X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

This classic X-Men tale inspired Bryan Singer's X-Men movie sequel and though only a short story, has epic tones which have had a great impact on how the X-Men are viewed in popular culture. The X-Men are an allegory for gender, race and creed issues in mainstream society, and here Claremont used the Evangelical movement (prominant at the time of writing) to add religious extremism to the foes faced by ALL mutants.

Sentiments from John Wyndham's The Chrysalids are echoed by Reverend Stryker (a former military hero) who despises the Mutants, seeing them as an affront to God. Stryker forms a religious cult who means to eradicate the homo-superiors with one sweeping and deadly strike, using one of the most powerful Mutants as his hammer.

Unlike most of the X-Men story arcs, here the X-Men are not waging battle in their on going civil war. In fact a brutal murder of innocent mutants which prequels the story, drives Magneto (the usual villain) to support the X-Men in stopping Stryker.

Having had no previous reading experience with X-Men and enjoying the 90s animated series as well as the movie franchise, I decided it was best I read some of the source material. After some research, I found that Claremont's run as writer made up much of the history and vision we've come to know in other mainstream media and that God Loves, Man Kills was a good isolated story which could be enjoyed without too much previous knowledge of the franchise's rich comic book history.

Short, sharp and simple, God Loves, Man Kills is a moving thriller which will open your mind and have you reading more X-Men comics.