See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/335108544

From Bodies to Borders and Beyond: Mutating Boundaries in Logan

Article in Literature and Medicine · January 2019

DOI: 10.1353/lm.2019.0005

CITATION READS
1 91

5 authors, including:

Folarin Odusola
Columbia University
12 PUBLICATIONS 130 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Narrative Medicine View project

Primary Care Medicine View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Folarin Odusola on 09 February 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 From Bodies to Borders and Beyond: Mutating Boundaries in
Logan

Saljooq M. Asif, Madeleine Disner, Folarin Odusola, Danielle A. Rojas, Danielle

Spencer

Literature and Medicine, Volume 37, Number 1, Spring 2019, pp. 141-165
(Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/730827

Access provided at 6 Aug 2019 14:31 GMT from Columbia University Libraries
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 141

From Bodies to Borders and

Beyond: Mutating Boundaries
in Logan
Saljooq M. Asif, Madeleine Disner, Folarin Odusola,
Danielle A. Rojas, and Danielle Spencer

First introduced to the comic book world in 1963, the X-Men have
since expanded into a global phenomenon with considerable cultural
impact. One of the most famous superhero teams of all time, the X-
Men are mutants—Homo superior, representing the next step in human
evolution. Born with powerful abilities that stem from their genes, the
X-Men strive for peace and equality between humans and mutants
while also confronting anti-mutant bigotry. The politicized world of
the X-Men has been interpreted as an allegory for many pressing
social justice issues, and arguably serves as the driving force behind
the series’ lasting legacy.
In addition to toys, video games, and television shows, the X-Men
have become the basis of a commercially successful film franchise pro-
duced and distributed by 20th Century Fox. First launched in 2000, the
series currently consists of twelve films including three interconnected
trilogies, with an additional film in post-production.1 The X-Men film
franchise distinguishes itself from the triumph and spectacle of other
superhero narratives. Redefining the traditional superhero archetype
set forth by Superman and raising deeper concerns than the vigilante
justice meted out by Batman, the X-Men embody themes pertinent to
the health humanities such as genetics, the mutant body, social dis-
crimination, and—in the case of Logan—aging.
The tenth installment in the X-Men cinematic franchise, the 2017
blockbuster Logan garnered considerable critical acclaim and box of-
fice success.2 The film takes place in 2029, a time when the X-Men
have disbanded and mutants are on the brink of extinction. Professor
Charles Xavier, once the wise and powerful patriarch of the X-Men

Literature and Medicine 37, no. 1 (Spring 2019) 141–165

© 2019 by Johns Hopkins University Press
142 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

and headmaster of an academy for young mutants, is now suffering

from a disease which has corrupted his telepathic abilities, while his
protégé Logan/Wolverine has become increasingly weak and ill, his
formerly limitless regenerative healing powers now impaired. No longer
the superheroes they once were, they believe themselves to be among
the last of the mutants. They live in hiding in Mexico with Caliban,
a pale, ghostly mutant who can sense and track other mutants and
is injured by exposure to sunlight.
Their grim, mundane lives are interrupted when Mexican nurse
Gabriela López entreats Logan to protect a young girl named Laura—
Logan’s cloned mutant daughter who has escaped from the U.S. bio-
technology corporation Alkali-Transigen, a company that has secretly
been breeding and engineering mutant “weapons” in Mexico. When
Gabriela is murdered and Caliban captured by the armed forces of
Transigen, Xavier, Logan, and Laura embark on a deadly road trip
across the Mexico-United States border in search of a mutant sanctuary
called Eden, a haven in North Dakota that is rumored to offer safe
passage to the north. By the end of the film, Xavier and Logan sac-
rifice their lives for Laura and the other escapees of Transigen, young
mutant children who cross yet another border and flee into Canada.3
With its portrayal of the ailing mutant body and the permeability
of geopolitical barriers, Logan builds upon traditional superhero tropes
that deal with separation, division, and borders. As scholar Jeffrey A.
Brown describes, “At its core, the superhero genre is about boundaries.
. . . Specific plots are almost irrelevant; what the superheroes repeat-
edly enact for readers is a symbolic policing of the borders between
key cultural concepts—good and evil, right and wrong, us and them.
Intertwined with these abstract concepts are corporeal boundaries
between male and female, mind and body, self and other, that are
just as obsessively and problematically policed by superheroes as the
literal borders between nation states are.”4 Logan, however, represents a
distinct break from the tradition that has characterized previous X-Men
films and other superhero narratives, a disjunction underscored by the
film’s somber score, muted color scheme, and devastated protagonists.
Indeed, the mutant superheroes in Logan are unable to effectively
police such previously familiar boundaries, instead overwhelmed and
burdened by the intersectionality inherent in contemporary political
and bioethical issues.
The previous X-Men films question boundaries as well—between
mutant and non-mutant human; between human and machine and
animal; between peaceable and militant responses to prejudice; between
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 143

scientific research and scientific exploitation, and so forth, offering us

the opportunity to confront the entangled issues of discrimination,
power, and freedom. Logan continues and sharpens this trend, man-
aging to feel far more real and far more visceral; indeed, the film
reaches into our own lives to a greater extent than its predecessors by
blurring the borders between various interconnected themes, such as
disability, genetics, geopolitics, and race. The ailing figures of Logan
and Xavier, for example, not only contribute to disability discourse in
the X-Men franchise, but also, at times, exhibit boundless power and
lack of control. This corporeal boundlessness is paralleled—and perhaps
even driven by—Transigen’s biotechnological innovations and widescale
eugenic practices that have brought mutantkind to the verge of extinc-
tion. The remaining few mutants are Black and brown, enslaved by
corporate capitalism and anti-mutant bias; they in turn push against
geopolitical borders and challenge American exceptionalism, envision-
ing a less restrictive, more socially just future.
In this paper, we use the concept of boundaries quite broadly
in order to examine various intersections and frontiers, including the
corporeal boundlessness of dying mutants, the transgressive genetic
exploits of Transigen, the permeability of national borders, and the
unbounded potential embodied by the remnants of mutantkind. The
multi-vocal nature of our approach reflects the respective perspectives
of our authors as well as the rich array of topical interpretive lenses
which Logan invites. In addition to being a comic book adaptation, a
superhero film, and another installment in the X-Men franchise, Logan
offers us the opportunity to consider the boundaries between contem-
porary bioethical issues that are relevant in past, present, and future.

Corporeal Boundaries and Disability

As superheroes, the X-Men exceed the normative range of hu-

mans’ physical capacity—and as mutant superheroes, they also embody
a potent force that crosses genetic and natural boundaries. In Logan,
however, this boundary-crossing is compounded by the specter of
illness and death. As Professor Xavier loses control of his psychic
abilities and Logan suffers from his attenuating healing factor, they
become a danger to themselves and others. In this section, we analyze
such boundary-breaching in relation to disability theory, exploring the
traumatic resonance of the mutants’ bodily deterioration.
Shunned by society and threatened with government-sanctioned
oppression because of their mutant DNA, the marginalized X-Men echo
144 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

the struggles of people with disabilities and themes of identity politics.

