History Headscratchers / XMen

[[/foler]]

** And I know that, that's what I've been saying. No one, in the Marvel Universe, would want to even think of treating someone like Franklin differently if his non-mutant parents can kick the crap out of Galactus. I cannot say it any more clearer, his parents are powerful, his uncles are powerful, all are non-mutants and as far as the public knows, he's a non-mutant superhuman who is incredibly powerful himself. Family does matter, if said family have saved the universe many times, and if your dad can make a way to heaven and even Demands God bring back his friend ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome and succeeds]]''. Also, one other point, there's also a difference in public acceptance. If a violent mutant hater saw Squid Boy on the street, he wouldn't think twice before attacking him. But if he saw Cyclops or Beast, the former the known leader of ''every single mutant in the world'' and the latter a mutant icon with literal celebrity status, he wouldn't consider attacking them, unless he's stupid beyond Marvel Universe stupid. Same in real life, the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan would never think of attacking Creator/WillSmith or Creator/SamuelLJackson as they're both celebrities and actually quite badass celebrities. Its a matter of knowing who he is, not knowing if he's actually a mutant or not, and knowing he's both famous and powerful by himself.

* I don't know about the Danger Room in the comics, I'm just going by the 1992 animated series. It's implied if you die in the Danger Room, you die for real. Why would the professor (or Beast) programmed it like that?

* The new yorkers don't have a problem with giant robots flying around, blowing up buildings, and causing destruction just to catch a few mutants? Would you be comfortable with giant robots shooting lasers around you? Shouldn't Trask be sued?

** That would probably have to be because he ''doesn't work with Magneto''. Juggernaut on the Brotherhood is one of the comic examples mentioned under CommonKnowledge; everyone ''thinks'' it, but it's never actually happened. The only times it's happened have been in some of the animated series (namely WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution and WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen) and in ComicBook/UltimateXMen, and in all those situations it's because their version of Juggernaut is a mutant, not a magically powered individual.

[[AC:For the film series Headscratchers entries, see [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/X-MenFilmSeries the related page]].]]

** Keep in mind that most of them don't want to associate themselves with mutants and vice versa. Superpowered humans didn't want to get involved in the Mutant Registration Act and most mutants, specifically the X-Men, stayed the hell out of the Civil War. There were times in the comics where they tried to recruit the help of characters like Franchise/{{Spider-Man}} (who is also an outcast) but they didn't want to get mixed up in mutant affairs.

** Uh, 1, Most wars ''are'' light grey/dark grey. WorldWarOne, neither side, allies or Axis, were exactly all that great, and it only broke out because one guy, on the allies' side, assassinated the wrong guy. WorldWarII, while the Nazis were a ''very'' dark shade of black, the American's and Soviets were both pretty bad and The British, while the lighrst, were still grey, one motivated by financial gain, one motivated by revenge, while the British were still an Empire and as such not that great either. Remember the Nukes? Mutants and humans would be the same, but as I said ''isn't at all needed'' as they're living in relative peace. As for monkeys, how are we not living in peace? Do monkeys ever attack us unprovoked? Do normal humans go out hunting primates? With the exception for Poachers and amoral suits who want to destroy jungles, we live pretty peacefully. Compare to humans and mutants, with the exception of groups like the Purifiers and Brotherhood, they live in peace, both doing their own things. And No, only some mutants expressed hate for it, Cyclops didn't want to get involved because, well, it was a humans' problem and they were, as you said, dealing with their own things. M-Day wasn't the only reason they didn't get involved, Genosha was only recently destroyed, the X-Men had unrelated problems as well, and Jean just died. Mutants were busy. If they hadn't been decimated, they, like everyone else, would have been split. Remember, not all mutants opposed the ''mutant'' registration act, some agreed to it and even enforced it (Freedom Force anyone?) You actually made no sense in the comment about 'The X-Men really focused on M-Day but it affected the whole marvel universe as well x-men only got most of the load because super heroes don't really help out mutants'. That is basically what I said, Only the X-Men focused on it because the others weren't involved, because, as you put it, super heroes don't help out mutants, and do you know why? Because ''IT DIDN'T [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] EFFECT THEM!'' As I have been telling you. Sorry for the F strike, but I've been repeating the same god damn things over and over and you still don't seem to get it. And Yes, The existence of Mutant town does suggest mutants with actually dangerous powers are limited. In the original stories, mutants usually had quite limited powers, which is why the metaphor for racism worked. If all these millions of people could ''all'' do dangerous things, then the metaphor breaks, its why its assumed that mutants with Omega level Powers are rare. The majority would have lame powers since the concept of mutants is random powers, and out of the list of possible super powers, actual useful ones, or at least ones that could actually be used offensively to the point of being a danger, are slim. I'm not saying all those mutants are weaker than Beak, but most likely, they wouldn't have dangerous powers, because then the X-Men would be spending all their time stopping the over 8 million dangerous mutants. Have they ever shown that most mutants are dangerous? No, in fact the majority of the X-Men's vast numbers are relatively weak by themselves (Namely, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat, two of the most well known characters, are actually mutants with Heart powers, its just they're awesome at using them in their own way). And, to finish it off: No, I'm not saying it wouldn't be different without M-Day, it would, but not to the level you suggest. The only things that would be different would be the things somehow connected to it. Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, the biggest crossovers afterwords, were not directly connected to M-Day, and as such would still happen the way they did. After all, the 15 million mutants are world wide, and as such only the American ones would be even remotely affected by Civil War. Secret Invasion and Dark Reign had nothing to do with M-Day, and Utopia was because of Dark Reign. Even if the Mutant population was still in the billions, Norman Osborn was still planning to get rid of them during Dark Reign, and Cyclops would have moved to Utopia, and made the open invitation to all mutants. Now, please actually think about what I've just said, because I'm getting ''really'' tired of constantly going over the same stuff with you. I try to be nice, cynical, but a nice guy, however you're hard to talk to.

** Humans and monkeys don't peacefully coexist as EQUALS when did most humans wanted to live in peace with mutants and only some mutants said they hated or liked it and those were only the main characters that said something either way I'm pretty sure that most mutants weren't for the act. Also the only reason Cyclops was neutral was because he felt that the mutants had already been through too much during the Decimation to take a stand either way and survive. Also the Freedom Force was the Brotherhood just working for the government so not the best example and what I meant [[SupermanStaysOutOfGotham was that the other superheroes never helped out mutants before regardless of M-Day or no M- Day]]. Also there is a difference between limited and lame and of course Omega's are rare they're supposed to be rare and define dangerous powers do you mean alpha and omega levels or what? Also a large amount mutants whose powers are above lame in any shape can still do a fair amount of damage regardless and even though it was 16 million worldwide there was probably a large amount in America. Also Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, WorldWarHulk were remotely connected to M-Day even in a small way and way would Norman want to get rid of the mutants he never pegged me as the anti-mutant kind and Utopia isn't the best example of Xavier's dream of peaceful co-existence as equals it's more of the morlocks way?

[[folder: Schism's entire plot]]
* Not complaining, but the way they did it was wrong. After years of finally learning to respect each other, Wolverine and Cyclops split apart the X-Men in order to boost sales, but the reason they broke apart was poorly picked. The event that makes Logan want to break apart? That Cyclops is willing to use teenagers. Now, the way he acts is as if Cyclops is sending groups of poorly trained 12 year olds out onto a Suicide mission. He isn't, he was doing the EXACT SAME THING THEY'VE BEEN DOING FOR YEARS! Since its conception, the X-Men has always been built of primarily teenagers forced into life threatening situations. The way Logan acts is as if Cyclops has been recruiting them for a private army, but each one was willing to join and all offered. He's angry at Cyclops for accepting help from teenagers in a situation where it was completely reasonable. Of all the reasons they could have chosen, why something no one has had a problem with for years? What about Logan reforming X-Force in secret? That would be something to start an argument. But no, [[CanonSue Logan]] [[SarcasmMode can't be wrong about a subject.]] Or, what about a more logical approach about Cyclops actually doing something wrong? Yeah, the students are a little young, but Cyclops was only a teenager when he was dodging sentinels. All of them were. Then the little bit with 'Jean was always afraid of you-Who do you think she'd be afraid of now?' seemed like they wanted to make it look like they still had issues, but their entire rapport since her death was both learning to accept the other. I can understand if he was doing something wrong, but it made Logan look like he was just looking for a reason to fall out with him.
** They way I see it is that it wasn't just that, but rather the accumulation of a whole bunch of things Scott has done that Logan disagreed with. Like putting ComicBook/{{X 23}} on a team of assassins right as she was starting to improve at not being a killing machine, deciding to lie to Steve Rogers, and protect Kid Omega, who to be honest just made Utopia unpopular with pretty much every other country in the world. And as to why Logan is so upset about letting the kids fight, This Tropers interpretation is that Logan is afraid that all mutants are going to become nothing more than soldiers, and feel even more distanced from normal humans. And a Schism may have happened even earlier if Nightcrawler hadn't died. He was about ready to call Scott out before his death.
** Actually, not likely, since then everyone else found out shortly after, and once X-Force were done he disbanded them. There was still Wolverine, right when Scott was trying to organize a defense strategy against the Sentinel, he got into a fistfight with him, possibly endangering the very students he wanted to protect. As for protecting Kid Omega, wasn't that the same deal as Xavier taking in Rogue? They took in a mutant in need of protecting, even if at the time they didn't deserve it. Wasn't the entire point of Utopia to take in any and all mutants who needed protection? And, the X-23 thing, this I still don't get, Cyclops didn't force her to do it, and he even made it clear to Wolverine that they had the choice to do so or not. Logan actually called X-23 out on joining it as well, but decided that its her life and her choice. I can see why he'd be upset with him over it, but the exact level of what he went through to do it (Forming his own X-Men, reopening Xavier's school, and acting as if Cyclops was becoming a super villain or something and making a big deal how Jean would be disgusted in him) seemed like a little too extreme. And, as for them all becoming soldiers, when did he ever say that? That's an interpretation, not an explanation. There was nothing to suggest they were all becoming soldiers (Training them to defend themselves and protect their home, yes, but not the same as soldiers) or that Logan was afraid of this happening.
