In X-Men: Gold #1, artist Ardian Syaf managed to establish some anti-Semitic and anti-Christian symbolism into several panels, including the numbers 212 and 51, which refer to a verse in the Qur’an of Al Maidah 5: 51.

According to Bleeding Cool, the verse states…

“O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are, in fact, allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is one of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.”

The 212 refers to an Indonesian protest against a Christian governor in the region. Ardian Syaf attended the protest.

Syaf then featured symbolism for “Jew”, “212” and “51” several times throughout the X-Men comic book, including when Jewish character Kitty Pryde addresses a crowd outside where the numbers are clearly visible.

There’s also a panel where Colossus has a shirt that reads “QS 5:51”, which refers to the Qur’an, chapter and verse about the anti-Christian and anti-Semitic sentiments.

The symbolism wasn’t easy to find but dedicated comic book fans and religiously adept readers spotted it. It even made its way into Facebook conversations.

Eventually Marvel was made aware of the issue, and people explained what the symbolism meant, since those who aren’t familiar with the Qur’an would never have been able to spot the connection.

Marvel did respond to the incident, and Bleeding Cool posted up how they dealt with the situation, where it was stated on April 8th, 2017…

“The mentioned artwork in X-Men Gold #1 was inserted without knowledge behind its reported meanings. These implied references do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else at Marvel and are in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel Comics and what the X-Men have stood for since their creation. This artwork will be removed from subsequent printings, digital versions, and trade paperbacks and disciplinary action is being taken.”

This incident arrived shortly after a Marvel executive had to acknowledge that comic book sales were down after they tried to poorly shoehorn in identity politics from the Social Justice Warriors’ ideology, as well as trying to force in stories based on extremist principles from regressive liberals.

The average comic book reader did not take kindly to seeing some of their favorite heroes being used as a sounding board for propaganda and SJW pandering, thus their comic book line tanked badly. They promised that they would return their classic heroes (and hopefully increase the quality of the writing) when they launch a new series of comic books this upcoming fall, where they will abandon some SJW talking points in the more mainline series.

As proven with the closure of Comics Alliance – a site that tried focusing mostly on identity politics in gaming and SJW talking points – it just wasn’t something that was profitable since SJWs aren’t a majority and – based on the sales of SJW-centric goods – they don’t buy products in the market that they complain about on social media.