While it is true that these characters are superheroes—endowed with
impressive “powers”—these abilities are typically accompanied by stigma
and ostracism, and are associated with danger within mainstream soci-
ety. Rather than reinforcing normalcy and labeling different bodies as
deviant, however, the X-Men films place socially marginalized characters
at the forefront of their own narratives and focus on mutants who
must come to terms with their unique bodies. As disability scholars
Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell describe, “[The X-Men films]
take up disability as a core element of their storyline, as opposed to
showcasing a series of freak encounters. . . . [T]rite attributions of the
emotional life of disabled characters—vengeance, innocence, and barely
forgivable motives born of tragedy—are swept up into a maelstrom of
disability commentary and the plight of postmodern citizenry.”5 Op-
posing forces of social oppression and individual self-acceptance shape
the entire cinematic franchise, playing a significant role in installments
such as X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), in which a drug is developed
that “cures” mutants of their “disease,” and X-Men: First Class (2011),
in which a blue-skinned character adopts the ethos of “mutant and
proud.” Logan, too, engages with disability discourse: Caliban, for ex-
ample, is able to sense and track other mutants but is easily burned by
sunlight, a weakness exploited by Transigen, while Laura, empowered
with adamantium claws and a healing factor like her genetic father,
is mistaken as mute because of her taciturn demeanor.
The X-Men are hardly unique in this regard; as José Alaniz ar-
gues in Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond,
the very concept of the seemingly invulnerable superhero represents
a human concern with mortality and the limitations of the body. The
superhero is defined by its powerful abilities, pushing at the boundary
of human capacity, brimming with “strength, control, unboundedness—an
utter disavowal of fleshy fragility,” enacting an “erasure of the normal,
mortal flesh” and compelling the viewer or reader to envision new
possibilities of physicality.6 Yet whereas the majority of superheroes
push and redefine bodily borders, mutant superheroes such as the
X-Men also provoke a particular reexamination of social boundaries
and hierarchies.7 According to Scott Bukatman, “The mutant body is
explicitly traumatic, armored against the world outside yet racked and
torn apart by complex forces within. The mutant body is oxymoronic:
rigidly protected but dangerously unstable. In its infinite malleability
and overdetermined adolescent iconography, the mutant superhero is
a locus of bodily ritual.”8 The body of the mutant superhero is both
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 145

liberated and restricted, impacted by inner and outer forces: the un-
controllable biology that manifests itself in the form of superpowers
and the unrelenting society that opposes any deviation from the norm.
While the superhero’s “illusory promise of bodily integrity and
transcendence” has already provided fertile ground for scholars ex-
ploring disability discourse and theory,9 the theme of mutancy spe-
cifically—linked as it is with genetics and biomedicine—adds another
dimension to such interpretations. In some instances, the superpower
itself “‘overcompensates’ for a perceived physical defect, difference, or
outright disability[,] . . . replacing it with raw power” and transforming
the superhero into a “supercrip,” a term in disability studies which
refers to the glorified person who has “overcome” the challenge of
disability in particularly heroic fashion—itself, as Alaniz explains, a
highly problematic trope.10 Professor Xavier, leader of the X-Men, is
perhaps the most famous example, gifted with epic psychic abilities
that “compensate” for his use of a wheelchair. The metaphoric reso-
nance of Xavier’s status as a supercrip is notably explored in the film
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), in which Xavier reveals that he can
walk only when using a drug that suppresses his mental powers; he
is “the ultimate supercrip” whose “disability and powers are inextri-
cably linked.”11 In addition to examining the trope of the supercrip,
Alaniz proposes the concept of the “borderline case,” in which “the
deformity or disability, far from hidden, presents as the superpower
itself.”12 These borderline cases are uncertain and indeterminate, blur-
ring the boundaries between good and evil, invisible and visible, and
stability and instability with their “adversarial” bodies.13
Following in the footsteps of previous X-Men films, Logan builds
upon this disability discourse while restructuring key concepts in relation
to the boundaries of the mutant body. No longer a supercrip, Xavier
supersedes the borderline case and becomes a “boundless” entity, a
seemingly senile mutant whose powers are uncontrollable and devas-
tating in their impact. He suffers from an unnamed neurodegenerative
disease that corrupts his psychic abilities and—left unmedicated—pro-
duces traumatic psychic seizures that endanger those around him.
Indeed, the film strongly suggests that Xavier inadvertently killed the
X-Men—his own adopted family—during one of his episodes. Xavier,
usually depicted as a stoic patriarch, is now infantilized and cared for
by Caliban and Logan, who force Xavier to take medication that will
subdue his telepathy. Xavier’s situation in Logan is a recapitulation
of one of the main plotlines from The Last Stand, though now with
roles reversed: as mentor to the mutant Jean Grey, Xavier invades
146 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

her mind in order to save her from her destructive dual personality
that dubs itself Phoenix, “a purely instinctual creature, all desire and
joy and rage.”14 Xavier is convinced that Jean is incapacitated by her
abilities, propelling him to psychically control her, arguably enacting
a medical model of disability15—yet his intervention is seemingly
justified, as when her powers are unleashed, a newly awakened Jean
kills her lover, Scott Summers, as well as Xavier himself. Where Jean
was once disabled by her alternate persona in The Last Stand, Xavier
is now disabled by his psychic seizures in Logan.
Like Jean, Xavier becomes a “boundless” case whose superpower
presents as a dangerous impairment. In Logan, Xavier’s telepathic abili-
ties are so unpredictable that his own brain is classified as a “weapon
of mass destruction” by executive agencies. In many ways, Xavier
evokes characteristics of the borderline case, which “foreground[s] the
‘problem’ of excess, uncontrollable bodies, acting as generic destabi-
lizing forces.”16 Xavier, however, takes this destabilization to a new
extreme as he becomes an entity whose powers literally erupt from
his body and torture others around him. Xavier erases the borderline
and destroys all corporeal boundaries: his “energies that are normally
unleashed only in battle now continually overspill [his] fragile vessel.”17
This boundlessness is devastating and fatal, but at the same time, also
serves to emphasize Xavier’s enduring wisdom and humanity. Xavier’s
fundamental power of love remains intact, becoming the driving force
behind Logan’s redemption. He functions as Logan’s moral compass,
offering him guidance and showing him the path to salvation by protect-
ing Laura and the future of mutantkind. Similarly, although Jean Grey
is conquered by her alternate persona, she is still able to recognize the
inherent cruelty of Phoenix’s destruction and exercise her compassion;
Jean sacrifices herself in order to save the rest of her family in The
Last Stand, while Xavier dies for Laura’s future in Logan. Although
destabilized by their excessive abilities, both Jean and Xavier redeem
and reclaim their humanity. Indeed, both the boundlessness and lack
of control accelerate to the point at which they destroy themselves in
service of the greater cause.
Logan, too, offers a case of dissolving boundaries alongside
Xavier. In the film franchise, Logan is essentially immortal, having
been alive since the early nineteenth century—his regenerative heal-
ing powers enable him to survive any wound or injury, no matter
how severe, which make him the perfect candidate for the Weapon X
Program, a covert government research endeavor that gives him his
iconic adamantium metal claws in a gruesome procedure depicted in
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 147