** Logan wasn't interested in saving those kids, as evidenced by his attempts to blow them up – the Cuckoos, at least, were inside, and five minutes to get out of the blast zone isn't guaranteeing their safety. It was probably just Wolverine being impulsive and angry as usual, only moreso.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Should dangerous mutants be cured/contained?]]
* For a group whose goal is human-mutant peaceful coexistence, the X-Men's solution for mutants who are [[PowerIncontinence Power-Incontinent]] [[InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality walking death machines]] is [[FridgeLogic full of potential disaster]], as it amounts to "Wear some nice clothes to keep your powers in check". Let's hope no gust of wind blows off Cyke's glasses while he's out in public or the nice family walking ahead of him, and their little puppy, are now an ugly stain on 5th street. Wither is an even worse example; contact with his skin destroys all organic matter irreversibly; not even the Omega-level mutant with HealingHands can fix it. And Wither ''has'' already killed someone with his powers. We'll put some gloves on his hands and hope nobody accidentally bumps into his head or any other exposed skin. He even erroneously thought he was cured of his powers and grabbed another mutant's hand, '''rotting it off permanently'''. Arguably mutants whose powers are ''that'' dangerous should have way more fixed and assured measures taken to keep their powers under control. Yet when the mutant cure essentially promised to do just that, the X-Men made it about the "anti-discrimination metaphor" because of the off-chance that such a cure might be used against unwilling mutants. If the cure provides the greatest probability that a BlessedWithSuck mutant's powers won't cause some humans to die a horrible death, wouldn't that be the preferable alternative to allow the mutant to integrate into human society and gain some measure of normalcy?
** That's why I've never liked the idea of mutant as racial and homosexual metaphors. A lot of mutants get the cool stuff like weather control and telekinesis, but there's also plenty of people like Rogue, who is unable to simply touch anyone without risking their life. Treating a 'cure' for being a mutant like a 'cure' for homosexuality carries all sort of UnfortunateImplications.
** ^Exactly. The "mutants as racial/homosexual metaphor" thing is complete bunk, always has been. The ''real'' reason why racism/homophobia are wrong is because minorities and gays aren't inherently dangerous to the rest of society. In the end, they're no different than anyone else. But the same can't be said of mutants. People in the 616 universe have ''every reason in the world'' to be afraid of these people. In this troper's opinion the X-Men would make much more sense (and be much more entertaining) if it were portrayed as an examination of the conflict between security and civil liberties. Imagine for a moment that there really are [[PersonOfMassDestruction persons of mass destruction]] living all over the country and the world. Most of them are totally indistinguishable from normal people and many have the power to kill hundreds or thousands of people and demolish entire city blocks (or worse) with the wave of a hand, a blink of an eye, or even a mere ''thought''. Is it okay to have them placed under strict government control and/or segregated from the rest of society? Do their civil rights outweigh the need to ensure public safety? For that matter, do mutants even have rights? After all, mutants are technically a different species. They are homo superior, not homo sapiens. Can they even be said to have human rights when they aren't technically human?
** From another Troper's viewpoint: If EveryoneIsGay were true, it wouldn't take long before it had societal consequences, even ''if'' the majority remain perfectly civil and "harmless" outside the bedroom. Even so, I fully agree that the mutant/gay metaphor is counter-productive to why it was started, and is an all-around bad idea. AIDS scare or otherwise, there is nothing about gays that even compares to someone who can literally kill you by taking his glasses off. No glance from a drag queen can literally microwave someone where they stand. So when this same troper overhears an LGBT get-together on campus embracing the metaphor...
** The metaphor in and of itself isn't the problem. Let's be real: it's the basis for the X-Men's popularity and mass appeal. The metaphor fails when it's applied equally and without distinction to mutants with benign powers as it is to mutants who really should be cured of their powers because they are genuinely dangerous and either cannot control their powers or they're villains and they're [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers willing to abuse their powers just because they can]] (like Mystique in X3: Beast called the President out on having weaponized the cure, then in the climax he uses the cure on Magneto). Take Rogue, for instance. Suppose she were to develop and control her power overnight. Would you, as a person in the X-Universe (human ''or'' mutant), feel safe touching her hand, knowing it wasn't so long ago that doing so would send you into a coma and cause her to be privy to your innermost thoughts? What are the chances she loses control at some point while touching you? What if she ''wants'' to use her powers on you and you just don't know it? In this sense, Rogue would be normal but she'd still be cut off from the world out of fear of her powers, being almost a metaphor for HIV and people's fear of even the slightest contact with the infected. The metaphor can be perfectly maintained without demonizing the humans into villains or irrational, unsympathetic victims/rescuees but the way X-Men is written now is that if all the mutant gene did is turn your skin blue, humans would still be organizing genocidal hate groups and constructing mass armies of giant Sentinels to quarantine and exterminate the 'bluetants'.
** It's actually quite reasonable for people to be worried about seemingly harmless mutants. How many [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_mutation secondary mutations]] have there been? How many might there be? Even the harmless kid who looks like a fish and can breathe underwater could suddenly end up with super-strength and durability and just flip out. Darwin is a mutant whose power is basically him adapting to any situation instantly. He went into outer space, and promptly ''grew'' a helmet. Not to mention the terrorist incidents, like Magneto's doppleganger destroying a good portion of New York and killing millions. Creator/JossWhedon played around with this, natch, when Beast thinks he ''might'' want the cure, but Wolvie attacks him for even having it. The facility that announced they had it had lines around the block within hours. There's also the implications of people dictating other people's sexual identity. Mutants persecuting other mutants for not wanting to be mutants is basically the same thing is people being persecuted for ''being'' mutants. There are "friend of a friend" stories about gays who are hated by other gays if they realize that they're actually bi or straight. Why does no one ever use that metaphor?
** Also, they tried something similar to that, and it was called ''Comicbook/CivilWar''. It probably could've worked, if the writers hadn't been firmly on the non-reg side, along with seventy years of Marvel history. If it were a new comic book universe it might've worked, but not 616.
** The writers were firmly on the ''pro-'' reg side; if that confuses you, the answer is yes, the writers are more than a little Fascist. The had Comicbook/IronMan and co. act like dicks [[DesignatedHero purely because they thought it was]] ''[[DesignatedHero obvious]]'' [[DesignatedHero they were the good guys]], and this was the only way they could think of to [[GoldenMeanFallacy make both sides look fair and balanced.]]
** As noted below, extremely high intelligence has some of the same potential dangers as superpowers. For instance, Reed Richards is the weakest of the Fantastic Four in straight-up fighting power, but if he put his mind to it he'd have by far the greatest ability to kill everybody on earth. Perhaps ''anti-intellectualism'' is the real-world prejudice that presents the best analogy to anti-mutant prejudices in the Marvel Universe....
** Well, the "mutants as a metaphor" thing was done a lot better early on. Most of the mutants who weren't part of the ComicBook/XMen or opposing teams weren't very powerful; people who could sneeze and destroy a city block were exceedingly rare. In fact, before [[Creator/GrantMorrison Grant Morrison's]] run, most mutants looked like normal humans and thusly the paranoia for the "average person" was that anyone could be a mutant, even your next door neighbor or one of your child's teachers. ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Does this sound familiar?]]) Secondary mutations were also fairly rare before Morrison's run. But once [[RunningTheAsylum asylum running]] (and I don't mean Morrison, there are plenty of other people to blame for that) kicked in to full swing, these concepts were lost; probably because subtlety is for losers. So we went from a small group of people who looked like everyone else and weren't able to defend themselves to millions of mutants that looked scary and could blow up everything with the proper application of side-eye. (And this is why they had to have the Decimation.) The reason why the metaphor fails now is because everything had to be dialed UpToEleven.
** Which is why I [[OverlyLongGag really really really really]] hate Omega level mutants. Back when Xavier and Magneto were among the most powerful mutants, their conflict represented a metaphor for how mutants responded to the prejudice; Xavier was the rational, collected, long-term thinker who argued for compassion and unity, whereas Magneto was the knee-jerk, emotional pent-up anger of the oppressed rising up and enacting righteous fury at the humans. But once Xavier went all Onslaught (basically proving that even the most [[MindOverManners mind-over-mannered]] benevolent mutant could become an insane OmnicidalManiac purely from their powers outstripping their sanity), he ruined all credibility from his saintly example as a mutant with incredible power who refused to give into temptation and use his power for evil. Then, as more mutants with uncontrollable powers started causing major catastrophes and more evil mutants popped up who went from fighting Magneto's cause to just plain ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers, both men became irrelevant to the larger issue of how mutants were supposed to exactly coexist with humans. After all, why bother trying to make nice with mankind when [[ComicBook/ScarletWitch Magneto's daughter]] [[RealityWarper can just snap her fingers]] [[ComicBook/HouseOfM and make mutants the ruling class?]] If anything, Decimation did the universe a favor by making mutants a limited group instead of a loaded gun pointed directly at mankind's collective grey matter.
