If you enjoyed this, please do consider helping fund more videos like this: www.patreon.com/pillarofgarbage and catch the newest follow-up here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/idR3o9J31p_dZZc.htmlsi=23w3HwLdvTd9MORK EDIT: and a couple of minor corrections. 1, C.S. Lewis was Anglican, not Catholic, and while people have read Catholicism into the Narnia series, it’d be far more correct to label the series simply as ‘Christian allegory’. Thanks to bernadmanny for pointing this out. 2, Claremont didn't assemble the Giant-size team - they were created solely by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. In the process of researching this video I came to believe Claremont had aided in their development even before he took over writing duties from Wein, but on double checking it seems I mixed a few things up here. Of course, this doesn't invalidate the point I'm making about the resonance of Claremont's stories going _beyond_ team composition - simply replace the word 'assembling' with more accurate alternatives like 'developing', 'using', or 'continuing' and the point is near-identical - but thanks anyway to HeroJournalism and Ashley for pointing out this error.

Once the word “woke” left the Black community, it hasn’t been used right since.- Erykah Badu.

A disabled dude using his resources to open a school for outcasts and helping them deal with trauma in order to better appreciate themselves and build a community. Nope, no wokeness detected. HoW dArE tHeY wOkiFy iT nOw!!?!1?!

They do know Stan Lee was a Romanian Jew that was an early advocate for antiracism

What did they do now?? They made Storm black? Is Rogue now a woman or something? Did they make Magneto Jewish or Professor X disabled lol? I hope they didn't emasculate Wolverine by making him short or something...

If you’re bigoted, racist, homophobic etc it was NEVER *your* x men.

Conservatives realizing they'd be the villains in xmen comics is hilarious to me 😂

Jeremy from Geeks and Gamers started screaming "DIVERSITY! DIVERSITY! .... I'M OUT!" just at the sight of a POC in the Amazon's Fallout trailer. That should tell you everything you need to know about that side of this.

People have ruined the word “woke” and just slap it on anything that even acknowledges minorities in any way. I learned to just ignore any argument that uses “woke” in that way

complaining about the x-men being 'woke' is like complaining about bricks being too hard.

Guys, did you know that a comic book made to showcase how bad racism and other forms of bigotry is cares about the things it was made to showcase? Wow. Guys I am making a novel restaurant that unlike all the others will serve food.

I remember a couple months ago, some guy was posting on KZfaq how the MCU "ruined Captain America by letting a black guy be the symbol". They said it was a slap to the face. I'm like WTF? Jack Kirby was a minority, who created amazing characters to show off how diverse the world is. Stan Lee created both Black Panther and Falcon, so he was all for diversity to. Together they created the X-Men. It's just awful people love to be racist and then lie about who else is racist or that the original creator would support their horrible views.

"To me, my Woke Men!" would make a pretty good t-shirt for these guys

They talk about the matrix a lot but they’re stuck in their own conservative media matrix 😭

You know I never thought we would reach the point in society where we would start calling the X-Men out of all things, the X-Men! Woke for having a non-binary character who's literal superpower is to shape-shift into anyone. These guys are acting as if they even remotely cared about this character. Each time I talk about the X-Men TV show nobody brings this person up or just X-Men comics in general

One of my core memories of X-Men comics from my childhood was a story where Magneto (who was building a moon colony or something, I dunno, it was Magneto) went back to Earth and set off every possible end-of-the-world alarm ... just to visit the camp where his family was killed, take a handful of its soil, and scatter it on the surface of the moon, both as a memorial to them and as a reminder not to let it happen again. The panel of him weeping as he knelt on the moon to deposit the soil lives rent-free in my head. At that point, I didn’t even know that members of my family had died in the camps, and that issue still hit me like a truck. It is maddening that there's an entire lucrative media ecosystem built on lies as obvious as "the X-Men were never political".

Holy shit. Here after watching Jose rip apart Critical Drinker and now knowing he’s backed by Benny Johnson- I don’t want to hear shit about him being apolitical

This entire web of anti-woke grifters sound like a giant group of X-Men villains. Like Orchis, for a recent example.

