Stapledon's Odd John: homo superior, mutants, and the X-Men. A thread.
Odd John by Olaf Stapledon is a fascinating science-fictional artifact. Written in 1936, it anticipates much later science fiction and comics developments. I want to focus on one aspect, its uncanny resemblance to X-Men.
Odd John is often called the first Superman story, and rightly so. But, in many ways, it foreshadows the mutants of Marvel's X-Men series far more.
The main character, "Odd" John Wainwright, is born a genetic mutant, or "Homo Superior." Stapledon coined that pseudo-scientific term, and eventually, it became standard in Marvel's X-comics.
Odd John has telepathic powers. He can read the minds of regular humans around him. However, he can also telepathically detect and locate other "homo superior" beings, precisely how Professor X uses the Cerebro device.
Cerebro enhances Professor X's ability to geo-locate other mutants in the same way that Odd John learns to do in Stapledon's book.
John meets Adlan, an Egyptian mutant with significantly developed telepathic power in another curious similarity to the X-Men. Adlan brings to Mind Amahl Farouk -- AKA The Shadow King -- a powerful Egyptian mutant and an archenemy of Professor X.
Odd John personally embodies the central conflict that animates the X-Men comics: mutual distrust between humans and mutants, or homo sapiens and homo superior.
On the one hand, John is gentle and nonviolent and wants to blend into a world of humans, but without detection -- like Professor X.
On the other hand, he learns to distrust humans and becomes convinced of an inevitable species conflict -- to the death. So John is also like Magneto, Professor X's nemesis, and a violent 'activist' for the rights of "homo superior."
Eventually, Odd John creates a separatist communist-utopian island community for homo superior. In the X-comics, the Genosha island becomes a mutant refuge and the locus of a separatist movement. The only way for humans and mutants to "get along" is to separate them.
Odd John names his ragtag gang of homo superior "The New Men." So the first "Superman" story was a team book. Much more like the X-Men.
When Grant Morrisson took over the writing of X-Men, the mirrored-palindrome of "new men" became visually explicit in the new logo created for that series.
Of course, Stapledon's Odd John predated the X-Men by some 30 years. These ideas became tropes and had diffused widely into science fiction.
X-creators like Jack Kirby and Stan Lee were sci-fi readers. Still, it's curious that the Odd John / X-Men similarity is not mentioned in creator interviews. Fans have certainly noticed the resemblance. Does anyone know if any of the creators ever mention Odd John?
Please read my full essay on Odd John and the X-Men here.
transatlantis.net/2022/05/12/mutants-supermen-new-soviet-men-and-homo-superior-olaf-stapledons-odd-john/
cartoon hermeneutics
@BetaTestingTomK
theoretical cartoonist comics as technology of consciousness publisher at @unciv