** The concept of Omega Level Mutants was fine, back when it was limited to Jean Grey, [[ComicBook/XMan Nate Grey]], Comicbook/{{Cable}}, Rachel Summers (damn, that is some potent DNA), Iceman, and Franklin Richards. It became problematic when the writers decided to have a Mutant Power Arms Race, suddenly Omega Level Mutants were popping up everywhere. It makes sense that at some point the younger generation will surpass the older generation, but Omega Mutants went from rare and special to [[JumpingTheShark shark jumping]] very quickly. The whole Onslaught thing annoyed me because it was truly out of character for both Professor Xavier AND Magneto, since the official story was that Xavier was "infected" by Magneto's "inner evil", it completely ignores all of that pesky CharacterDevelopment that [[Creator/ChrisClaremont Claremont]] put into Magneto over the 80's. (Not to mention that the whole point of the character was just to move Comicbook/TheAvengers into the ComicBook/HeroesReborn universe, meaning that Onslaught was in all actuality the physical manifestation of ExecutiveMeddling. But I digress.) Sadly, the Decimation was 100% necessary because the X-Men got caught up in RunningTheAsylum that they forgot all of the nuance that went into the history of the X-Men, the parallels between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Possibly the clearest sign of the asylum running, look at how quickly Professor Xavier went from "[[RousseauWasRight genuinely good person]] who keeps his evil locked deep inside because when it manifests it is very bad" to "JerkAss who sent his secret second group of students to die then mind-wiped everyone to forget and enslaved a sentient computer even though he knew it". There is no room for subtlety in the asylum.
** (Not to digress too far) but what's wrong with Omegas is how it's always a designation that's about a mutant's potential and not their actual power. Omega-level mutants, even ones that are in the top-tiers have been bested by non-Omega mutants in fights (Emma Frost and Psylocke in particular have pwned Rachel Summers, aka the Phoenix) solely from being better-trained at their abilities, whereas other characters like Magneto and Scarlet Witch have used their powers to great effect far outstripping anything most of the Omega-mutants have ever done, and yet they're not considered Omegas because no one's ever bothered to call them Omegas. There's so much fan-arguing over the definition of whose an Omega and whose not, since it's an InformedAbility the writers have to spell out and not a definition of how powerful a mutant really is on panel. The only real justified example being Franklin Richards who is too young to use his power effectively except as a DeusExMachina.
** I'd like to point out that one common thing is that it isn't what mutants can ''do'' that makes them hated, its what they ''are'', and that is different, its supposed to be that Humans fear what they don't understand, which is why so many people are Xenophobic in real life, they just don't understand the difference, assume they're better, and hate the 'inferior' beings. The mutant hate is then fueled because some mutants can control all metal/blow themselves up/create earthquakes/Generate more energy then the sun/etc, which is comparable to Islam, some people hate Muslims because they believe in a different faith, or because the faith is practiced mostly by people with different coloured skin, but it gets fueled by 9/11, Reverse it, Some muslims/terrorist sympathisers hate America because of they're a mostly Chirstian country and are mostly white, but its fueled by a lot of the crap the American Goverment has done and their war against Iraq/Afghanistan. If you compare it to homophobia, since it gets compared to that more so then racism, Homophobes hate gay people because they're different and subconsciously fear they themself may be gay (Since most Homophobes are doing it to compensate for their own sexual confusion), then compare it to Mutants: Mutant haters hate Mutants because they're different and subconsciously fear they themselves may be a mutant or that their children may become one, those crazy homophobic Christian fundamentalists who think Gays are the children of the devil? Well, in the Marvel Universe they also think mutants are too. The point is, it doesn't matter what/who they do, someone, somewhere will hate them for it because they don't understand how they can be different.
** That was the original intention, yes, but now what they ''are'' is ''actively a threat''. OsamaBinLaden, while dangerous, is ''not'' biologically classified as an entirely separate species from me. The anti-mutant bigotry in X-Men is more like if ''anyone'' of Arab descent could spontaneously generate powers that could kill or harm lots of people around them, and they might not be able to control it. Heck, anti-mutant weapons once destroyed an entire island nation, making it dangerous to even be ''around'' mutants. Not only do you have to worry about the mutant down the block who can talk to fish suddenly turning radioactive, but you have to worry about the giant robot sent to detain him destroying your neighbourhood by accident. And Homophobia tends to be a lot more complicated than overcompensating for one's own feelings, just like homosexuality is a lot more complicated than the parent of the appropriate gender not hugging someone enough. The entire point of this JBM is that PowerCreepPowerSeep has mad a mess of the original metaphor.
** Ironically, the metaphor has been restored somewhat by the Decimation event that depowered most of mutantkind. Instead of being seen as humans (they're fully human without the mutant gene even though they can get powers back via the Terrigen Mists) bigoted humans are even more empowered and motivated to murder mutants en masse since now the once-mutant humans cannot defend themselves. Rev. Stryker blew up a bus full of kids and ComicBook/XFactor had to deal with a riot in France between mutants and humans who don't want them to integrate. So in many ways the anti-mutant bigots are showing their true colors by being willing to cross the MoralEventHorizon and kill people for no other reason than they used to be mutants.
** ^^ The PowerCreepPowerSeep isn't what invalidated the metaphor. It was faulty from the start. The whole "people fear what they don't understand" argument only works ''when there isn't any legitimate reason to be afraid''. Even if we disregarded all Omega-level mutants and secondary mutations, mutants in general are still ''highly dangerous'' purely by virtue of their existence. Take Kitty Pryde, a mutant with the power to walk through walls. Seems benign on the surface, but consider what was said in the first ''X-Men'' movie: What's to stop her from walking into a bank vault? Or into the White House? Comicbook/{{Cyclops}} has FrickinLaserBeams coming out his eyes that are only stopped by his glasses. Would you be comfortable living next door to him knowing he could trip on the coffee table, lose his shades, and accidentally blast your house to rubble? And good grief, just imagine the implications of even one real-life telepath! What's to stop Jean Grey or Xavier from peeking into your mind and stealing your PIN number? What's stopping them from reading the minds of the Generals in the Pentagon and selling US military secrets to terrorist states? Their good word? Yes, ''some'' mutants have entirely benign powers, but many more do not, and even the benign powers can become dangerous if the mutant in question is creative enough. So how do you maintain order in society when ''at any time'' an otherwise normal person could spontaneously develop deadly superpowers? How do you walk down the street knowing that any of the people passing by you could read your mind, blast you with laser-eyes, or punch your head off at a moment's notice? Would you feel safe? I wouldn't. So why shouldn't we segregate mutants from normal humans for the good of society? If we have a way to "cure" mutations, why shouldn't we force mutants to take the cure for the good of society? The law allows us to forcibly medicate people with certain dangerous mental disorders, how is this any different? Those seem like pretty interesting questions to me. Lots of potential for conflict and deep plots. How far do civil liberties go? Does a mutant's right to be secure in his person override my right to be safe from his dangerous superpowers? Are mutant powers analogous to, say, firearms? Oh wow, now ''there's'' a debate for you. Is mutant control analogous to gun control? If it is, can you support one while opposing the other? If mutant control goes too far, does that mean gun control goes too far as well?
* The thing is that someone who hasn't done anything wrong is innocent, even if they have the ability to do something dangerous. Okay Cyclops could blow someone's head off. So could the owner of a shotgun. Beast could crush someone's skull. So could someone with a rock. The thing that is keeping the X-Men from abusing their powers is the same thing that keeps most gun owners from going on killing sprees, or most people from caving in each others skulls with rocks to see if they can steal their victims wallet, their morals, and legal reprisal. In fact the lack of legal rights and inability to get a fair trial would be a major cause of mutants becoming criminals, whereas having legal protection, and due process, would probably encourage them to act more responsibly. The thing is that their powers are built in. That's why a big part of Xavier's original plan is to educate mutants how to control their powers, and make sure they became responsible members of society. Yeah, a mutant has potentially dangerous abilities, and is a new offshoot species, but is that really a good enough reason to segregate/exterminate all of them? And if you start eliminating mutants for being potentially dangerous then who's next? People with super powers? Maybe the smart guys with no actual powers like Tony Stark and Reed Richards? I mean look at how potentially dangerous the stuff they've invented is? Is it really okay to say they're not human? Is the genetic code the only thing that determines if one should be considered human?
** Another way of looking at it is the cost-benefit ratio of mutant powers. What do the X-Men spend most of their time doing other than enforcing the SuperheroParadox by fighting evil mutants? Sure, fitting in and acting normal should be an option but ReedRichardsIsUseless seems to take on a greater weight for mutants than superheroes, considering that the rest of the world likes the latter but hates the former. Look at the TV show ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred''. The final season had a movement of superpowered people using their abilities to clean up Seattle, doing stuff like purifying polluted lakes. Just imagine how much smaller the FantasticRacism would be if the world saw mutants using their powers to make the world genuinely better; guys with HealingHands working in hospitals in 3rd world countries, ComicBook/{{Storm}} putting out forest fires and ending droughts, etc. Right now if the world got rid of all the good and bad mutants, it would just be LikeRealityUnlessNoted but if the X-Men or some other mutant group tried to actively make sweeping changes to the non-mutant problems of the world, they could counter all the examples of PersonOfMassDestruction with examples of mutants being a genuine good to the world. Then all those Sentinel-building mutant haters would have to answer to all the people the mutants help and save.\\
Granted, a big part of this is the powers themselves are geared towards making people hate them. Mutants are designed to be freakish, ugly and with bad powers that range from PoisonousPerson to WalkingWasteland. Imagine if a mutant was born with FertileFeet and a super healing atmosphere effect. It stands to reason if mutant powers were designed to benefit mankind, more mutants would turn out to be good guys. Unfortunately, the comic medium is all about action and designed for fighting and destruction and nobody wants to read a story about mutants just going around helping the world out (''ComicBook/RisingStars'' being one tacit exception).
