The aim of this study is to analyse how pornography is used in the American comics X-Men, published by Marvel under the authorship of Chris Claremont.

I have applied Butler and MacKinnons theories about pornography as a performative speech, to this special art form. I have also investigated how censorship has influenced the comics evolution and whether it has affected the way women and sexual and ethnical minorities are represented. To corroborate how these theories apply, I have analysed three main female fig-ures in The X-Men comics - Storm, Phoenix and Shadowcat - and I have tried to identify how they relate to existing stereotypes.

The conclusion of this essay is that the women characters in X-Men break the existing stereo-types and create new implications. This reinforces Butler’s theory about the possibility to re-verse hate speech and diminishes MacKinnons perspective of pornography as an imperative.