On the surface, it reads as a simple act of comfort, one that could have been easily written off if not for the former showrunner and head writer, Beau DeMayo, confirming on X that this scene was romantic for the shapeshifting hero. As a queer individual himself, DeMayo insisted that Morph’s confession was always intended to be romantic and later compared it to being secretly in love with a close friend and finally finding a way to say it, even if not as yourself.
But with DeMayo having been fired before the series even premiered, the future of this storyline he planted is now uncertain. He may be gone, but the confession isn’t—it’s canon, it’s onscreen, and season 2 is going to have to reckon with it one way or another seeing that it’s one of (if not the most) intriguing plots for Morph’s character.
With the series having faced backlash for Morph being canonically non-binary, using they/they pronouns, and confessing their love to Wolverine, the question becomes whether the new creative team treats it as a thread worth pulling or simply lets it fray quietly away, hoping nobody notices or remembers. The irony here is that potentially forgetting would go against everything the X-Men have ever stood for.
To understand why that would be such a loss, it helps to remember what the X-Men have always been. Ever since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched the comics in 1963, Xavier’s Mutants have served as allegory for a wide array of marginalized groups and topics; the Civil Rights movement, religious persecution, the AIDS crisis. As the decades progressed, the queer metaphor became increasingly fitting too.
Mutants are born different in a world that fears and hates the identities they never chose. They constantly have to hide who they are from their families and friends, in fear of being judged or taken away by Bastion’s “Zero Tolerance” operation first seen in episode 7.
Thankfully, many find community among themselves, comforted by the fact that those who get it, get it. But even with the comfort of each other, X-Men who, for years, have fought not just for survival against Sentinels, Mister Sinister, or the literal physical manifestation of the apocalypse, but also for the right to exist.