** One issue with using powers to help society is general understanding of cause and effect. Exploration of Storm's powers show that she has studied the sciences of weather so that she can effectively and safely use her powers. Causing a blizzard is easier in the polar regions than in the desert. And trying to do some weather effects may cause secondary weather formations that would be worse than not using her power at all. Similarly, Iceman can't make ice if there's no water. How do you justify that to people that want an easy fix; do you really need to justify yourself. The Superman page has reference to some stories where Superman started charging for his services. While some of those instances were over the top, the reader is expected to revile him for requesting the bounty on a criminal he caught. Then you've got the issue of how to compete with mutants. Some mutants can do jobs faster single-handed than whole teams can accomplish. It could be argued they have an unfair advantage, but we already pay normal people for capitalizing on talents they were born with.
** The problem with this argument, as said by a number of people beforehand, is that only some mutants are evil/dangerous, but people hate them anyway. In [[WesternAnimation/XMen the animated series]], a mutant whose only power is (Wait for it), Hairy arms, yes, that's it, he's got more hair than normal, yet, the FOH mob still attack him anyway; Likewise, in ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'' #1, A sentinel nearly falls onto a bunch of people, they're all saved by Bobby, using his powers for the first time, the people's response? Throw a bottle at his head and try to kill him because he's a mutant, not because what he can do, but because he's different. Compare it to the Comicbook/FantasticFour, everybody loves them, yet, each one is just as dangerous as all of the normal X-Men, hell, Invisible Woman and Johnny Storm could, if they wanted to, beat the Phoenix individually. As said before, any normal human can kill, what stops you from hiding inside from every person in the world? Because you think they won't. Your neighbor has a car, what stops them from running you down on your way out? Their morals. What stops your pet dog from jumping and biting your neck and killing you? It's morals/training. What stops a person who plays ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' from buying a gun and killing you all? His/her Morals. What stops Tony Stark from using his armours and killing us all? His morals. Likewise, what stops Iceman from freezing you into a statue and then smashing you? His morals. What's the difference? Oh, that's right, [[FantasticRacism Iceman is a mutant.]] See how it works? Just because one individual can be dangerous, doesn't mean he is, forcing all mutants to take a cure and taking away their powers is the same as taking away all car owners' licenses, all dogs their teeth, Tony Stark his armours, and all Video Gamers their violent video games, it isn't right. Compare them to other heroes, like Franchise/{{Superman}}, ComicBook/TheSentry, Comicbook/TheMightyThor, they don't get nearly as much flak as mutants, even though each one has more powers than them and is much more dangerous. Does the public want them to be forced to take a cure to remove their powers or create Anti-supes groups? No, because they're not mutants, you can't just say they need to be depowered/eradicated when much more dangerous people are out there without the X-Gene.
** "hell, Invisible Woman and Johnny Storm could, if they wanted to, beat the Phoenix individually." And there goes all credibility in your argument. You clearly don't have the slightest idea of what you're trying to convey, do you?
** Excuse me? How does that remove all credibility? What I was saying is that Johnny Storm and Susan Storm-Richards are both unimaginably powerful, much more so than all but the most powerful of mutants. Yet, the Marvel Universe as a whole only seems to abuse mutants openly and for the most of it only the X-Men have problems dealing with racism. Secondly, that was one of TWO arguments, the other being that only a small percentage of mutants have, before M-Day, been seen. When non-affiliated mutants are shown, they tend to have very benign powers, if they have any at all.
** There are, in all likelihood, a number of groups who are in fact anti-super in general, not just anti-mutant. Most comics simply don't deal with that side of it. Other than that, bear in mind that the "right" side is whatever side the writers want to be "right", and in this case, they want the mutants to be "right" so their opponents head into racist extremism rather than rational arguments regarding the danger posed.
** The problem with making it all about "training mutants to control their powers" is threefold. First, since most times a mutant power first activates it results in disaster, the solution only works if all mutants are ''sequestered beforehand'' from birth and trained in the art of controlling their powers ''before'' they can flare up and accidentally hurt or kill some innocent bystander and only allowed to integrate into normal society once they've passed a rigorous test certifying they can safely be around normal people. Second, morals and restraint mean jack when [[PowerIncontinence your power is beyond your control]] and its [[InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality destructive at the same time]]. Mutants like Rogue, Cyclops, and Wither aren't bad people per se but their powers are. Third, you can be the most raised-by-Ma-and-Pa-Kent lily white boy scout nice guy/gal with ultra-destructive, yet perfectly-controllable superpowers who wouldn't hurt a fly; it doesn't mean jack if some [[PsychicPowers telepath]] decides to MindControl you or [[GrandTheftMe take your body for a ride]] and go off on a killing spree and you won't be able to do anything about it if they're strong enough to beat whatever HeroicWillpower or other psychic defenses you might have. So while you might be able to make a case for the guy whose mutation just gives him hairy arms getting to keep his X-Gene, the really powerful Alpha and Omega-level mutants are another story.
** ^Exactly. Sure you have some mutants like Beast who have pretty benign powers, but then you have others like Rogue who can kill you ''by accident'' just by touching her bare skin against yours. Or guys like Cyclops who shoots uncontrollable death rays out of his eyes 24 hours a day. If he slips on the stairs and his ruby glasses fall off, his eye-beams will cut right through the walls and into the neighbor's house. When his powers first manifested in the 616 universe he nearly destroyed a construction yard he happened to be walking past. And in the Ultimate universe he ''killed his own parents'' when his powers flared up the first time.\\
Also, even if you only consider mutants with benign powers that are not inherently dangerous like Beast or Kitty Pryde or Jean Grey, the mere fact that they ''have'' such incredible power is still cause for concern. The thing that stops a shotgun owner from going on a killing spree is partly morality and partly the fact that he would be quickly arrested or killed in the process. But what's stopping a girl who phases through walls from walking into a bank vault and walking out with as much money as she can carry? What's stopping Jean Grey from pinching your carotid artery shut with her telekinesis if you piss her off? The very fact that they have incredible powers that no other human can hope to counter is a legitimate reason to fear them. Is it enough of a reason to also oppress them? Good question. There's the real debate.
** "it doesn't mean jack if some [[PsychicPowers telepath]] decides to MindControl you or [[GrandTheftMe take your body for a ride]] and go off on a killing spree and you won't be able to do anything about it if they're strong enough to beat whatever HeroicWillpower or other psychic defenses you might have." This applies to everyone with superpowers though...
** It applies to ''everyone'', period. An evil mind-controller who decided to send someone on a killing spree wouldn't need to pick somebody with superpowers; anybody with a gun or the materials to whip up explosives or poison gas would do. Obviously, that leads back to the conclusion "people with psychic powers are dangerous" and the question of what to do about it.
** "Okay Cyclops could blow someone's head off. So could the owner of a shotgun." Ah, but you forget. Many people around the world believe that even law-abiding citizens ''cannot be trusted with a gun''. So you might say (and for the record I would agree) that persecuting a guy like Cyclops is wrong for the same reason persecuting law-abiding gun owners is wrong, but what about people who strongly believe in gun control? If you believe it's necessary to ban or restrict guns to prevent gun crime, are you obligated to support banning or restricting mutants to prevent mutant crimes? Can you support gun control while opposing mutant control? That, to me, is a ''far'' more interesting debate and one I wish the X-Men books would address.
** It's not just like that, there's a number of points you have to consider:
** Scott instinctively closes his eyes if something happens that could cause his glasses to fall off, in fact, most people by reflex close their eyes when falling or tripping, his glasses just falling off over the least little bump only happens if certain writers want it to.
** ^While this argument is sound, it requires meta-knowledge in order to convince. Readers can accept the idea that Scott instinctively closes his eyes if there's even the faintest risk of his shades falling off because we have meta-knowledge. We know that as a Good Guy, the writers will never allow Scott to cause massive property damage just by tripping over his own coffee table. But the people ''living in the 616 universe'' do not have this meta-knowledge. To them, Scott Summers is just a guy who has incredibly destructive uncontrollable laser beams coming out of his eyes. If some guy told you it's okay for him to constantly walk around with a gun in his hand because he "instinctively" takes his finger off the trigger whenever other people are around, would you believe him? Of course not. So why would the civilians of the 616 universe believe the notion that Scott Summers "instinctively" shuts his eyes to prevent an accident?
** But knowing how Cyclops' power is also based on Meta-Knowledge, as far as most of the Marvel Universe knows, he can control his powers like everyone else.
** As for mutant control vs Gun control, what stops mutants? Power dampeners or post-astonishing mutant cures. What stops guns? Gun control, and safety switches, in the Marvel Universe, they do have anti-mutant weaponry and special police task forces to stop mutant-caused crime. If Kitty Pryde tried to phase into a bank volt, the police mutant task force can use an anti-mutant weapon that cancels out her phasing abilities, not to mention the point of the X-Men was to stop mutant crimes in order to get co-existence, in other words, human police can deal with human crimes, mutant police can deal with mutant crime. And even there, isn't it enough to be able to trust them? As I said in a previous post, what stops someone from running you down? Their morals, what stops a mutant from using their powers wrongfully? Their morals, by saying that they still need control means you're not trusting them, why aren't you trusting them? Because they're mutants, so with the same logic that they should be prosecuted just to be sure, does that mean every dog, gun/car owner, and any other human being should be prosecuted ''just to be sure?'' What about Parkour/free runners or Contortionists? What stops them from using their natural skills from breaking into artists? The same as the X-Men, so should we hunt down every contortionist or free runner and take away their skill so they don't use it selfishly.