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Logan has long been “a subjected and
colonized figure” of sorts, yet he has always been manifestly power-
ful.18 In Logan, however, he is nearly unrecognizable when compared
to his previous filmic incarnations: no longer the virile and aggressive
Weapon X, Logan is visibly weak, battered, and aged, his regenera-
tive abilities in decline. With his healing factor impaired, Logan’s own
adamantium skeleton has begun to poison him, leading to an excru-
ciatingly prolonged decline as he self-medicates with alcohol. Logan’s
own mutant abilities increase his mortal suffering: he outlives all of
his companions and is unable to die quickly or easily because of his
remaining healing factor. Thus his body becomes boundless in a new,
vulnerable fashion, slowly yet constantly bleeding throughout the film.
His suffering appears boundless and eternal, too, like Prometheus’s
daily torture in which his liver is devoured by a bird only to then
regenerate, allowing the punishment to recur the next day and the next.
Logan’s eventual death arrives as an act of mercy for both him and
the audience, who have followed Logan throughout his journey and
witnessed his apparently limitless suffering. Only in death is Logan’s
pain able to cease and his humanity restored.
Logan’s final battle involves him confronting his clone, the de-
praved X-24, engineered by Transigen as a mutant killing machine
“without a soul.”19 A body that is at once similar and dissimilar to
Logan’s own, X-24 represents the complete consummation of Logan’s
scientific and corporeal colonization. Its incomplete consummation,
on the other hand—the very failure of scientific interventions like his
adamantium-laced skeleton and claws, and the green serum that offers
a final boost of superhuman strength, but, if taken in too large doses,
will kill him—is actually a liberation from his unwilling enslavement
to technology. To construct X-24, Logan’s genetic material was stolen
and manipulated without his consent, a process erasing the known
boundaries of reproduction and reproductive ethics. That the climax
of the film pits Logan against his evil clone serves as a reminder that
Logan is defined by the scientific exploitations and invasive procedures
that continually undermine his bodily autonomy. His death, then, in
service of eradicating his clone, represents an end to the breaching of
his bodily autonomy through “research” and cloning both.
In their respective declines, then, Xavier and Logan are stripped
of their armor and split open, in a sense—flowing and boundless.
This deterioration of the potent mutant body figures their disability
as well, as the specter of unwelcome visible difference is a notable
characteristic of disability. As Rosemarie Garland-Thomson writes,
148 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

“Even if disability is not apparent, the threat of its erupting in some

visual form is perpetually present. Disability is always ready to dis-
close itself, to emerge as some visually recognizable stigmata, however
subtle, that will disrupt social order by its presence.”20 These charac-
ters’ own uncontrollable bodies become their worst enemies: whereas
Xavier’s powers haphazardly erupt from his diseased brain and strike
those outside his body, Logan’s powers are internalized, staving off
metallic poison and painfully elongating his death. Xavier depends on
medication that subdues his psychic seizures, while Logan relies upon
alcohol in order to cope with his physical and mental torture—but for
both these are only temporary salves. Thus, unlike traditional super-
heroes who represent “an utter disavowal of fleshy fragility,”21 Xavier
and Logan become the very embodiment of fleshy fragility with their
weakened bodies and turbulent abilities, a boundlessness that also ac-
centuates their inherent mortality. If the figure of the superhero is a
response to human concerns about the body, then Logan delves into
this anxiety in order to reveal the trauma of boundlessness as well
as the endurance of humanity.

Contemporary Genetics and Personal Boundaries

In his 2007 work on eugenics in science fiction cinema, David

A. Kirby argues that many science fiction films, including the X-Men
series, “portray for the public what is essentially a debate over an
abstract entity, the nature of human heredity.”22 More recent X-Men
films have engaged with this debate by embodying legitimate anxieties
about the influence of genetic engineering. In this section, we analyze
how the biotechnology corporation Alkali-Transigen not only fosters
the near-extinction of mutantkind in Logan, but also clandestinely ma-
nipulates genetic mutancy for its own corrupt gain. In doing so, the
film invokes contemporary anxieties concerning the potential effects of
genetic research and technology.
While the X-Men franchise usually portrays a world in which
mutancy is widespread, Logan departs from its predecessors by taking
place in an era in which it has nearly been eradicated. Although Days of
Future Past begins with a similar concept, showing mutants imprisoned
in concentration camps as Sentinels seek out and destroy the remain-
ing X-Men, Logan depicts a world in which the gradual attenuation
of mutants has already occurred in a less dramatic fashion alongside
other societal and environmental shifts. We first learn of this context
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 149

through a radio program in which one apparent conspiracy theorist

calls in to say, “Everyone’s asleep . . . Sleepwalking between the ice
caps, pornographers, poisoned water, mutants . . . It’s all connected.”
The caller is quickly dismissed by the radio host, who retorts, “It’s
2029. Why are we still talking about mutants?”23 Yet by the end of
the film we learn that this change was in fact “scientifically” orches-
trated by Dr. Zander Rice of Alkali-Transigen, revealed as “the man
who wiped out [mutant]kind” through his implementation of widescale
genetic modification, including changes to food and water. If the film
franchise intends for the audience to identify with its mutant protago-
nists, then the eradication of mutants in Logan propels the viewer to
seriously consider the consequences of genetic modifications and other
technological and social shifts that are taking place today. In addition,
the gradual, covert, and conspiratorial nature of these changes in the
world of the film signals the viewer to be alert to such changes in
the viewer’s own world.
Interestingly, Transigen does not necessarily view its scientific
interventions as a means to effect wholesale extinction of mutancy.
After Donald Pierce, leader of the Reavers—Transigen’s band of enforc-
ers—praises Rice for “wiping out” mutantkind, Dr. Rice is quick to
clarify that “the goal wasn’t to end mutantkind, but to control it.” He
explains, “I realized we needn’t start perfecting what we eat and drink.
We could use those products to perfect ourselves, to distribute gene
therapy discreetly through everything from sweet drinks to breakfast
cereals, and it worked. Random mutancy went the way of polio.”24
Like Magneto’s villainous plan to induce widespread mutation in X-
Men (2000), Transigen accomplishes its goals by manipulating mutancy
rather than eradicating it. Such interventions echo nineteenth-century
eugenicist Francis Galton’s view that since man was now “endowed
with a little power and intelligence, he ought . . . to awake a fuller
knowledge of his relatively great position, and begin to assume a
deliberate part in furthering the great work of evolution.”25 Indeed,
as Kirby notes in his account of eugenics in science fiction films, the
scientific impulse towards bodily perfection through some form of
eugenics has been present ever since Galton coined the term in 1883;
yet it was “the developments in genomics, genetic engineering, and
reproductive biology in the 1980s and 1990s [that] have placed the eu-
genic goal of correcting and perfecting the human genome within our
reach.”26 Thus when Dr. Rice speaks about perfecting and controlling
the human body, he is following in a long line of historical scientific
researchers who have attempted to do just that.
150 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

