfort, and a little less good guy vs. bad guy...