** ^But even though we have gun control there are still people who demand we have more of it. There are even people who think guns should be banned entirely. So why shouldn't there be people who demand mutants be more controlled or even outright exterminated? In the real world we have things to counter guns just like the 616 universe has things to counter mutants, but that still doesn't stop people from campaigning for more gun control or gun bans. So why would it stop civilians in the 616 universe from campaigning for more mutant control? And you're still arguing based on your meta-knowledge as a reader. ''We'' can trust the X-Men to handle mutant crimes because we are the readers and know the X-Men are Good Guys. But civilians in the 616 universe do not have that meta-knowledge. They have no reason to trust the X-Men. They have no reason to believe the X-Men have any "morals" at all. Regarding the last part of your argument, I'm actually not saying people are right to persecute mutants. What I'm saying is that if mutants really existed it would be ''perfectly reasonable'' for the average person to be afraid of them. No matter how many times you tell the man on the street that the X-Men are good guys who would never do anything wrong, they're still incredibly powerful superhumans and society would demand that they be controlled. Just like many people today demand that guns be controlled. Is it possible to oppose mutant control while supporting gun control? I would say no, but others might say yes. I think that's a much more interesting debate than this frankly outdated "racism" allegory.
** Yes, but there's a difference between guns, and ''people''. As they argued later, and a known fact, not ''all'' mutants are even remotely dangerous. Remember, in real life, there ''is'' [[RealityIsUnrealistic people born with super-ish strength thanks to a genetic defect]], they can lift twice there own body weight before they can ''walk''. Should we eradicate people with this gene just in case they use their strength for less than noble purpose. And they do have reason to trust the X-Men, because the X-Men ''have been saving lives for years'', does proving that they can use their abilities for heroics not mean they should be trusted? You know, in a comic they even teamed up with the Fantastic Four to fight some giant monster, the public's response? Not care and ignore them on the grounds they're mutants. They ''SAVED LIVES'' and got ignored about it. So, I think that, to some of it, its unjustified since the ones that ''are'' dangerous are also the ones fighting to protect them.
** As for the legitimate risks, some mutants could flip out and attack people (Such as the Brotherhood or one of the more volatile mutants) or accidentally use their powers (Such as Cyke, Rogue, or Wither), but Scott has been trained to live without his glasses and how to move around without accidentally letting them fall (Has he ever in the past tripped and shot out a beam of instant death in the past?), and Rogue and Wither stay away from people and cover up as much as possible to avoid contact, and as I said, they have super humans and other mutants, as well as anti-mutant weaponry, to stop the ones who use their powers violently. The only risk from them is [[TooDumbToLive for someone to keep actively trying to knock Cyke's glasses of/touch Rogue or Wither]], in which case they deserve what happens, but that's the same as if someone keeps hitting a dog in the nose with a newspaper or pees on a police car/Tony Stark's car, the dog/police/Comicbook/IronMan did nothing wrong, it was the one who made them attack who should be blamed. So again, should we take away all dogs teeth/claws, all police equipment and training, or Comicbook/IronMan's armour just to avoid the possibility someone might be stupid enough to antagonize them, Just because someone is a risk, whether they act like one or could be one accidentally, is it really right to force them into some machine or prison just in case?
** ^Again, you're arguing based on meta-knowledge.
** Meta-Knowledge is also how we know some of the non-mutant superhumans aren't going to hurt them. Your argument is mute because, non-mutants get trusted despite being more dangerous.
** People with Mental illness, how do you deal with them? Do you send sentinels or force them into prisons? No, you put them into institutes where they're treated for their problem; What do you do with mutants? Send them to Xavier so they can learn how to use their powers safely.
** ^No, you don't send Sentinels after mentally ill people. But you do send cops after them and you DO imprison them against their will if they are sufficiently dangerous. And you don't let them out until they can prove they are not dangerous. Xavier's school is, well, a school. Not a prison or a mental institute. Students are admitted of their own free will and can leave at any time, whether they've learned to control their powers or not. Not to mention there's only ONE Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, whereas there are countless mutants all around the globe. There is no way the civilians of the 616 universe would be satisfied with this arrangement. They would demand that anti-mutant agents like the Sentinels be created to round up dangerous mutants and take them away until their powers can be controlled or permanently cured. And if their powers can't be controlled or cured, the people would demand that the mutant be locked up indefinitely (maybe even euthanized if the powers are dangerous enough). And again, try not to argue based on meta-knowledge. The readers trust Xavier because he's a Good Guy, but why would the rest of the world trust Xavier? They don't know he's a Good Guy. After all, he was a former friend and confidant of Magneto, the most infamous mutant terrorist in history. Why would they trust a private citizen like Xavier when he and his school are not accountable to anyone but themselves? It certainly doesn't help that he has his own paramilitary force at his beck and call to do whatever job he pleases without the approval or sanction of any state authority. I don't know if you're old enough to remember but during the 90s there was a lot of debate about "militia groups" and whether they posed a danger to the public, particularly after the Waco Siege and the Oklahoma City Bombing. A lot of people were ''very'' uncomfortable with the idea of private paramilitary groups operating inside the United States. That's why I say the public would not trust the X-Men.
** Except for a few things. There isn't just one school, Emma Frost had her own, and there's possibly others. Two, The X-Men are NOT a paramilitary group, unless the writers decide to make them one, they mostly just stop the bad ones. Three, they ''do'' know Xavier's a good guy, he's been known to the public as a positive figure on mutation for years. Four, those millions of powerful mutants only exist because we assume they exist. The only mutants we see are the X-Men or their bad guys, look at the times when they show civilian mutants, who're mostly physically mutated and don't ''need'' help to control their ''dangerous'' power to turn sound into light or make a force field that only covers themself and has no offensive capabilities whatsoever. The Marvel Universe knows this, its why mutants get easily hunted down by the bigots. Not Meta-Knowledge.
** Another argument is, try to see it from the Mutant's point of view: you're born with powers that you don't want, people, including own family members, shun you because of it, millions of people in very high places want to lock you up, kill you, force you to undergo horrific treatment, force you to wear power dampeners, or force you to become a living weapon, can you honestly live through that and agree that you are a risk to safety who needs to be put down? The fact is, it isn't about whether or not the government should do something to stop all mutants, its that whether or not its ok for people to band together to kill mutants on the street, even the ones with nothing but hairy arms or funny features, the ones who aren't a danger are still treated like the others, while the uber powerful ones are just a [[VocalMinority Minority that get more attention.]]
** ^I do see it from the mutant's point of view. But I also see it from the general public's point of view. Regardless of when and how they got their powers, a mutant is still a PersonOfMassDestruction and the public would demand that they be controlled just like many people demand that guns be controlled. Mutants have to wear power dampeners. In many jurisdictions guns have to have trigger locks. Some countries ban mutants entirely or even have them killed. Some countries also ban guns. I'm not saying mutant control or gun control are right or wrong. In fact as I said above I happen to believe both are entirely wrong. What I'm saying is that a) normal people do have rational reasons to fear mutants, and b) anti-mutant prejudice makes much more sense as an allegory for gun control than an allegory for racism.
** But not all mutants are Person's of Mass destruction. Kitty Pryde can't destroy masses of people, neither could Darwin, or Beak, Or Angel, Or Angel 2, or Wolfsbane, or Nightcrawler, or Mystique, or Beast, or Changelin/Morph, or luck based mutants like Longshot or Domino, or Forge, or Cecilia Reyes, or Mirage, or Sage, or White Queen, or Stacy X, or lifeguard, or Slipstreme, or Husk (Depending on the writer's idea on her power), or Mastermind/Lady Mastermind, or Armor, or Pixie, or Sunspot, or Doctor Nemesis, or Cyther, or Fantomex, or Calliban, or Gateway, or many other mutants. Yeah, some have some Offensive capability, but The fear is unjustified because mutants aren't all superpowerful. The ones that are? Well, Cyclops, Iceman, Jean, Havok, Magneto, Xavier possibly, Xorn, and a few others. If the millions of unaccounted for mutants were all person's of Mass destruction, then we would have a problem, but they clearly are not because they never have to do something about them, when was the last time the X-Men had to go out and stop a really dangerous mutant who afterwards didn't get arrested or join any team? It doesn't take Meta-Knowledge to know that dangerous mutants aren't always around and not being taken care of, but when mutants who're harmless are getting beaten up for being nothing but different in a harmless way then the gun argument becomes redundant and the racism argument makes sense. Remember, most mutants, if not 99 percent of them, only have one power of varying strength. The Average super human has three. Which one is more likely to be dangerous? The super human, which one gets treated with racial prejudice? the Mutant. Gun owners don't get attacked on the streets for what they own, mutants do, even mutants who can't do squat.
** Making guns/bombs is actually easier than you'd think, just because you have gun control or a way to monitor who buys one, doesn't mean you can stop everyone from getting one, with that sense, any person, no matter how well you know them, could very easily turn out to be a sociopath/terrorists, so what are you to do? Arrest EVERYONE for possibly possessing a weapon?
** ^But yet again, despite all of that ''there are still thousands if not millions of people in the United States and around the world who still campaign for gun control''. It doesn't matter how easy it is to make a gun or a bomb in your garage, they still think gun control is the way to prevent gun crime. Why wouldn't the same logic apply to mutant haters? If there are still people who think more gun control or even total gun bans would solve the gun problem, why wouldn't there be people who think more mutant control or even total bans on mutants would solve the mutant problem? Again, I'm not saying either of those arguments are right or wrong. I'm saying they are more realistic motivations for anti-mutant hysteria than simple racism.
** No more than anti-Islamic hysteria. Not every mutant can do amazingly destructive things, just like not every Muslim wants to blow up a building. the racism metaphor works when you look at mutants like Choir and Cyther, who will be treated like everyone else despite being completely harmless. People seem to confuse Mutant for meaning super powered, when it just means unique genetic variation. While in the Marvel Universe mutants can develop amazingly destructive powers, most of them develop such weak powers they don't get recruited; Xavier didn't even bother to recruit Cyther when he discovered him, because outing him as a mutant was pointless since it was a harmless power but would be treated all the same.