Indeed, Dr. Rice soon progresses from controlling random muta-

tion in a widespread disseminated form to controlling mutation in the
form of weaponized mutant bodies, transgressing ethical and genetic
boundaries in order to produce weapons for the military-industrial
complex. Dr. Rice’s efforts are ultimately consummated with the creation
of X-24, an entirely subjugated body whose mutation and maturation
are dominated by biotechnology. In Logan, all of these interventions
remain clandestine, compelling the audience to reflect on our tacit ac-
ceptance of real-world practices that are similarly invisible. Thinking
not only of preimplantation genetic screening, selective abortion, and
the increasing role of pharmacology in regulating behavior, but also
of the gene-editing technology CRISPR, the audience is left to wonder
whether their own genes are also subject to exploitation, manipulation,
and even extinction.27
While Dr. Rice strives for the most extreme of these outcomes,
there are countless ways scientific and business interests today are
altering our environment and the foods we consume. For example,
there is currently debate regarding the genetic modification of allergenic
plants so as to reduce the symptoms of allergy sufferers.28 These hy-
poallergenic plants would be useful to people who otherwise have to
avoid allergens in food or pollen,29 yet the ecological impact is impos-
sible to fully predict; the classic Frankensteinian specter of unintended
consequences is ever-present. These uncertainties are made all the
more unsettling when genetic modification is “distributed discreetly,”
as Dr. Rice describes in the film—and indeed, the relative secrecy of
scientific research and the proper degree of societal oversight are key
themes in contemporary bioethics. From its depiction of Will Munson—
a farmer who is being pushed off of his land by GMO (genetically
modified organisms) corporations—to Dr. Rice, the “mad scientist” who
compares his eradication of random mutancy to that of polio, Logan
takes on Ellen-Marie Forsberg’s challenge to remain mindful of value
pluralism when evaluating the ethics of using GMOs like those of
the agrochemical company Monsanto, or in this case, the “transgenic”
alterations made by the fictional Transigen.30
Another example of such tension in Logan is the public sus-
picion about the water supply and its role in ending mutancy, first
in the stifled outburst of the “conspiracy theorist” mentioned earlier
(apparently correct in his suspicions) and later with the subheading
of a newspaper article that asks, “Is something in the water?” Later,
of course, Dr. Rice explicitly takes credit for altering “what we eat
and drink”—but again, this is not a public statement. This issue in
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 151

the film echoes real-world controversies about drinking water quality

and fluoridation, a public health measure which has been widespread
in the United States since the 1940s and has been, at various times,
the subject of skepticism and debate as well.31 Indeed, while many in
the dental health community argue that fluoridation has significantly
decreased the amount of tooth decay in predisposed communities,
offering “the most effective method of reaching the whole population
irrespective of any other ways of getting access to dental care,” some
studies raise suspicions about its putative effects, from developmental
disorders to infertility.32 Fluoridated water has even “been shown to be
mutagenic, i.e. to cause chromosome damage, and interfere with the
enzymes involved in DNA repair”—a fear, or possibility, echoed by
the suggestion that the water supply in Logan has altered the genes
of the public.33 Such connections between historical concerns and the
fictional themes of Logan serve to bridge the world of viewer and film,
enacting the potential consequences of scientific interventions. Moreover,
the fact that fluoridation concerns have ebbed in recent years speaks
to the tendency for the public to accept technological change over
time, growing less wary of potential consequences.
By shedding light on the societal and individual effects of dif-
ferent forms of genetic modification, Logan challenges its audience to
bear witness to biotechnological advances that are often overlooked.
Indeed, fictional films play an important role in the public’s awareness
of such issues; as Meyer, Cserer, and Schmidt point out, “by propos-
ing concrete, although fictive examples and stories, films certainly
intervene in the public debate and may, consequently, influence their
audience’s position in ethical and social issues raised.”34 In creating a
narrative in a setting that is much more familiar to the viewer than
the typical X-Men film, Logan allows the audience to speculate about
the potential effects of genetic modifications for good or ill. And by
highlighting potentially unseen powers and presenting these scientific
issues to a global audience, Logan invites us to engage more actively
with the ethical considerations of this contemporary debate.

The United States and National Borders

In this section we explore the significance of the U.S. geographic

borders in Logan. They are both porous—reflecting the reach of in-
ternational corporate capitalism into Mexico—and impermeable, as is
apparently the case at the Canadian frontier. The film’s re-figuration of
152 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

national boundaries reflects an evolving conception of American ideals

in the superhero genre, with a timely interrogation of the narrative of
American exceptionalism.
The superhero genre in the United States traditionally reflects
and engages with both the ethos of American values and the mythos
of American exceptionalism. As Alaniz describes, the superhero comic
represents “a rich ‘mirror universe’ of American society,”35 with su-
perheroes themselves creating a “shorthand not only for American
popular culture, but for American values and their perception as . . .
fascism as well.”36 The X-Men, in turn, offer an alternate microcosm
of American society; with their ethnically diverse members from
across the globe, they embody a multiculturalism that exemplifies the
integration of American ideals.37 This theme is particularly relevant to
the film franchise, in which the X-Men are portrayed as a primarily
American team rather than the multinational collaboration depicted
in the comics.38
Nevertheless, in both media, these diverse X-Men are a band of
outcasts who seek to reform and improve American society. In their
fight for progress, freedom, and individuality, the mutants embody
the resistance against fascist dystopias. As Matt Yockey writes, “The
mutant body stands in generic social difference within the national
collective[,] . . . simultaneously acknowledging and accepting differ-
ence as a central tenet of the utopian enterprise of the nation.”39 The
comics and films often engage with American history and symbolism
as well: the final battle in X-Men, for example, takes place at the
Statue of Liberty, while the climax of both X2: X-Men United (2003)
and Days of Future Past involve a confrontation with the President of
the United States. Visually, thematically, and symbolically, then, the
X-Men are firmly rooted within the matrix of American culture. From
this standpoint they are poised to interrogate its adherence to stated
ideals of inclusivity, diversity, and the battle against tyranny.
Logan, however, depicts neither U.S. landmarks nor the U.S.
government in any meaningful capacity. Instead the nation is one
which has wasted away, epitomized by the young white men who
drive alongside the U.S.-Mexico border chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” in
the film’s opening scenes—present only in ugly jingoism (beyond-
uncanny timing, as the film was released precisely six weeks after
President Donald Trump’s inauguration). Indeed, an unethical breed
of corporate capitalism dominates to the extent that the significance
of the U.S. as a nation-state has waned considerably and does not
function as a positive symbolic presence—perhaps an accurate portrait
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 153

of our present reality, or the inevitable consequence of neoliberalism,

depending upon one’s view. Here the permeability of the U.S.-Mexico
border gestures toward what Gloria Anzaldúa terms “la crisis”40 and
betrays the power of unchecked private enterprise: the American
biotechnology company Alkali-Transigen can reach into Mexico, find-
ing Logan, Xavier, and Caliban hiding in a decaying smelting plant
in Juárez—a bleached skeleton, casualty of the global economy—and
can conduct its weaponized mutant-breeding program in Mexico City,
easily traversing both geopolitical and genetic boundaries, as its name
implies (trans-i-gen). In its exploitation of Mexican bodies such as the
mutant children and their mothers—“Mexican girls who no one can
find anymore,” according to Gabriela López41—Alkali-Transigen is a
neocolonial force, “the worst kind of imperialism,” as Kwame Nkrumah
describes, representing “an attempt to export the social conflicts of the
capitalist countries.”42 Similar to Transigen’s illicit operations in Mexico,
“the result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the
exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed
parts of the world.”43 In Logan, mutantkind is only one of the victims
of such neocolonialism.
When the children flee across the Mexico-U.S. border, they evoke
the path of immigrants fleeing persecution and seeking a new home—a
prototypical narrative of the United States. One might expect them to
experience the classic X-Men struggle for survival and justice, stories
which, according to Rayna Denison, “have always been about marginal
characters . . . used to critique American society.”44 In Yockey’s words,
“As physically different bodies within the physical space of the nation,
the mutant calls into question their political legitimacy in the eyes of
the non-mutant. In this way we see the utility of the mutant super-
hero as a stand-in for immigrants—or for groups labeled ‘different’ on
ethnic or religious grounds—in American society.”45 Yet, significantly,
this struggle does not play out within the U.S. in Logan, and the
film does not resuscitate a narrative of a U.S. which ultimately—often
after much struggle, and always imperfectly—embraces diversity and
protects those who are threatened against harm. Instead, the mutant
children in Logan remain unseen, illegitimate in the familial sense
(born of “special seeds in bottles”), in the scientific sense (referred to
as “failed experiments” by their creators), and in the political sense,
unworthy of protection by U.S. government and society. For Logan is
not a recapitulation of the previous X-Men stories, and the children
are not figured as immigrants—instead, they are slaves.46 As Dr. Rice
tells a Transigen nurse: “Do not think of them as children. Think of
154 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

