Why is Brazil against the X-Men?
House of X has a lot of interesting topics to discuss within it, but as I am myself, the thing that instantly stuck in my mind was a list of countries.
A lot of these make sense. Iran, a religious caliphate, would reject the mutants due to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. The Wakanda one is especially humorous. However, Brazil stood out to me. While part of the BRICS alliance, Brazil is still at least nominally aligned with western interests, and stands out as the strangest of the included nations as being against Krakoa. Trying to pursue this thread led to three separate theories.
Theory 1: This was Revenge
It seems like the only other people who noticed this were the Brazilians themselves. Riotimesonline, the largest English language newspaper in Brazil, published this story about the comic:
https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/entertainment-brazil/brazil-becomes-an-x-men-enemy-in-new-comic-book/
The article interestingly cites another article of an event that happened prior to the book's publishing that involved the mayor of Rio recalling a Marvel comic book that depicted a gay couple kissing. This was only a few weeks before the publishing of this issue of House of X, so it may seem unrelated, but such a small change could surely be made in response. However, would it really be fair to condemn the whole nation of Brazil due to the actions of one local politician, albeit a quite powerful and well known one? Still, this may be one of the influencing factors of this action.
Theory 2: This was Personal
Digging into things a little more, a Brazillian artist seemed to be working at Marvel during this time, even on a few X-Men titles. His name was Mike Deodato. However, looking at interviews, including some with questions about his Brazillian background, Mr. Deodato seems quite positive about his home nation, and even lives there today. So, this theory does not seem to hold much weight.
Theory 3: This was Political
While the first was arguably political, this line of thought is much more directly political. House of X was a 2019 series. Around this time, the biggest headlines in Brazil focused around their 2018 elections, especially the surprise upset of one Jair Bolsonaro.
To keep things simple, Bolsonaro was a right winged politician who rode a wave of discontent with the incumbent government and a failed assasination attempt to become Brazil's president, in a way most western media compared to the election of Donald Trump. So, perhaps adding Brazil to the list of Krakoan enemies was a way of providing commentary on a president thought to be intolerant? Still, one would think that the more obvious US comparison, or perhaps even a stab at Hungary, would also be provided. Perhaps those would be too obviously controversial?
Coming out of this research phase, it is still unclear why Brazil is against the X-Men. There does not seem to be a particular storyline of Marvel Brazil being different from real life Brazil, so unless some obscure issue missed the fan wikis that does not suffice as an explanation. As such, the investigation has sadly come to a standstill. Please comment if you find any more evidence to this conundrum.
Coming out of this research phase, it is still unclear why Brazil is against the X-Men. There does not seem to be a particular storyline of Marvel Brazil being different from real life Brazil, so unless some obscure issue missed the fan wikis that does not suffice as an explanation. As such, the investigation has sadly come to a standstill. Please comment if you find any more evidence to this conundrum.

Comments
Post a Comment