** Everyone is dangerous, especially in the Marvel Universe, where installing cybernetic implants and weapons into your own body are commonplace, as said previously, does that mean everyone should be prosecuted just in case they turn into cyborgs?
** ^That's stretching the point quite a bit. First of all I doubt it's anywhere near as "commonplace" as you seem to think. Secondly, normal people have to ''choose'' to become cyborgs. The mutant gene is an accident of birth and it can pop up anywhere. Nobody is going to wake up one morning and discover their cyborg gene has spontaneously manifested itself.
** Have you read a comic? Cyborgs in the Marvel universe are more than common, and the average citizen in the Marvel Universe knows it too.
** Some mutants can choose to get cured/treated if their power is particularly harmful, the ones that don't are the harmless/easily controllable ones, the {{Big Good}}s who don't need to because they have fine control or other ways of dealing with it, or the {{Big Bad}}s, in which case forcing them to get the cure/treatment isn't a problem, if they can be trusted, then they should be trusted, if they can't be trusted, then you can cure them, same with people who get banned from animal ownership/having children, if they can be trusted to own a dog/have a child, then they should, if they can't be trusted then they shouldn't be allowed to.
** Again, compare it to non mutant heroes. Tony Stark has gotten drunk in his armour/had his armour hacked/lost control of his armour; does the public try to cut off his head or force him to give up his armour? No, for the same reason as before, he's human. The Fantastic Four are just as easy to mind control as any mutant, should they be forced to be cured just on the off chance a telepath might decide to control them? No. No matter what the argument, if you compare it to none-mutants, it becomes a DoubleStandard.
** ^Just because it's a DoubleStandard doesn't mean people still wouldn't argue it. There are plenty of people out there who will immediately believe a woman who says she's been raped but always be skeptical of a man who says he has been raped. Double Standards are TruthInTelevision. And regarding Tony Stark and the Fantastic Four specifically, both of them are fantastically rich and can afford to put out glowing PR campaigns to convince people that they are pure as the driven snow.
** That's the point of their argument! Double Standards are WRONG, even if it does happen in real life. That didn't dispute the argument, than made it stronger.
** ^Civil War is what happened when they tried to extrapolate this attitude to the larger MU, and it simply. Didn't. Work. Like you said, you can't have "mutants are dangerous" and "superheroes are awesome" in the same universe. And in the second film, there's a hearing to determine if Stark should give up the armour. He's lost it entirely once or twice in the comics.
** ^^Those were from buy outs, while the film it was clear the only people who thought he should give it up were depicted as wrong, or douches, and an overwhelming number of people thought he should get to keep it, since its implied a number of times in the opening that Tony has solved all the problems with Al-Quaeda. Back to Mutants, Yes, they shouldn't have both Mutants = bad/Supers = good in the same universe, but as shown a number of times, the people of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse are some of the biggest dicks in the multiverse. Civil War, as you said, is what happens when they try to whole of the MU and yes it didn't work, but it also shows you why its unfair to try and mutants into an anti-mutant system, because of escalation: If a Mutant Registration act happened, which it has in the past, the only way to enforce it is by force, obviously that would require anti-mutant tech, this would lead to sentinels, sentinels lead to Days of Future past, and we all know we don't want that, and then you have Magneto, if someone tries to force him to join the MRA he would react violently, they'd need stronger smarter sentinels, which leads to future wars in which the planet and peoples of it get killed. The solution isn't segregation or FantasticRacism, its trust, if the government is willing to allow mutants freedom and rights, if they get treated right by everyone, there wouldn't be a problem, which is why you can compare it to gays and minorities in real life, race riots/wars start because one party doesn't like the other because of their race, they try to strip them of their freedom/rights, they fight back; treat them equally, racism ends.
** ^^^"and an overwhelming number of people thought he should get to keep it, since its implied a number of times in the opening that Tony has solved all the problems with Al-Quaeda." That was from Tony himself, who is unreliable at best. Even if he was correct, and Iron Man is a nuke/terrorism deterrent, doesn't it make sense to have two of them, just in case? In fact, if there wasn't another suit, Tony would've been killed by Vanko. The entire point of the film is that Tony isn't really facing up to the fact that a)he's not indispensable, b)he's going to die, and c)he needs to open up more to the people close to him.\\
"the only way to enforce it is by force, obviously that would require anti-mutant tech, this would lead to sentinels," Whoa thar. There are plenty of anti-mutant measures short of big purple and blue robots, most notably ''superheroes''.\\
"if they get treated right by everyone," Counterpoint: Magneto. To quote the First Class trailer, "Peace was never an option."\\
"why you can compare it to gays and minorities in real life," Except for the part where no real life minority can shoot lasers out of their eyes. Or has a split personality which is a psychopath with unlimited cosmic power. Or has a split personality that manifests as Onslaught. Or can walk through walls at will. Or can turn bulletproof at will. And remember, these are the good guys. There are some elements in common, but mutants. Are. Dangerous. Full stop.

** Not all of them, that's the point. All groups have their odd balls or dangerous members, but praying on them all is wrong. The decimated mutants were all powerless, but were still attacked and killed. VocalMinority is a trope all about one small group making it harder for the rest of them to be treated equally. Mutant's aren't generally feared because of what they can do, they're feared for being different, gay people aren't all psychotic rapists but some people treat them as if they all are.\\
Taking a quote from MAGNETO of all people isn't the best way to win an argument, they guy is an extremist, its the point of his character, that's why he's a bad guy. He wasn't treated equally because of his power, which is why he's so screwed up, that and the Holocaust, you essentially confirmed the argument with an example.\\
While it was him who said the quote, no one disputed Stark's claim of world peace, and from all the cheers and celebration people gave him, he's became an icon, the only fear is from the government and possibly smaller cases that weren't shown/delved into.\\
Essentially, the only mutants that should be feared are the ones who ask for fear: Apocalypse and the like. The ones who legitimately pose no risk or don't actively try to hurt people have done nothing wrong and as such aren't dangerous, or no more dangerous than a guy with a car, you can't pin all the blame on all of them when only a small group are actually dangerous.
** 1. Speaking as an actual minority; I can't shapeshift, metal claws don't pop out of my wrists, and I can't fly. 2. "What they can do" is exactly what makes them "different". 3. It's not about "blame", it's not about "fear", it's about '''risk'''. Professor X, who is the leading advocate for mutant-human peace, once became [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onslaught_(comics) Onslaught]]. In the films, he's manipulated into nearly killing every mutant on earth, then every human. And he's the ''good guy''. The bad guys are even worse. 4. Cars require training and a license to operate, and they're very conspicuous, what with being cars and all. Cyclops once vaporized a sentinel. Not destroyed. Vaporized. That's a lot more power than one gets with the keys to a hatchback. It's closer to the gun-control debate, except if guns were ''written into someone's DNA''. Or, alternately, mentally unstable people who could just randomly flip out and hurt someone, whether they want to or not.
** Speaking as an actual ''mutant'', in that I have a slightly curved thumb which ''is'' caused by mutation, I can't do those things either, yet I too was discriminated against for it when younger. Cyther can't grow claws or shape shift, he's a mutant, Choir can't shoot lasers, yet she's a mutant, Beak, Angel Salvador, and the long list above can't do half the stuff the bigger names can, but that's because mutation doesn't just mean super powers. While heart powers can be used creatively, they're still weak, but their 'owners' get discriminated against just as much as everyone else.
** 1. But the point is exactly that, not all mutants are dangerous, one comic said that most mutations are harmless physical ones, but the bad guys still treat them like shit, blaming ALL mutants for what a small group can do is the same as blaming all Muslims for terrorism, so them being 'different' ''is'' what makes them hated. I remember reading a fanfiction where one mutant had the power to heal, which he used to bring someone who'd been hit by a car back to life, the response by the man he just saved? Call his friends to go a beat him up for being a mutant, the mutant was beaten to an inch of his life. The harmless ones will still be blamed for what the dangerous ones can do, that is the comparison. 2. The Film example was when Xavier was being mind controlled, and Onslaught, to quote one of those floating hand cartoons, 'We like to pretend that didn't happen.' And even there, many non-mutant supers are treated with nothing but trust despite being a lot more dangerous, hell, the sentry killed TWO gods in one day, yet everybody loved him, the only time they get mistrust is when a villain deliberately tries to make them look bad. 3. Most mutant powers can be controlled, and if they can't they can be cured or handled, People with mental problems can usually take medication or therapy to handle their problems, mutants both have the cure, power dampeners, or easy ways to handle them, which is comparable to mentally ill people getting medication. If this doesn't work, they can always go to the nice house on Graymalkin Lane/nice building/island off the coast of San Francisco to learn how to control their powers. 4. To some up my points: Only a VocalMinority of mutants pose any threat. Mutants who do pose a risk should be treated like the non-mutants who pose a risk. If they cannot control their power they can have it handled/cured or seek training. Locking them up/beating the harmless ones up because of Magneto ripoffs: Bad.
** Also another point that needs to be stretched. The Fantastic Four spend a number of there screen time fighting something they caused, and in the film the only 'heroics' they do is saving people from things that they themselves are directly responsible for. X-Men spend most of their time fighting to save a world that hates and fears them, and because they have so many members they often die doing it. Combine this with other points. Only a minority of mutants are dangerous, and over half of those are running around protecting people from things they shouldn't have to. The Fantastic Four are just as Dangerous, in fact Susan could probably KILL the most powerful mutant if she wants to, yet they fight to protect a world that loves them from problems they caused, all the while encouraging kids to buy their action figures.
