WASTED POTENTIAL: X-Men: First Class and The Death Of Armando Muñoz

WASTED POTENTIAL: X-Men: First Class and The Death Of Armando Muñoz

WASTED POTENTIAL: X-Men: First Class and the Death of Armando Muñoz

Or, How Racism F%#@ed the X-Men Movies

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am absolutely, ridiculously invested in the X-Men Cinematic Universe.  Or, more specifically, I’m invested in what the XMCU could have been, if it had been approached as a cohesive whole rather than a series of vaguely confused attempts at continuity and Wolverine cameos.

For me, the biggest moment of missed potential comes with the death of Armando “Darwin” Muñoz at the midpoint of X-Men: First Class.  People have talked, of course, about how his death was racist and doesn’t make sense – because it was racist, and fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense.

To be fair, I don’t think the writers were being intentionally racist when they killed Armando off in the same scene where the movie’s only other black character defects to the side of the bad guys.  I don’t think they were being intentionally racist when they had a Nazi kill a black man, who, in the comics, is literally and demonstrably unkillable.

But they did these things, and these things were racist.

And to be honest, that racism kinda f%#@ed the franchise.  It’s not the only thing that did – the decision to put ten year timeskips in between each movie of the second trilogy certainly didn’t help matters – but I think that it’s the single bad decision that, if averted, would have changed everything.

Under the cut, I’ll discuss why Armando was such a significant character, and why his death shaped the direction of the franchise by destroying some pretty epic narrative possibilities.

(Trigger Warnings for: mentions of suicide, depression, trauma, real life racism, human experimentation.  Nothing more explicit than XMCU canon, however.)

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I think about Ernest Frankenstein a lot because he's the one surviving member of the family and the sole heir to the Frankenstein estate. He also is the only one who can pass Frankenstein genes down so that movies like *Young Frankenstein* can exist.

He's also adorable in my opinion, because he was sick as a child, and now he's better and trying to find his way in the world. And he hates school and I just think that's sweet. But also his family is trying to decide for him what his career path should be, so that's a little sad.

My point being, Ernest is a little behind on his education. It doesn't seem like he has any of his own prospects, and as far we know his family is his only support system. He seems pretty vulnerable. And then his little brother dies while *he* was playing a game with him: seems like that might mess a person up. And then his family friend dies, ok. We don't know if he grieves, but let's go on.

His older sister, a critical member of his support system, goes and gets married. She's going to be out of the house at least. But then she gets hardcore murdered, and then Alphonse, their father, dies soon after that.

All Ernest has now is Victor, his adult brother. That is his only known family, his only support, his only safety net. And then Victor leaves his 16-year-old brother, behind developmentally, at home when he goes on his revenge spree. HE LEFT ERNEST ALONE, BY HIMSELF. Victor didn't for a moment consider his little brother, didn't even mention him when he went off to DIE in a foolish little revenge girls' trip that he wasn't going to win.

And I very well know that Victor was mentally ill. I understand that he was grieving and had actually been institutionalized. This isn't a Victor hatepost.

I'm just saying, the man abadoned his creation thoughtlessly, and we all know how that went. So now he abandons his little brother, the forgotten middle child, the only one who didn't die, to do god knows what with god knows what consequences.

And Victor talks about how he loves his family. He doesn't want to be separated from them. He doesn't want them dead. He grieves them. But Ernest is still alive. Ernest is still alive and I bet he grieves too. And he's your family and I sure he loves you and you both could support each other. Don't abandon him. He deserves better.


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2 years ago

okay i cannot stress this enough Spoilers For Witch Hat Atelier up to chapter 40

in which i posit that olruggio made qifrey’s glasses, forget to actually back that theory up after the first image, and devolve into some bullshit

there are 5 more images below the cut (and that’s where most of the spoilers are)

Okay I Cannot Stress This Enough Spoilers For Witch Hat Atelier Up To Chapter 40

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1 year ago
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11 months ago
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3 years ago
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