#young ones

Generation X v1 is problematic. I love it, deeply. I still think the book is great. I would suggest it to anyone who is interested in X-Men. But Scott Lobdell’s M, specifically Claudette St. Croix,  was a horrible sort of depiction of autistic people. It’s tough when a characterization in comics ages this poorly, especially for a character so unique and so full of possibility. The media has been terrible about depictions of autistic women and this particular mismanagement has never been rectified. Despite their older sister retaining her powers through M-Day the St. Croix Twins, Claudette and Nicole, have not been seen since Generation X v1 #58. That, itself, would be poor, but Claudette isn’t alone in being lost like this. It’s worth asking for more from the X-Men Franchise when it comes to representing autism.

From the relatively humble beginnings of Phalanx Covenant, which was not a very good crossover, a few moments were etched indelibly into my eyes. Never will I ever forget Blink’s sacrifice or the Phalanx spires of techno-organic flesh covered in soundless screaming human faces. I had read some of adjectiveless, X-Force, and Excalibur at the time and when a new book that had Jubilee AND a character named Everett in it came out? It was over for me. I couldn’t be torn away from the page. In Generation X’s introduction M was the powerhouse. Gifted with The Package (Super-Strength, Super-Speed, Invulnerability, and Flight) and a Telepath to boot she was the haughty and superior Veronica Lodge to Paige Guthrie’s Kentucky Betty Cooper. It would turn out that M was secretly the twins Claudette and Nicole St. Croix impersonating their older sister and that their occasional bouts of catatonic stupors were the result of Claudette’s autism.

My little sister was born in 1994, the same year Generation X debut, and she is autistic. But far from the stupor and idiot savantism demonstrated from Lobdell’s depiction of Claudette’s personality my sister Madisson provided me first-hand experience with the reality of an autistic child with pervasive developmental delay. In caring for my little sister I have learned a great deal and now that we are adults she never stops teaching me. I have had the fortune to meet more than a few members of the autistic community. If I could, please allow me to communicate one specific flaw with Generation X:

It is not okay to depict the autistic as wordless cyphers with magical abilities and no personality. Ever.

People with autism are People first and foremost. Sadly Generation X v1 at no point put in the time or effort into making Claudette a person. Where Nicole was the girl we saw as M for years, the one who got development and speaking lines, Claudette was a mystery and not a character. I cannot excuse that. It’s a damning mark against the book and hopefully one that people will only have dimmer views on in the future. With any luck someone who cares may bring these characters back into the fold but they haven’t been seen in years and there is precedence that they never will again.

Laura Dean is an Alpha Flight character who was autistic and also a twin. Her backstory involves her parents being mutantphobes and trying to abort Laura’s twin sister. That sister fled as a foetus into Liveworld where it would grow to become Goblyn, a blue skinned creature with sharp fangs and teeth. In their original incarnation they could swap places when Laura was endangered, but that was changed as Laura grew in her ability to control her portals to other worlds. We haven’t seen this character since 1994, or so says the Marvel Wikia. Not being on the autism spectrum myself I cannot speak to the original depiction being well handled or not, I would guess not, but either way the character is certainly unseen in just a little under 25 years. The similarities between Laura Dean and Claudette are stark. Both mutant twins of African descent, both pairs only allow limited expression of each member in their initial outing. Both have their problem of cohabitating with their sibling’s body resolved before vanishing from continuity.

There was no effort put into Claudette. Monet St. Croix is the Black Female X-Man with the second most appearances in the 616. That the St. Croix Twins have been missing for this long is curious to say the least. But then we don’t see much of Emma’s sisters either. But I, at least, ask that Marvel do better. Part of what makes the X-Men Franchise is that it embraces and espouses diversity. We need stories about autistic mutants. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. Writing those stories ensures that mutants represent all minorities, as they should. Generation X Volume 1 suffers greatly in retrospect for not taking the opportunity to do something meaningful with the characters it had.

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Written by Everett Christensen, Young One’s Lead Editor

Images: Generation X #5, #9, #12 #57

Uncanny X-Men #316