** Also, one hilarious thing to point out is, we've been debating the very same thing that they debate in the comics. [[WildMassGuessing It's highly possible this is Marvel's intention, to make people debate whether or not a Mutant Registration Act is really needed or if Mutants are a danger.]] This proves that both sides have valid points, but again we must stretch that the 'Mutants are dangerous' argument when you realize that almost all of the x-Men's enemies were turned villainous by [[BullyingADragon humans being such ass holes to them]].
** Mr. Sinister. The Hellfire Club. The Sentinels. Stryker. None of them were bullied. If you mean the mutant enemies, then that's pretty much just Magneto who was "bullied", if that's what you call being a ''Sonderkommando'', which does not actually have anything to do with his powers. Sabretooth is just plain nuts. Mystique is...damaged. And mutants will have superpowers (which ''might'' be dangerous) by definition. This isn't "moderate Muslims" vs "extremist Muslims"; a proper analogy would be if ''any''--not ''every''--Muslim might just randomly flip out and kill people at any time, which we know isn't the case. Are the hate crimes justified? No. Are a certain amount of fear and caution justified? I think so.
** They never said bullied, they said being a-holes, and that was just one thing. Magneto's biggest way of converting confused mutants to his cause is to point out their treatment. And again, Not. All. Mutants. Actually. Have. Dangerous. Powers.
** To interject: most non-mutant villains in the Marvel Universe gain their villainy through some fault of their own; they're mad scientists who build a machine/serum/invention and that causes some [[AppliedPhlebotinum Phlebotinum-based]] mutation. It makes perfect sense to judge superhuman heroes differently from superhuman villains because the villains clearly fall into villainy by choice. Some do get uncontrollably exposed to some toxin/accident or whatever but for the most part, they were bad people (or at least reckless in not considering the consequences of their experiments) before they became villains. Mutants, on the other hand, aren't responsible for the mutant gene. There's no choice in becoming a dangerous or harmless mutant so it makes sense to judge most mutants the same since there's no rhyme or reason behind why one mutant gets green skin and water-breathing, while another mutant kills people just by touching them.\\
Which brings me to my original point; why can't the Franchise/MarvelUniverse invent a tier system to judge the threat level of each mutant based on their powers? If all your mutant power lets you do is see a few minutes into the future or something, you should have a classification that designates you an unlikely threat to other people. The tier could be based on a) the power's potential for harm, b) whether or not you have control over your power, c) whether or not you have a device/means to control your power artificially if you don't meet step b, and d) if you have a personal history of using your powers to commit crimes and/or hurt other people. From those 4, you can come up with a threat level 0 (Neutral) to 5 (Dangerous) and a [[SuperRegistrationAct registration card]] that lets people know they can be at ease around you.
** ^I don't think the tier system you describe would work because how dangerous a power is depends on how creatively you use it. For instance, take your hypothetical about a person who can see a few minutes into the future. A person could do a surprising amount of damage in just "a few minutes". You could use that power to track the security guards at a secret government facility in order to steal a deadly biological weapon. You could use it to play the stock market, possibly upsetting entire industries and leaving hundreds of people destitute. You could use it to murder someone by knowing the exact moment when they were alone, distracted, and someplace no one would hear them scream. Wars are won and lost in "a few minutes".
** I agree that a tier system would work, probably because that's exactly how they categorize mutants in the comics. I forgot the actual lists, but this is where the Omega level mutant classification comes from, it just doesn't come up often that other classes exist. However, as said before, some of the less stable mutants would likely refuse to get registered, and then we get a Civil War esque arc. As for mutants turning to villainy because of prejudice, while Magneto is the one most notable, there's also the number of Brotherhood members. And what about the single most dangerous mutant villain in the X-Books? Apocalypse was driven to hate humans because of the activity of Kang/Rama Tut, combined with, If memory serves, the negative reaction people gave to his strength and unusual skin. Another point is, as said before several times, mutants who are actually dangerous either by power, control, or mental state, are all the ''minority'' of mutants. As shown in one of the last runs before ComicBook/HouseOfM (Creator/GrantMorrison's run maybe?) they have an entire subculture of mutants, all who have either no or [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway heart]] powers. So they're no more reasonably concerned than leaving the bar when a Muslim shows up. At most they should deal with mutants the same way they deal with Islamic extremism or Mentally Ill: If the mutant is powerless or weak they should be treated like anyone else, if they're dangerous in some way, proceed with caution or proscribe them some way to deal with them (Like send them to Xavier's school) or monitor them, if they're evil, deal with them like they do with terrorism: Send those capable of dealing with them (The X-Men) and such. As such, Hate crime: Wrong. Mistrusting them for nothing: Wrong. Mistrusting the ones who are dangerous, not because they can't help it but because they choose to be villainous: Right.\\
** I think it also needs to be taken into account that powers and personality aren't always separate things. There is a mutant subculture, and mutants define themselves and each other by their powers. Hence the evolution of their super names from "codenames" to "mutant names" in the Marvel Universe. For good or worse, growing up with that identity and then possibly having taken away has got to be shattering to one's idea of self. Look at most of the mutants who have been depowered (Storm, Jubilee, the Decimated) even if they didn't like their powers, having them taken away would be like you or I having our nose chopped off. Yeah, it technically wouldn't kill you, but you'd miss it because it's a part of who you are. You also have the problem of a lot of mutants probably relying on their powers for their livelihood. We don't see much of non-X-Men activity from mutants but from what we do see a lot of mutants spend their teenage years honing their powers and then relying on that for the rest of their lives, forgoing secondary education in favor of honing their mutant training (ComicBook/{{Dazzler}}, Multiple Man, Wolfsbane, and a bunch of minor one-note characters, especially physical laborers, investigators, mercenaries, and law enforcement) in which case taking away their powers would be like chopping off the arms of a construction worker. But really, the fact of the matter is that no matter how dangerous a mutant is a "regular" super or even a human with a little bit of black market alien or supertech can be just as if not more dangerous in the Marvel Universe, meaning the debate as it stands is kind of moot as long as the X-Men live in a shared universe where Tony Stark and Reed Richards get a fair pass for the shit they pull regularly.
** "Okay Cyclops could blow someone's head off. So could the owner of a shotgun." A better argument would be, Cyclops could blow someone's head off. So could Iron Man. As said, the argument stands pointless while this is in the same universe as hundreds, if not thousands, of non mutant Super Humans, who're each more dangerous than 90 percent of the mutant population. That's not going in to the amount of Anti-Mutant weapons they have, or other ways to handle them. In the Marvel Universe, they're practically as dangerous as a dog owner. You forget that, they do have ways to deal with Mutant powers that essentially make them nothing more than your average citizen.
** With regard to Comicbook/IronMan, the government could simply confiscate his armor if they believed he was a danger to the average citizen. He would still be Tony Stark; the "power" is essentially separate from the person. With mutants, you can't just "confiscate" their power. The "gun control" metaphor fits in some ways but not in others, because Cyclops is "born" with a gun attached to his arm and has to train his whole life to safety it. The only way to remove it for sure is to cut his eyes out, which is horribly debilitating and cruel. Cyke is probably not the best example because his personality and absolute control of shutting his eyes compensates for his PowerIncontinence but we can't expect that every mutant with uncontrollable powers is going to have Cyke's level of obsessive-compulsive discipline.
** Also, the tier system isn't meant to be perfect; it's only to separate out the mutants with dangerous, uncontrollable powers that, as I described in the OP, break the mutant/racism metaphor, while at the same time giving credit to mutants like Cyclops that at least try to compensate for their PowerIncontinence with discipline and practice.
** There's also the point that without a costume a dangerous mutant can be ''anywhere''. Guns are visible, and the more concealable a gun is the more hoops you have to go through to carry it. Someone can also drop their gun when ordered to by the police, or show both their hands to prove they do not have a gun ready. Guns need licenses most places, so there is some oversight and at least minimal hope that someone who has one knows how to use it safely and responsibly. A mutant, on the other hand, has a weapon that is completely concealed, always ready, and potentially uncontrolled. It's fine to say that someone like Beak has no offensive powers and isn't dangerous, but that's because you know that AS THE READER. Someone actually living in the universe sees Beak, can tell Beak is a mutant, ''but has no idea what Beak can and cannot do''. And that's frightening. Especially when the media is constantly inciting hysteria, politicians are appealing to anti-mutant prejudice to win votes, and, oh, ''a mutant just blew up half of midtown and a bunch of other mutants wrecked the other half trying to stop him''. Mind you, while the risk factor may explain anti-mutant prejudice, it doesn't explain [[BullyingTheDragon what we see in the comics]].
** Honestly, all the dragon bullying makes perfect sense to me. You just have to account for the fact that emotions are not logical. Fear ''very'' quickly becomes anger when faced with the person or thing that made you afraid. People hate feeling powerless, and fear does exactly that, especially fear of an unknowable, unseen force. People afraid of mutants can tell themselves, "Man, if I ever got my hands on a mutant, I would unleash all holy hell on their ass!" as a way to make themselves feel less afraid of what is, for them, effectively the mutant bogeyman. This behavior can be seen all throughout history; for American examples, see burning crucifixes on African-Americans' lawns, the Red Scare, anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of 9/11, concentration camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII, and modern-day persecution of homosexuals. Fear, especially irrational fear, can inspire outright genocidal anger and hatred in people who are tired of being afraid and are going to take out all that anger and hatred on the people who they blame for their fear. Sure, on a rational level, it seems illogical to lash out at someone who can probably vaporize you with their brain or something, but strongly-charged emotions like the combination of fear and rage do a very good job of blocking out logic in favor of action.