them as things, with patents and copyrights.” They are property, a

form of capital, kept in captivity in a colonial outpost, exploited or
disposed of as necessary. The children arrive in the U.S. not to fight
for their freedom within American society but in order to escape it,
following the same trajectory as some slaves did in the American
South, traveling northward in a modern-day Underground Railroad
to find liberation in another nation: Canada.47
The rumor of Canada as a safe space for mutants, in fact,
originates from a collection of superhero comics detailing the heroic
exploits of the X-Men. The mutant children of Transigen eagerly read
these stories, tales which describe the mysterious location of Eden as a
temporary sanctuary. Logan dismisses Eden as pure fantasy, “bullshit”
that offers a distorted version of reality—but by the end of the film,
he is shocked to discover that Eden does indeed exist in North Da-
kota. If the superhero comic, as Alaniz explains, offers “a rich ‘mirror
universe’ of American society,” then the metafictional superhero comics
in Logan also offer the children hope—hope for a place that fosters
inclusion and tolerance.48 The climactic battle that takes place in Eden
at the cusp of the Canada-U.S. border, therefore, becomes the politicized
nexus of mutancy, the mutant body, and purported American ideals.
The journey toward Eden suggests some sort of return to a natural,
more innocent state separate from the rest of the U.S., an escape from
Transigen’s genetic exploitation. Logan’s sacrificial death in the idyllic
forests of Eden—his literal and metaphorical fall—offers the children
a new beginning as they flee to Canada and move beyond the realm
of Eden, transcending geopolitical strife and traumatic colonization.
It is perhaps fitting, then, that Canada is never depicted in the film,
existing instead off-screen as a mythical promised land. The children’s
escape into a country where Alkali-Transigen has no power not only
consummates the escapee slave narrative, but also enacts a restoration
of geopolitical boundaries by the end of the film. The U.S. flagrantly
exploits national borders in favor of neocolonialism and corporate
power, but the very existence of Canada as a nation untouched by
American corruption guarantees the mutant children freedom and safety.
In its narrative of mutant children seeking freedom from the
U.S. and its exploitive corporate reach, Logan dismantles the myth of
American exceptionalism, and such historical resonance is figured in
its deliberate use of the 1953 film Shane, which figures prominently
in Logan. As an exemplar of the distinctly American genre of West-
ern films, Shane’s protagonist fights for American values of freedom
and righteousness, sacrificing to free farmers (echoed by the Munson
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 155

family in Logan) from the clutches of nefarious rancher-thieves. Yet

the homesteaders’ putatively lawful claim to their land is of course
forged by European settlers’ expropriation and genocide towards Native
Americans. In reenacting the premise of Shane, Logan exposes the myth
of American freedom by depicting the endpoint of a nation founded
upon genocide and slavery: a land in which the race of mutants is
destroyed and non-mutant humans are subjugated to capitalism, con-
trolled by corporate forces and unseen genetic modification in their
food and water. With the destruction of American ideals a fresh be-
ginning seems possible, and Logan’s sacrificial death in the forests of
Eden ultimately allows mutantkind to start anew, giving the children
an opportunity to forge their own path in his own homeland, Canada.
As the Mexico-U.S. border dissolves in the face of corporate capitalism,
the U.S.-Canada frontier becomes curiously inviolable, restoring a safe
haven for the children and guaranteeing the future of mutantkind.

Race, Gender, and Futurity

The lasting popularity of the X-Men may lie in its allegorical flex-
ibility, its firm message of tolerance and acceptance, or both. Mutancy
has served as an allegory for various forms of Otherness, but in all
incarnations of the X-Men, “[t]he Other is not represented monolithi-
cally and consistently; instead, it is a shifting signifier, a moving target
that blurs the boundaries between in-group and out-group, dominant
and subdued.”49 This capaciousness has made the X-Men an all-en-
compassing metaphor for internally diverse marginalized communities
who face pressing social justice issues, including those facing ableism,
homophobia, and most notably racism. In this section, we examine
how Logan departs from its filmic predecessors and breaks boundaries
with its depiction of race and gender. Furthermore, we discuss how
Logan addresses medicine’s historical exploitation and abuse of racial
minorities and provides an avenue for social justice.
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the X-Men comic book
series was first published in 1963—yet most readers forget that this
incarnation was largely a failure, nearly unrecognizable from con-
temporary depictions of the X-Men. The original run, with its cast
of all-white characters, struggled to gain popularity and attract sales,
after which it was discontinued in the late 1960s. The X-Men series,
however, soon reappeared in 1975—after the African-American Civil
Rights Movement—under the direction of Len Wein, Chris Claremont,
156 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

and Dave Cockrum, along with a more diverse group of superheroes

and a social consciousness that arguably contributed to its success. As
Ramzi Fawaz argues, “In the case of the original X-Men, the failure
to explicitly articulate mutation to race, gender, and sexuality evacu-
ated the political purchase of the category by leaving it an empty
placeholder for a variety of real-world difference. . . . By expanding
the racial, geographic, and gender makeup of the mutant species to
include characters and identities previously ignored by the series, the
new X-Men articulated mutation to the radical critiques of identity
promulgated by the cultures of women’s and gay liberation.”50
Although race is the most common paradigm used to understand
the X-Men—certainly within the fan community—this interpretation
comes with certain flaws, inconsistencies, and troubling implications.
The white characters of Professor Xavier and Magneto, for example,
have long been viewed as representing civil rights activists Martin
Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, respectively. This provocative allegory
is not only imperfect, but also contributes to white hegemony and
the erasure of Black bodies in the X-Men franchise.51 Indeed, “[t]o
appropriate these philosophies onto the bodies of white mutants is
to both whitewash these struggles and to do very little to challenge
the structures of power themselves.”52 Furthermore, by chronicling the
heroic exploits of white male heroes, the comic book series misuses
its own metaphor and even allows white male readers to “appropriate
a discourse of marginalization.”53 Following this critique, rather than
advocating tolerance and empowering racial minorities, the X-Men
franchise paradoxically depicts a whitewashed narrative that may even
contribute to reverse racism.
These issues are manifest in the films as well. By placing white
characters at the center of its films, the X-Men franchise “distanc[es]
its struggle for equality from the civil rights struggles that it liberally
borrows from.”54 As Jason Smith argues, the X-Men films appropriate
a civil rights narrative and adopt a “white racial frame” that “values
and privileges the white racial category over other racial groups.”55
The white racial frame is primarily achieved through the character of
Logan, who represents the white savior and embodiment of hegemonic
masculinity. Logan is perhaps the most iconic member of the X-Men;
besides Deadpool, he is currently the only X-Men character to headline
his own solo films, which include X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), The
Wolverine (2013), and Logan (2017). For the audience, Logan becomes
“an anchor point for a majority of the action scenes and a protagonist
for most of the X-Men films’ plots.”56 With his muscular frame and
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 157