I dont know how you are still so criminally underrated... Every video you put out is a banger

I’m Catholic and I don’t hate homosexuality. Because I follow “Love thy neighbour” to a T

Really hope the movie is an adaptation of God Loves Man kills if people are going to be pissed they might as well go full force.

I am rewatching the 90s X-men, it's an extremely political show that ten year old me in 1992 sure as hell didn't catch the nuance of the conversations. I was enjoying the action. But 42 year old me? The intentional racial allegory and likely unintentional queer allegory is thrown in my face. With every single scene and conversation. From parents worried about their teenager changing, to guards attacking the intelligence of a minority prisoner, to a judge not even trying to hide his own prejudices in A courtroom. And that's just the first four episodes. And yes Stan Lee wasn't intending a racial allegory the other writers saw what could be done with it and ran with it. And yes that includes Claremont, without a doubt. Some people don't like reading into things.

“Hey, what’s Mauler doing here?!” is your best running gag. At some point, I hope you release a montage of all the times you’ve called Mauler out for hanging with far right weirdos while pretending to be apolitical.

"How dare they put minorities in my cartoon about a super powered minority" these kinds of people are just blind to nuance unless it's new work.

No more muties? These people resemble the villains of the X-Men.

I usually call people like Quartering, YellowFlash, Geeks and Gamers and the pronouns (yeah, he has a name but he's not interesting enough for me to remember it) fake nerds because that's what they are. They're fake nerds who pretend to be real nerds so that can make money making nerds angry over stupid crap like that.

I have a feeling that this trend will continue as let's be honest, with the hiatus and Superhero content for most of 2024 into 2025, a lot of people will have nothing to talk about and will just make things up.

I am curious how woke, which was a word used for people in the black community to stay aware of any problems in their communities, to this term used by in the current manner.

Woke was originally from black folks!

The X-men have been “woke” marvel it self has been “woke” Stan Lee was “woke” they just slap the word woke on anything now and its stupid

So woke means both sexualizing features and downplaying of sexual features.

Next there going to say “protecting Jews is WOKE!”

The Chronicles of Narnia is a Protestant allegory, as C.S. Lewis choose to be Anglican not Catholic, much to Tolkien's disappointment.

Now that the show came out and it’s actually really good, all the grifters are suspiciously quiet lmao

Didn’t Storm literally raise a child with a woman in the first season? Like nothing was explicitly said but… that doesn’t sound straight.

Storm actually is American there’s a whole storyline with her returning to her birth play in Harlem and seeing how society has failed the community and it’s people

First they made Star Trek woke, and now the X-Men. What's next? An all black retelling of The Color Purple*? Side note: The biggest change that happened with the X-Men and Politics, is that they gone from a racial metaphor, to a queer one. *Yes, that's where I had to go to find something more obviously woke than X-Men and Star Trek.

This was a real breath of fresh air thank you for making this. So tired of the garbage these people are peddling.

Cyclops: "X-Men! We're going for a walk! A very enthusiastic walk!"

I genuinely can’t understand how someone can read Nightcrawler’s introduction in Giant Size X-men and think the X-men were never ‘woke.’

A big part of the grift is that they are aiming to spread mis-/disinformation to viewers who only have a passing knowledge of the X-Men and its themes from casually watching the movies or cartoons, or worse, only know about the characters through online memes of Rogue's butt, for instance. Anyone with any real knowledge of the comics, such as old guys like me who were there reading the Claremont books as they came out, knows how kinky as fuck his stories were, and that he often explicitly made comparisons of the X-Men's struggles to the fight for racial justice. The grifters are counting on their audience to lazily accept their bigotry as expertise.

Every time I think I understand why these people suck the big one, more stuff comes out to make me hate them even more

Imagine being so dumb that you're mad the X-Men just now became woke 🤣🤣🤣 Honestly this one doesn't even bother me it's so damn funny every time I think about it I'm wheezing 🤣

The anti-woke crowd is correct when they say that Stan Lee didn’t originally intend for the X-Men to be an allegory for civil rights and oppressed peoples. Where they miss the point is that Stan Lee’s original version of the comic was cancelled in 1970. Chris Claremont’s reboot, on the other hand, was very much about that allegory and is the main reason it became the most popular comic in the world.

man, that mauler guy keeps showing up with right wing grifters, and yet people are always saying he's good and fine, actually. very weird!

