I always saw the X-Men as a parable for racism and other forms of intolerance. That may be why it became such a huge hit. Every outcast in society can identify with those feelings.

With respect to genocide in Genosha, consider Magneto’s back story as a concentration camp survivor. As horrifying or insensitive as it might feel to people who identify with their Jewish heritage (like me), there’s another part of me that’s glad Marvel had the guts to explore this topic. Not only does it validate Magneto’s approach toward humanity, it forces younger people like you to consider the enormity of the crimes committed against an entire people. And given the fact that there are thousands, if not millions of holocaust deniers, I think that keeping these themes in the public’s consciousness is actually good thing. Never forget. Never again.

Now the same thing can’t be said with regard to killing off black superheroes. There’s no BLM element to comics to counterbalance these stupid and unnecessary actions, as you and Thaddeus have explained. Sadly, it feels like a business decision: “Who can we kill off to give the story more meaning? Well, which demographic has the smallest readership? If they get mad and stop reading the comic, we’ll take the sales hit in order to build more interest in our largest readership.”

When I think back to my childhood, my favorite character was Batman (regular human, major family issues), who was quickly displaced by Spiderman. The reason? Because Peter Parker was the nerdy outcast like me. I can see now how I would have been crushed if he had been killed off. How is that any different from the feeling that you guys experienced in losing James Rhodes? Except, of course that Marvel f*cked you over and not all the Spiderman fans. (BTW, how do you feel about the Miles Morales Spiderman?)

It makes more sense to have an established popular character be replaced by a black person, instead of trying to build an audience for a newer character that gets stuck with lousy powers and a weak back story. If we can have a black President, why not a black Captain America? You wouldn’t even need special effects — just cast Lebron in the title role.