aggressive behavior, Logan represents “nostalgia for a morally absolute

brand of dangerous masculinity.”57 These characteristics are present
in Logan as well: although weak and aged, Logan is still the titular
character, adopting the role of a white Western outlaw raging against
authority and injustice.
Whereas Logan is the most prominent character in the X-Men
film franchise, his fellow mutants of color are relegated to limited
roles. Nonwhite characters are often depicted as villains: Magneto’s
Brotherhood of Mutants in The Last Stand is largely composed of racial
minorities, while an Egyptian mutant called En Sabah Nur serves as
the primary antagonist in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). When nonwhite
mutants do appear as allies of the X-Men, they are usually sidelined
with minimal screen time. The Black mutant Darwin, for example, is
the first character to die in First Class, while Storm, a powerful Black
mutant and matriarch in the comics, has a significantly reduced role
in the films.58 The disparity between the depictions of white and
nonwhite mutants in the film franchise is most noticeable in Days of
Future Past, which explores the concept of futurity by taking place in
two different timelines. While Logan travels back in time to 1973 in
order to rewrite history with the help of white mutants, the remain-
ing X-Men join forces with a group of nonwhite mutants at a Chinese
temple in the dystopian future. In the climactic final battle against the
Sentinels, every single mutant of color—including Storm—dies protecting
the temple, while virtually all of the white mutants survive. As the
Brazilian mutant Sunspot tells the X-Men in an alternate version of the
film called The Rogue Cut, “You’re asking us to sacrifice our lives for
a future we might not even be a part of.”59 The deaths of only the
non-white mutants “feels particularly uncomfortable in a series based
on the value of diversity and the wrongheadedness of prejudice,”
and also contributes to the white racial frame and erasure of people
of color in the future.60 By the end of both versions of the film, in
which history is rewritten and the dystopian tomorrow averted, Storm
is the only mutant of color shown to be alive in the alternate future.
Indeed, the fate of Sunspot and the other mutants of color in the new
timeline is never explained. Although Days of Future Past creates a
time-bending narrative complete with “endless possibilities and infinite
outcomes,” the film is ultimately limited in scope, reinscribing racial
minorities in liminal roles and denying them access to a better future.
Logan, however, addresses the white racial frame by blurring
ethnic boundaries and including pivotal characters who are also racial
minorities. The mutant children are multiracial and multi-gendered,
158 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

composed of Black and brown boys and girls—essentially human chat-

tel owned by Transigen, as we have discussed, subject to inhumane
tests and experiments in order to transform them into weapons. The
corporation not only seeks to euthanize the mutant children, but also
kills Mexican nurse Gabriela López and the Black Munson family
who attempt to defend their mutant guests. This explicit suffering and
persecution of bodies of color by Transigen echoes the long history of
scientific exploitation of racial minorities and medical justification of
such abuse.61 By depicting these mixed-race mutants as sympathetic
protagonists who are victims of the military-industrial complex, Logan
moves the issues of race and social justice from troubling allegorical
interpretation to the forefront of the narrative.
By the end of Logan, the deaths of Xavier and Logan—white
patriarch and son—ultimately sacrifice the masculine emphasis and
white racial frame that have shaped the X-Men franchise. While Lo-
gan’s death for the mutant children’s sake incontrovertibly enacts a
white male savior trope, it also represents an act of paternal love that
subverts the “singular, biological, and essential notion of traditional
white maleness” with which he has often been associated.62 The death
of Wolverine, in fact, allows Laura—a female mutant of color who is
just as capable as her white male progenitor—to finally assume his
mantle; after all, Laura is the one who successfully kills the evil clone
X-24 during the film’s climax. Laura’s role as a powerful mutant who
becomes Logan’s successor is a refreshing twist in the X-Men film
franchise, especially since previous depictions of female mutants often
involve them being disempowered or existing as objects of desire.63
In a world without Logan, his daughter Laura—young, female, and
Latinx—becomes the embodiment of boundless potential.
With Xavier and Logan sacrificing their lives, the film shifts the
white racial frame in order to move towards a multiracial and multi-
gendered future. The conclusion of Logan is essentially the opposite
of that of Days of Future Past: rather than showing white mutants
survive at the expense of characters of color, Logan depicts a future
in which the mutants of color succeed and survive. The journey of
these multiracial children—from Mexico to Canada, danger to safety,
persecution to liberation—ultimately echoes the possibilities of racial
and social reimaginings proposed by “visionary medicine.” A radical
epistemological framework that combines speculative fiction and ra-
cial justice, visionary medicine advocates for “a type of practice that
breaks from medicine’s racist and colonialist past, a type of practice
that recognizes and commits to addressing present-day injustices and
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 159

imagining more just futures for all” through the “disrupt[tion] [of]
traditional boundaries of difference.”64 The final shot of the film is
particularly powerful in this light, focusing on Logan’s grave as the
children cross the border into Canada, unbounded and unrestrained, in
search for a better life free from oppression. Thus the film recapitulates
the sacrificial narrative of Shane, but now in the service of multiracial
and multi-gendered children rather than a group of white homesteaders
(who themselves have stolen the land from Native Americans). Indeed,
the struggle for racial justice which the X-Men franchise so heavily
evokes crosses a crucial boundary in Logan; by sacrificing the white
racial frame predominant in the series, suffering Black and brown
bodies inherit the future and represent the sole hope for mutantkind.

Conclusion

In his 2006 analysis of The Last Stand, radio journalist Mike

Pesca argues that although the climactic finale presents a mirror on
contemporary social issues, the film still holds this reflection at a
distance. Summarizing a claim made by other critics of the genre,65
Pesca concludes that “the escapism of super heroes and flaming cars,
or just watching any story in two dimensions, makes it hard for us
to truly engage in a debate, no matter how well presented.”66 More
than a decade after the conclusion of the original X-Men film tril-
ogy, Logan offers a response to this critique by taking as its setting a
world that is eerily similar to our very own. Rather than providing an
escapist superhero spectacle, Logan presents a grounded reality laden
with pressing social, political, and bioethical themes. The film’s sense
of self-awareness is particularly reminiscent of comic book stories that
began to appear following the mid-1950s, a period of time known as
the Silver Age. Although Benjamin Woo argues that terms such as
“Silver Age” and “Golden Age” are misleading and unable to properly
demarcate historical eras, they continue to play an integral role in fan
culture and market discourses.67 As Charles Hatfield describes, “Silver
Age superhero comics differed from their Golden Age forebears in that
they exhibited self-consciousness about the genre—that is, a historical
memory and reflexive self-awareness, an understanding that superhero
comics constitute a discrete genre with an experienced audience and
with conventions that are at once generative and restrictive.”68
Building upon traditional superhero tropes of corporeal and social
boundaries, Logan engages with them in new ways, often effecting
160 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