Man, this video is a cut above. For my own sanity, I just tell KZfaq not to recommend any of these weirdos to me. For you to do this deep of a dive into the griftersphere is nothing short of heroic. I'd bet half of them don't even know who's backing them. Or maybe they do and just don't feel shame.

Love the "its a euphemism for race" guys who dont want to accept it is ALSO a queer alegory when mutant kids getting thrown out and disowned, the "mutants are a sin" protests across the comics -- hint: you dont throw a kid out because you discover they're black. Answer: it is both

I'm assuming the writer of that article had no idea that Christ Claremont wanted to make Mystique into Nightcrawler's biological Father by having her morph into man and then impregnate Destiny before changing back and be Night's second mother. Man can you imagine how those angry people will react if that had happened?

"Claremont didn't intend for the Xmen to be woke" Claremont: OH yeah? *writes God Loves, Man Kills*

The "real fans" continue to prove they dont know or care about any of these properties they spend so much time whining about

I first discovered about Jon Del Arroz with his video reading an article by Literature Devil trashing Hazbin Hotel, a cartoon I and millions of others love, and he actually said that the show will give Amazon a moment similar to Netflix’s Cuties, and one of the comments in that video called Hazbin Hotel Amazon’s Velma. Really goes to show how intelligent these people are, huh?

