The comic book world is home to many super heroes.Even if you have never picked up a comic, chances are that you know some of them such as Batman, Superman and Spiderman, to name a few. One of the most popular groups of super heroes of today, The X-Men, explores the human side of being a super hero. With very successful comic book and film franchises, the X-Men tackles the super hero genre and its often over-the-top storylines with realism.

What separates the X-Men from their super hero counterparts is that they were born with their abilities. If we take their super abilities and remove the super aspect, then we are presented with a group of people with disabilities; due to the discrimination and oppression faced by the X-Men, from a fearful society. The leader and founder of the X-Men, Professor Charles Xavier (Professor X) who has Paraplegia, uses a wheelchair. He also possesses telepathic powers.  It is important to note that there is no link between being in a wheelchair and having telepathic powers. Any notion of a tradeoff between disability and superpower is unrealistic.

The film franchise, which began in 2000 with X-Men deals often with discrimination and intolerance. This year saw the release of the seventh film Days of Future Past, which became the highest-grossing film in the series. The films have featured Hollywood stars such as Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman and Jenifer Lawrence, amongst many others. This has expanded the exposure of the X-Men as the characters have leapt from the comic book page to cultural phenomenon of the 21st century.

Looking at the popularity of the films, which storylines deal with subtexts of discrimination and intolerance against people of difference, the impact is universally positive, despite the sensationalism of the characters' super abilities. The fact is that you can replace the word "mutant" with the word "disability" in any of the movies and the level of discrimination and intolerance is altered very little, for the world represented onscreen is strikingly similar to the real world.

Besides people who do not get (or refuse to get) the everyday implications of the films, the main drawback in presenting characters that simultaneously have superabilities and disabilities is the assumption that people with disabilities have superabilities akin to those seen in the movies, such as the ability to control the weather, to emit a powerful energy beam from one's eye, or to protrude long indestructible claws from one's hands.  The everyday implications are vast, with humanity's flaws on full display in the films: from the Holocaust to human/mutant experimentation, from Senate hearings on whether mutants are dangerous or not, to lingering social fear, when a parent asking her son if he "ever tried... not being a mutant?" From developing a short lived "cure for" Mutation, to engineering robots to hunt and kill Mutants.

While the Holocaust is the only historical event represented in the movies, none of the situations in the movies are far-fetched and any of them could happen, which is very terrifying. It is a fear to be mindful of, rather than letting it drain the excitement from the films. 

An in-depth analysis, elaborating on certain scenes (there are many) that illuminate how socially conscious the films are, is a much larger topic than this post can cover. However, the voiceovers that open and close the second movie reveal insights on the disability notion of the X-Men and how the universe that they exist in is just a mutation of our own. In the words of Professor X, "Sharing the world has never been humanity's defining attribute."