new models and inverting old tropes. Moreover, Logan demonstrates

that contemporary issues such as disability, genetic modification, geo-
politics, and race are interconnected and intertwined, their boundaries
permeable and porous. The ailing mutant body is juxtaposed with
Transigen’s biotechnological innovations and eugenic practices, which
in turn push against geopolitical borders and challenge American
exceptionalism. Likewise, the shifting matrix of geopolitical barriers
parallels the mutant body’s ability to redefine racial boundaries and
change the future. Indeed, any single interpretive stance is insufficient
and reductive; although we have divided our paper into respective sec-
tions dedicated to a specific theme, these boundaries must be breached,
as each topic cannot be fully examined without invoking the others.
Similarly, with its pervasive reflexivity, the film breaches personal
boundaries and refuses to relieve the viewer of discomfort or implica-
tion. Perhaps the film becomes a cyborg in and of itself, a film that
is more than just a film, an entity composed of what Donna Haraway
describes in “A Cyborg Manifesto” as “transgressed boundaries, potent
fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might ex-
plore as one part of needed political work.”69 Indeed, Logan is redolent
with topical political messages that must be recognized and examined,
a fact acknowledged by the film’s own cast. As Patrick Stewart, who
portrays Professor Xavier, stated at the 2017 Berlin International Film
Festival, “We are affected by the changing times. You present your
part as a person influenced by the times. . . . If people want to take
messages from this film, then we have done a good job.”70
As a staple of popular culture, X-Men narratives such as Logan
both reflect and inform our understanding of superheroes, power, and
health. The individual responses evoked by the film can be used as a
powerful educational tool as well as a means of reevaluating personal
views and prejudices. These tales offer us the opportunity to become
more aware of how boundaries are constituted in our own society,
experience, and reality. The X-Men franchise has always been imbued
with allegorical resonance, but the world of Logan comes closer to the
world of the spectator than previous films. Logan crosses our own
personal boundaries and evokes an uncanny closeness through its
storyline and characters, causing us discomfort at our implication. As
Haraway explains about the dueling natures of the cyborg, “This is a
struggle over life and death, but the boundary between science fiction
and social reality is an optical illusion.”71 With its timely themes and
pedagogical utility, Logan represents a cinematic achievement that com-
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 161

pels us to expand our horizons, broaden our perspectives, and better

understand—perhaps even overcome—our own boundaries.

NOTES

1. The future of the X-Men film franchise is currently unclear given the 2019
acquisition of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company (Kit and Couch,
“X-Men Franchise”).
2. Wittmer, “Why Critics.”
3. The 2017 film is loosely inspired by the events of the 2008 comic book
storyline Old Man Logan, set in an alternate future in which superheroes have been
vanquished by supervillains.
4. Brown, “Supermoms?” 78.
5. Snyder and Mitchell, Cultural Locations, 167.
6. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 6.
7. Bukatman, “X-Bodies,” 68.
8. Bukatman, “X-Bodies,” 51.
9. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 31.
10. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 36.
11. Benham, “Reframing Disabled Masculinity,” 169.
12. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 87.
13. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 88.
14. X-Men: The Last Stand.
15. Ilea, “Mutant Cure,” 176.
16. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 88.
17. Bukatman, “X-Bodies,” 68.
18. Bukatman, “X-Bodies,” 73.
19. Logan.
20. Garland-Thomson, “Seeing the Disabled,” 347.
21. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 6.
22. Kirby, “Devil in Our DNA,” 85.
23. Logan.
24. Logan.
25. Burnett, “Mad Genetics,” 59.
26. Kirby, “Devil in Our DNA,” 83.
27. An online blog post by Synthego, a genome engineering company that
provides RNA kits designed for CRISPR genome editing and research, considers
“how CRISPR could create a new generation of X-Men superheroes.” The blog post
muses, “[I]t is possible that CRISPR technology could be the route that would al-
low us to start selecting our own superpowers. . . . You may not be creating the
X-Men, but you’ll be creating the mutants that will become the superheroes of your
research!” (Gardner, “Real-Life X-Men”).
28. Schenk et al., “Influence of Perceived Benefits,” 263.
29. Schenk et al., “Influence of Perceived Benefits,” 264.
30. Forsberg, “Value Pluralism,” 95.
31. Dr. Rice’s fluoridation-like scheme in Logan is presaged by Brigadier General
Jack D. Ripper’s monologue in the classic 1964 film Dr. Strangelove: “Fluoridation
is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever
had to face. . . . A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids
without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice.”
162 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

32. Ateş and Özer, “Ethical Approach,” 173. Ateş and Özer cite a number
of studies that detail the possible side effects of water fluoridation, which include
fluorosis, hypothyroidism, neurotoxicity, and altered mental behavior and metabolism.
33. Ateş and Özer, “Ethical Approach,” 173.
34. Meyer, Cserer, and Schmidt, “Frankenstein 2.0,” 14.
35. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 8.
36. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 4.
37. Lyubansky, “Prejudice Lessons,” 76–77.
38. Yockey, “Mutopia,” 5.
39. Yockey, “Mutopia,” 5.
40. Anzaldúa, Borderlands, 10.
41. Logan.
42. Nkrumah, Neocolonialism, xi–xii.
43. Nkrumah, Neocolonialism, x.
44. Denison, “(Trans)national X-factor,” 67.
45. Yockey, “Mutopia,” 9.
46. Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the
Trump administration, referred to slaves in the United States as “immigrants” in
March of 2017, provoking intense critique for denaturing the historical reality of
slavery. Dr. Carson later retracted the usage (Stack, “Ben Carson”).
47. Speaking of the popular 2017 television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale,
author Margaret Atwood explains that “Canada has historically been the place you
run away to. So that’s why you run away to it in The Handmaid’s Tale. People are
running away to it right now, following an historic pattern” (Warkentin, “Margaret
Atwood”).
48. Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero, 8.
49. Bucciferro, “Mutancy,” 211.
50. Fawaz, New Mutants, 145.
51. Lyubansky, “Prejudice Lessons,” 87.
52. Pasco, Anderson, and DasGupta, “Visionary Medicine,” 248.
53. Shyminsky, “Mutant Readers,” 389.
54. Smith, “Mutating Minorities,” 185.
55. Smith, “Mutating Minorities,” 182.
56. Smith, “Mutating Minorities,” 189.
57. Shyminsky, “Mutant Readers,” 397.
58. Cocca, “Containing the X-Women,” 83.
59. X-Men: Days of Future Past: The Rogue Cut.
60. Cocca, “Containing the X-Women,” 83.
61. In Imperial Hygiene, Alison Bashford also interrogates boundaries in rela-
tion to public health and colonialism, nationalism, and racism. She argues that these
historical intersections took the form of “national borders, immigration restriction
lines, quarantine lines, racial cordons sanitaires and the segregative ambitions of a
grafted eugenics and public health,” spaces that perpetuated “identities of inclusion
and exclusion, of belonging and citizenship, and of alien-ness” (1–2).
62. Shyminsky, “Mutant Readers,” 398.
63. Cocca, “Containing the X-Women,” 86.
64. Pasco, Anderson, and DasGupta, “Visionary Medicine,” 247, 250.
65. Bowden, “Why Are We Obsessed.”
66. Pesca, “Are X-Men.”
67. Woo, “Age-Old Problem,” 269.
68. Hatfield, “Superheroes,” 18.
69. Haraway, “Manifesto,” 12–13.
70. Meza, “Hugh Jackman.”
71. Haraway, “Manifesto,” 8.
Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 163