Below is what i have posted in the comments section of some videos of supposed woke-haters who are bashing on X-men 97 so i will re-post it here. JUST THE FACTS!!!!! Yes, Stan Lee specifically did not create them for that purpose but he himself saw the opportunity and APPROVED it to address woke issues which then became a core part of Xmen underlying themes. Stan Lee HIMSELF has done many interviews saying how he was very pleased about it . The original Xmen comics created in 1963 written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby started strong and later badly declined in sales so much that it was cancelled by Marvel on issue #66 in 1970. Stan Lee only wrote #1-19 then he left the book to other writers before the sales declined towards cancellation. In April 1975, X-men comics was revived with GIANT X-MEN #1 under a different writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cochrum which introduced a new DIVERSE TEAM OF NEW CHARACTERS who were led by Cyclops, from the original team, and consisted of the newly created Colossus (from the Soviet Union/Russia), Nightcrawler (from West Germany/Germany), Storm (from Kenya), and Thunderbird (a Native American of Apache descent), and three previously introduced characters: Banshee (from Ireland), Sunfire (from Japan), and Wolverine (from Canada). Remember, the original team from 1963 as created by Stan Lee and Kirby had fewer characters and they were ALL WHITE and ALL Americans..... notice the massive WOKENESS diversity characters in GIANT XMEN #1 (1975) which only goes upwards from here Wokeness diversity-wise. However also plenty of new different white characters where also being created alongside the non-whites but wokeness diversity climbs upwards from here. ****** This was 1975 .... FIFTY YEARS AGO....A full half-century!!!! ****** In May 1975, writer CHRIS CLAREMONT on X-Men #94 and he LITERALLY made the X-men become an explosive phenomena as SALES IMPROVED so greatly that each issue of a X-Men comic were selling Millions of copies EACH MONTH waaay more than when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were doing the X-men. Chris Claremont continued writing X-men comics consistently and continuously for SIXTEEN YEARS (1975 - 1991)....the longest duration of any writer in the X-men franchise from then till today.....and even afterwards Claremont still wrote some more X-Men comics titles (amongst other non-Xmen comics projects) here and there intermittently across the years after 1991 for another 20 years. In 1979.....44 YEARS AGO..... Marvel's FIRST GAY XMEN named Northstar debut in Uncanny X-men #120 was created by writer Chris Claremont and drawn by artist John Byrne. This Northstar character will later be placed as a recurring member of an X-men SPIN-OFF team of mutant superheroes called ALPHA FLIGHT.....this team basically is Canadian Avengers. Northstar will also be intermittently appearing in many different X-men comics across the decades. It was during his era where he expanded the Xmen lore and created a multitude of MORE new and diverse characters and it was in this era that explored and involved diversity (different characters with different nationalities, race, gender, etc), segregation/ bigotry, forgiveness, comprise, self-discovery, feminism, sexuality, isolation vs integration, subjugation vs equality, optimism vs nihilism, existentialism, INTERRACIAL relationships, etc intertwined with sci-fi, space operas, high octane action, relationships and socio-political allegory .....plenty of WOKENESS themes involved. Chris Claremont is regarded as the Godfather, savior and the reason why X-men achieved its great popularity and success which it has held up till today. It was also under writer Claremont that to MANY X-Men spin off comics when became a Marvel publishing traditional maintained till today whereby all kinds of different Xmen characters and teams are given minis, limited series, different teams, alternate timelines, alternate versions, etc as different Xmen titles published simultaneously even from different writers and artists. There was also a strong rotation of different characters and changing team members and types of teams. This was the definitive era that shaped the X-men we know today as it delved more into the "wokeness" themes. So..... Just like when Einstein created the Theory of Relativity he didn't do it specifically for all the other brilliant physics applications it created which were developed by other physicists. When rubber was originally discovered centuries ago, they didn't know it would lead to all the more beneficial inventions (plastics, tyres, electrical insulation, computers, appliances, etc) made by later inventors. However, Stan Lee and Kirby were alive, witnessed, approved and APPLAUDED what Chris Claremont did to the X-men. Thus...when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created X-men in 1963 may or may not have been intent on what is today called "wokeness" but it had the underpinnings of wokeness which was further explored more and elaborated later by writer Chris Claremont whose stamp on the X-men has remained till today across the very many writers how have indulged in writing the Xmen and/or any of its characters. Just the facts as to how and why the X-men franchise is "woke"......but that doesn't mean it can not be enjoyable because it also has an abundance of brilliantly superb plots to enjoy. I do find it VERY ODD how folks are..... ..... attacking Marvel for supposedly "changing" a character Morph (not sure he was actually "changed"and as haters claim) for "wokeness" yet the same attackers praise and embrace the wokeness in GEN-V tv series which has Transgender switching sexuality powered character and also embrace racebending in INVINCIBLE animated series (the black girlfriend is actually WHITE) ...... attacking Disney for a racebent black Mermaid movie (i also hated this and complained) yet the exact same haters love and embrace racebent black EQUALIZER starring Denzel Washington (the original Equalizer character "Robert McCall" is WHITE, exact same name and character whom Denzel Washington is "supposed" to be). They loved the racebent Equalizer so much that they (supposed self contradictory "woke" haters) made it supported it and became successful enough to make TWO sequels. Haters demand that Hollywood remain true to the authenticity of the characters source material yet the exact same folks raged in uproar about Dumbledore being gay in the movie Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) when IN FACT Dumbledore was revealed to be gay in 2007 ...a FULL 12 YEARS BEFORE THE MOVIE...by the creator/ writer of Harry Potter universe herself- J.K Rowling. The movie was authentic and true to Dumbeldore's sexuality as per the intent of the creator/ writer/ source of the character and yet the uproar. This movie had problems with it but Dumbeldore's sexuality or wokeness was NOT one of them. And yet somehow the massively woke racebent tv series of Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte did not garner this much anti-woke outrage to the level of the vitriol thrown at Disney/ Marvel. And somehow both Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte were so successful that another sequel series is coming.....yet all the characters in the source material/ the Bridgerton novels ARE WHITE. I was and remain strongly against these racebent Bridgeton tv shows and Why the continuous repetitive self contradictions? I wonder how haters will react if Marvel adapts Xmen character MYSTIQUE (shapeshifting powers and recurring character in the XMEN movies made by Fox studios) in MCU Xmen authentically to her character as it is in the source material/ comics. Y'all can read about MYSTIQUE created by Chris Claremont and her history in brief here including direct quotes from Chris Claremont' himself here: bleedingcool.com/comics/marvel-finally-puts-a-label-on-mystique-and-destinys-relationship-in-tomorrows-x-men-6-spoilers/ ....and read about Mystique's "mutant love story" here: www.marvel.com/articles/comics/destiny-mystique-mutant-love-story JUST STATING THE FACTS.

it makes complete sense to take a comic line originally meant to be anti-segregationist and adopting it for modern issues i really dont see what the big deal is. x-men has always been about social justice.

You know, I remember when Yahtzee Crosshaw reviewed a Call of Duty and commented how it only seemed like one of the bad guys was flimsily made a bad guy by the game constantly calling him a terrorist, like just that word would automatically make players just stop thinking and accept the bad guy is the bad guy. It honestly feels like ‘woke’ is that word for a whole group of ill-informed people. Can they describe what ‘woke’ is? Nope. But they know it’s ‘bad’ because their favorite boring KZfaqr says it’s bad. And they have the balls to call people like me, who want to see a bit more of themselves in the media they enjoy and create, brainwashed.

It's telling that the documented evidence that these people operate in bad faith and collude together outweighs EVERY complaint about Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian or Kathleen Kennedy is very instructive. Like, what they are CHOOSING to believe.

This video was great! Thank you for sharing this video! 🙏🏽💪

Seeing the connections between all these guys kinda reminded of how so many of the more well-known rightwing talking heads have done Prager U "lesson" videos at some point. Not that I'm expecting Dennis and the Wilkes Bros to pay HeelVsBabyface to give a lecture about pronouns any time soon, I'm just intrigued at the incestuous nature of rightwing online content and how that explains why their arguments are so repetitive and shallow.

When I caught on that all this anti-woke outrage was just one big performative grift, I knew they couldn't resist making X-Men 97' their new battleground of culture war B/S. But I didn't expect them to expose themselves so much. Loved watching the real fans drag them across multiple media platforms. At the end of the day, they're just giving the show free advertising. The fans were already going to watch, but now the anti-woke crowd is going to hate watch it too. X-Men 97' has been the top talked about piece of media for almost a month thanks to them. I'll die on a hill Disney makes as much money off its haters as its real fans.

The anti-woke videos are an example of why some people shouldn't be allowed on the internet.

Thank You for this content!!!

No wonder all the rightwing grifters on youtube are quite about xmen 97 , they realise they are the villians 😂

Nothing outs fake fans like the cries of "WOAKNESS"

Another fantastic video, thank you pillar of garbage for being a pillar of quality!

The same people who cry about X-Men wokeness are the same ones who like Rage Against the Machine only "for the music, not the politics."

Great video as usual. The only criticisms I’d offer is when you talked about them not being able to describe “woke” a good clip to include would have been Bethany Mandel talking to Brianna Joy Grey where she struggles to define what she means by “woke.” Also Gavin McInnes’ name is pronounced In-nes like Guinness without the G sound.

It is so important to tell everybody who these guys really are, thank you!

Thank you for covering this. It’s so funny for these comic book ‘fans’ to be upset over what Xmen is so known for

These are the same people that would say something like " Mutie"

Complaining about woke X-Men is like complaining about woke Trek or star wars being anti-fascist

John del Arroz being a Trump supporter while being Hispanic has to be tje funniest shit in this video

"Hey what's MauLer doing here" fucking dead lmao

A great video, I appreciate you fighting against this narrative

The X-Men: Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them Jon Del Arroz: Nah, they're just a team with powers, like the Fantastic Four

I have loved your videos for a long time now, but this video has cemented you as one of my favorite KZfaqrs. Thank you for making this video, it was very well done and I hope more people take inspiration from this video and make similar ones.

Great video, thanks for doing the work

Oh man, if it's not related to the daily wire or a murdoch outlet, it's blaze TV. No wonder they all make the same talking points.

Man this video is friggin GOOD

All the videos about X-Men 97 being woke are still up. However, you'll notice that all the grifters who made those videos stopped talking about X-Men 97 as soon as it aired. As soon as it aired. No follow-up videos. They didn't make any apology videos about the "wokeness" of the show, but they didn't make any follow-up videos either knowing full well that they'd be downvoted to oblivion by the majority of viewers who loved the show. You got to love it.