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alaniz, José. Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi, 2015.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt
Lute Book Company, 1987.
Ateş, Asude, and Çiğdem Özer. “Ethical Approach to Fluoridation in Drinking
Water Systems of UK and Turkey.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics 30, no. 2 (2017): 171–78.
Bashford, Alison. Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and
Public Health. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Benham, Jessica. “Reframing Disabled Masculinity: Xavier as Marvel’s Supercrip.”
In The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis, edited by Claudia Bucciferro, 165–78.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Bowden, Mark. “Why Are We Obsessed With Superhero Movies?” The New York
Times, July 6, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/opinion/sunday/
ant-man-wasp-movies-superheroes.html.
Brown, Jeffrey A. “Supermoms? Maternity and the Monstrous-feminine in Superhero
Comics.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 2, no. 1 (2011): 77–87.
Bucciferro, Claudia. “Mutancy, Otherness, and Empathy in the X-Men.” In The X-
Men Films: A Cultural Analysis, edited by Claudia Bucciferro, 209–22. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Bukatman, Scott. Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Burnett, Andrew. “Mad Genetics: The Sinister Side of Biological Mastery.” In X-
Men and Philosophy: Astonishing Insight and Uncanny Argument in the Mutant
X-Verse, edited by Rebecca Housel and Jeremy J. Wisnewski, 53–65. Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2009.
Cocca, Carolyn. “Containing the X-Women: De-powering and De-queering Female
Characters.” In The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis, edited by Claudia Buc-
ciferro, 79–92. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Darowski, Joseph J. X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor: Race and Gender in the Comic
Books. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.
Denison, Rayna. “(Trans)national X-factor: Patrick Stewart, Britishness and the Pro-
motion of X-Men.” Critical Survey 18, no. 3 (2006): 65–82.
Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Atomic Bomb. Di-
rected by Stanley Kubrick. Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures, 2001. DVD.
Fawaz, Ramzi. The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American
Comics. New York: New York University Press, 2016.
Forsberg, Ellen-Marie. “Value Pluralism and the Coherentist Justification of Ethi-
cal Advice.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 20 (2007): 81–97.
Gardner, Heidi. “Real-Life X-Men: How CRISPR Could Give You Superpowers in
the Future.” The Bench Blog (blog), September 14, 2018. https://www.synthego.
com/blog/could-crispr-make-x-men-a-realistic-possibility.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Seeing the Disabled: Visual Rhetorics of Disability
in Popular Photography.” In The New Disability History: American Perspectives,
edited by Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, 335–74. New York: New
York University Press, 2001.
Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Femi-
nism in the 1980s.” In The Haraway Reader, 7–45. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Hatfield, Charles. “Superheroes and the Silver Age.” In Faster Than a Speeding Bullet:
The Art of the Superhero, edited by Ben Saunders, 17–20. Eugene, OR: Jordan
Schnitzler Museum of Art at the University of Oregon, 2009. Published in
conjunction with an exhibition of the same title, organized by and presented
at the Art Institute of Chicago, September 18, 2014–January 4, 2015.
164 FROM BODIES TO BORDERS AND BEYOND

Ilea, Ramona. “The Mutant Cure or Social Change: Debating Disability.” In X-Men
and Philosophy: Astonishing Insight and Uncanny Argument in the Mutant X-Verse,
edited by Rebecca Housel and Jeremy J. Wisnewski, 170–82. Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley and Sons, 2009.
Kirby, David A. “The Devil in Our DNA: A Brief History of Eugenics in Science
Fiction Films.” Literature and Medicine 26, no. 1 (2007): 83–108.
Kit, Borys, and Aaron Couch. “X-Men Franchise Poised for Shake-Up as Fox’s
Marvel Heroes Migrate to Disney.” The Hollywood Reporter, March 20, 2019.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/x-men-hit-marvel-cinematic-
universe-at-2021-1195846.
Logan. Directed by James Mangold. 2017. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox,
2017. DVD.
Lyubansky, Mikahil. “Prejudice Lessons from the Xavier Institute.” In The Psychology
of Superheroes: An Unauthorized Exploration, edited by Robin S. Rosenberg and
Jennifer Canzoneri, 75–90. Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2008.
Meyer, Angela, Amelie Cserer, and Markus Schmidt. “Frankenstein 2.0: Identifying
and characterizing synthetic biology engineers in science fiction films.” Life
Sciences, Society and Policy 9, no. 9 (2013): 1–17.
Meza, Ed. “Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart on Logan, Trump and Violence.”
Variety, February 17, 2017. http://variety.com/2017/film/global/hugh-jackman-
patrick-stewart-logan-xmen-trump-berlinale-1201991396/.
Nkrumah, Kwame. Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. New York: Inter-
national, 1965.
Pasco, John Carlo, Camille Anderson, and Sayantani DasGupta. “Visionary Medicine:
Speculative Fiction, Racial Justice and Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild.” Medical
Humanities 42, no. 4 (2016): 246–51.
Pesca, Mike. “Are X-Men Mutant Issues a Mirror on Society?” May 30, 2006. In Day to
Day. Podcast. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5439365.
Schenk, M.F., A.R.H. Fischer, L.J. Frewer, L.J.W.J. Gilissen, E. Jacobsen, and M.J.M.
Smulders. “The Influence of Perceived Benefits on Acceptance of GM Applica-
tions for Allergy Prevention.” Health, Risk and Society 10, no. 3 (2008): 263–82.
Shyminsky, Neil. “Mutant Readers, Reading Mutants: Appropriation, Assimilation,
and the X-Men.” International Journal of Comic Art 8, no. 2 (2006): 387–405.
Smith, Jason. “Mutating Minorities: White Racial Framing and Group Positioning.”
In The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis, edited by Claudia Bucciferro, 179–92.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Snyder, Sharon L. and David T. Mitchell. Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Stack, Liam. “Ben Carson Refers to Slaves as ‘Immigrants’ in First Remarks to
HUD Staff.” The New York Times, March 6, 2017. https://www.nytimes.
com/2017/03/06/us/politics/ben-carson-refers-to-slaves-as-immigrants-in-first-
remarks-to-hud-staff.html.
Warkentin, Elizabeth. “Margaret Atwood on The Handmaid’s Tale, the Women’s March
and More.” Teen Vogue, April 24, 2017. http://www.teenvogue.com/story/
margaret-atwood-the-handmaids-tale-interview.
Wittmer, Carrie. “Why Critics Are Calling Logan ‘The best superhero movie ever.’”
Business Insider, March 4, 2017. http://www.businessinsider.com/logan-reviews-
critics-2017-3/#its-dark-and-risky-1.
The Wolverine. Directed by James Mangold. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox,
2013. DVD.
Woo, Benjamin. “An Age-Old Problem: Problematics of Comic Book Historiography.”
International Journal of Comic Art 10, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 268–79.
X2: X-Men United. Directed by Bryan Singer. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox,
2003. DVD.
 Asif, Disner, Odusola, Rojas, and Spencer 165

X-Men. Directed by Bryan Singer. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox, 2000. DVD.
X-Men: Apocalypse. Directed by Bryan Singer. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox,
2016. DVD.
X-Men: Days of Future Past. Directed by Bryan Singer. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Cen-
tury Fox, 2014. DVD.
X-Men: Days of Future Past: The Rogue Cut. Directed by Bryan Singer. Los Angeles,
CA: 20th Century Fox, 2015. DVD.
X-Men: First Class. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century
Fox, 2011. DVD.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Directed by Gavin Hood. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century
Fox, 2009. DVD.
X-Men: The Last Stand. Directed by Brett Ratner. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century
Fox, 2006. DVD.
Yockey, Matt. “Mutopia: American Utopianism and the Mutant Superhero.” In The
X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis, edited by Claudia Bucciferro, 3–16. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.

View publication stats