Love people that read and watch cape shit but don't understand it's always been political and socially conscious on some level.

A great video, once again! Didn't expect the Alt-Right Pipeline explanation to go that deep and be that weird (almost scary and Lovecraftian in its madness) but this went places. I will do some projection here for my country's politics, where lies are flying right and left, most people can see its all bs, but somehow nobody responsible for downright crimes gets punished or called out for said bs. In any case, thank you for your effort and great analysis! Looking forward to the third video! Until then, keep up the great work and take care!

The phrase "deviant sexualities" (highlighted at 8:20) kinda gives away the true viewpoint of the author of the article.

Another incredible video. 👏 KZfaq is full of nonsensical takes on the X-Men. So many, in fact, that it's actually incredibly refreshing to find a video like yours with actual critical thought and a more in-depth understanding of the X-Men and what they've always represented. Keep up the amazing work! 🙌

honestly need to give you your flowers for the research skills that obviously went into following down this particularly noxious rabbit hole. subbed for your great EMH videos (your hank pym video is one of my favourite analyses of the character fr) but i've really loved seeing the evolution of this channel and how principled your argumentation is in these more broader pop culture analysis videos. can't wait to see how this channel grows further

everyone predicted this would happen in a meme type of way but now that its actually happening is embarrassing

This was a great video, my dude. Also, Dan Slott is sharing your vid on Threads

It's funny, as a minority kid, I always loved X-Men more than other stories because it was an allegory of the fight against bigotry. But the aggrieved make a lot of money with their videos and are the loudest voices typically. That movement is strong. Thanks for making these videos. Spot on.

Looking forward to the vid as always will edit with a more mannered response later. The mannered response later: So I am probably around the age of the writer of this article (30's) you use. And I was taught in school that ignoring or twisting facts that debunk/support your arguments is fundamental to writing a "good" persuasive essay...I'll pause to let it sink in just how stupid that sounds. I constantly was railed on by my teachers for actually trying to refute the opposition in a more debate oriented fashion and I received many years of poor marks in my classes because of it. These experiences stopped me from perusing writing in general as a possible job or even as a hobby. Everything that makes this article bad is everything I was taught in school. It's like I'm seeing the freaking Matrix of why these people exist. Great video can't wait for the final follow up.

It’s really impressive that Lee thinks this is just him being lazy. The fact saying but what if people didn’t receive their power and just got born with it is just lazy writing indicates directly he hates bigotry. He just chooses to write in the fact of prejudice and makes the victims of it as heroes. Man I wonder why Lee would do this unknowingly? Certainly it could not be his actual views put into his stories because… he wrote them and when you write something that is what happens.

I really appreciate you suggesting disengagement as the best way of dealing with these guys - if they stop getting recommended, the lose their power :)

Thanks Pillar. Subscribed. ✨✅✨

Still remember when people said that Critical Drinker wasn't right-wing?

Claremont is on record for intending that Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers be each other's true love.

Yooooooo I'm so glad you made this!! I was thinking how someone needed to flip JDA's script.

On the wise words of that one guy in the internet. Superheroes are Woke It comes free with Fighting Social Injustices

Mauler always finds a way into every chuddy podcast

Are these anti-woke types STILL using that lame Vivian James character like it's 2014? How embarrassing...

I knew most of them like, interacted, but the sheer connections and intertwining of it all... geez.

Thank you - I had noticed a flurry of right wing talking heads all wanting to cut Social Security - and what was odd was that they were all doing it at the same time seemingly for no reason. Got me wondering who gave them that marching order and the pattern holds true in this scenario as well.

The “non-binary didn’t exist in the 90s” but is a slap in the face to two-spirit people. It’s my understanding that there is a distinction between two-spirit and non-binary, but still it shows that this person does not understand that there have been more than 2 genders in cultures before. It’s all about the hate for that author.

Interesting how so many of the people called out in this video have gone rather quiet since it's now widely accepted that X-Men '97 is an incredible series. Also it's awesome that there's someone like you making these videos to call out these people. I watched a few videos from people like Nerdrotic but after a bit I realised just how mean spirited they are.