** A lot of the arguments above fail to address one basic problem; powers when they first appear are generally uncontrollable. Sure, you can teach the kids later, but it takes at least hours and probably days before any experts can arrive. In that time the most horrible things could happen. A kid could suddenly develop laser eyes in the middle of a classroom because his grade was too low. A kid being teased by his older brother could suddenly develop poisonous skin, killing the brother instantly. A kid could be scared by the launch of an airplane and become a human rocket, explode, rip the plane apart with magnetic powers, or just phase through the bottom of that plane and fall to his death. Thanks to secondary mutations, this can actually still happen to mutants who fully mastered their powers. The most disturbing example is the kid from ultimate marvel with toxicity powers, killing the entire population of his hometown. Imagine if something like that happened in a major city. And, while large-scale deaths are rare, single deaths, wounds or just massive damage does not seem to be extraordinary. And with the numbers of mutants growing, the frequency of this sort of thing happening would only go up. As an added bonus: here are some common situations that could trigger powers and pre-established powers that could wound or even kill people in those situations:
** getting in a fight: propelling yourself like a rocket, laser eyes, creating fire, creating electricity, super-strength, claws, poisonous skin, phasing if you get your hand stuck in his head by accident,
** first kiss: fire-chin, poisonous skin, phasing if you get stuck in the other, creating electricity, creating fire and laser eyes.
** First lay: all of the above, plus super-weight, growing bigger (if on top), growing smaller (if on bottom), super-strength, propelling yourself like a rocket and any physical changes that are too significant.
** plane launches/landings (for people who are scared of them): super-weight, phasing, propelling yourself like a rocket, magnetism, weather control, fireworks, laser eyes, disrupting electronics, creating fire, growing bigger and creating electricity. Not as common as the others, but have more casualties per accident.
** Which highlights the difference between if the X-Men were taking place in the real world versus a fictional 'verse. The writers are careful not to overdo the casualties of first-time flare ups but at the same time, the horror stories about manifesting powers are a trope in and of themselves in the X-books. That kind of goes into the OP; the X-Men do a good job of training mutants on how not to hurt people ''after'' their powers flare up but don't put much thought into how to proactively put a lid on mutant powers to prevent collateral damage. The technology does exist; there have been power-suppressing collars used in both the comics and the animated series. Unfortunately this is one of those ideas that has a [[StrawmanHasAPoint strawman attached to it]]: since the people who design this kind of technology are always [[FantasticRacism racist muggles]] out to enslave, kill or otherwise oppress mutants, the X-Men would be very hesitant to embrace it.
** Which is part of the problem people have with the free-mutation argument. By all logic, there should be dozens of deaths or injured every year due to mutants gaining their powers and with a simple and fairly humane solution in the power-suppressing collars. However, the universe doesn't seem to follow its set-up, just to make everyone who wants to limit or control mutation in any way look like a bigot.
** Thought: most comic book writers are liberals. Suppose the metaphor for the Mutant Registration Act was a national gun registration act (rather than the Nuremberg Laws). Most likely, all those evil right-wingers would be written as opposing the MRA. Another thought: suppose Professor X got his funding from the federal government, and the Xavier Institute was instead the Xavier Agency. By the rules of comic books, the X-Men would almost certainly be evil dangerous villains, and all fear of them would be justified. (Because somehow being afraid of the CIA is never a case of "fearing people because they're different".)
** But, once again as has been said many times by a few people, the gun control idea doesn't work because not all powers are dangerous. Look at X2, when the mansion's roster is highlighted. We have a girl who can scream loud, a kid who can freeze beers, another who controls fire, a guy with metal skin, a girl who walks through walls, a kid who has a blue tongue, one who can change a TV channel and doesn't sleep, and, a few random kids who we don't see much of. Look at District X in the comics, most of them are only scaled covered or blue haired. Mutants with lame powers are more common than mutants with 'oh crap' powers. Forcing an Omega Level mutant to register makes sense, forcing a kid who can change his skin colour by will to is wrong. There's been many mutants who become X-Men with really bad powers, yet there's supposed to be, before M-Day messed it up, a million different mutants in the world. Theres at most 200 named X-Men and an equal number of mutant villains. Many of which, are lame. If mutants were so destructive that every mutant who's reaction to their first use is mass collateral damage, the X-Men would spend all of their time flying around and finding them. But they don't, only once every so often are they shown flying to Utah to deal with an Omega level mutant or one with similar level abilities, most of their time is used fighting whichever extremist the current story is dealing with. It can't be logically possible for the majority of mutants to be dangerous. If they never mentioned the exact number of mutants we could assume that most are powerful, but there's multi-millions of them, with less than a thousand of which have even been seen, never mind named, that only a percentage of are dangerous.
** What about the simple ethical argument that it is wrong to use violence against someone for something that is not within their control?
** It is debunked by a simple practical argument that, callous as it may sound, it doesn't really matter to people who got hurt, if the offender meant it or not.
** We don't punish someone who has a seizure who never had any history of them if someone gets injured, why would we then punish a mutant when his first 'seizure' results in accidental injury? Both are comparable, just because the people who got hurt are outraged or want vengeance doesn't mean that they're in the right or that the lack of intent to cause harm due to it being outside their control is irrelevant because it is relevant. An in comics example would be the prostitute Rusty Collins accidentally burned when his powers first manifested. She forgave him because she knew he had no intention of hurting her and it was something outside his control, an accident.
** But what a lot of people seem to be missing is that, pre-M-Day, Mutants being powerful was an in-universe VocalMinority. We see Cyclops blasting buildings and Magneto tearing apart bridges, and yes, that would be scary as hell to the common man. But does being grey skinned and able to detect other mutants seem all that dangerous, as with the mutant Caliban? Or being slightly bigger than average or have animal like abilities? Or even, my personal favourite, having butterfly wings? There was a canological slum for useless mutants with lame powers called District X. Mutants as a people aren't dangerous, ''high level'' mutants are, of which only builds/built up a tiny percentage of mutants. Yes, after House of M that doesn't work considering most mutants lost their powers, but look at what's left: Less than a hundred mutants spread across two-three factions, and a hell lot of depowered mutants who can't hurt a fly (except for the former students, who due to training will now be BadassNormal guys, but that's beside the point). So, to alliterate my points once more since some people seem to keep ignoring them, The mutant=Black/Gay metaphor is held up by the fact that Mutants as a whole aren't dangerous, just as black people as a whole don't carry guns or do drugs and gay people as a whole don't molest children or 'convert' others, and while each group does have members who do fit the stereotype of all powerful and dangerous/gun-totting drug dealers/child molesting converters, you shouldn't assume each member does so.
** It still doesn't really work. Black people do not have a, say, 1 in 1000 chance (which seems pretty accurate considering the mutants we've seen) to have a deadly weapon they don't have any control over. Most people on the page seem to agree that its not the evil mutants who are the problem. Its the random mutants who simply don't have full control over their abilities. Chamber once destroyed a chunk of a building when someone tried to kiss him (somewhere in early ComicBook/GenerationX). Imagine that happening if he lived in a flat apartment next to you. Remember that Storm, a very high-level mutant with excellent training still doesn't have full control over her powers, influencing the weather with her mood. The problem isn't the average mutant. The problem is that the exception can do a lot of damage and there may be nothing the exception can do about it. Omega-level mutants are rare, but there are more of them than one in a million. Imagine if the entire world became mutants, as is the current trend in the Marvel Universe. One single omega-level mutant without control of powers could kill thousands, maybe even millions. Gun control or racism really don't work as a metaphor. It's like you send every person in the world a random gift. These gifts can contain a wide variety of objects. They can be small toys, household machines, personal jetpacks, nice-looking shades, etc. . However, these gifts may also contain weather control machines, earthquake generators, dead-man-switched nuclear bombs, giant laser cannons, or miniguns. However, one cannot open the gift without activating its contents, and it can be used infinitely afterwards. Everyone in the world receives these gifts, with equal chances of it being dangerous, no matter their state of mind. Does that honestly sound like a good idea to you?
** No, it doesn't, but you seem to be overestimating the chances of Omega Level mutants. You claim that there's more than a one in a million chance of getting one, but while that is a very high statistic, there's only been about two hundred mutants shown in detail, with only five or six of them being Omega level (Most of whom got to that point with outside enhancement from a machine or cosmic entity). It's been stated a few times that there are millions or even billions of mutants (Pre-Decimation). The mutants we see are the mutants who Xavier or Magneto approach. Why do they approach them? Because these are the mutants who could actually hurt someone with their abilities. The other mutants are left alone because they don't want or need assistance and don't pose any risk to anyone, otherwise Xavier wouldn't just leave them to their own devices. Your random gift metaphor only works if you assume that the 'good' stuff is just as likely to be given out as the 'other' stuff. How many mutants can control the weather? 1 (Storm). How many can control an entire force of nature? 2 (Storm in part, Bobby) How many can shape planets? 3 (Apocalypse, Jean, and Magneto). How many without assistance from a cosmic force of nature? 0. The most powerful of mutants is only such because he altered his DNA and biology with alien machinery, the only mutants who can shape a planet needed to alter themselves to do it with machines, drugs, or bonding with an alien force of nature. The only two 'true' Omega level mutants ever shown is the poster child of a Team Mom (and was once depowered) and a guy who has no idea ''how'' to use his god like power for anything more than making slides and bridges or performing DeusExMachina moves, and the powers in between 'useless and harmless' and 'god like' not only vary, but in their world that takes up less than two hundred, and ranges from healing factors and bag lady fingernails to concussive beams of varying usefulness. The only powers you really have a chance to get is being able to heal fast or having funky hair (or [[MostCommonSuperPower bigger than average boobs]]). So, when all these gifts get given out, when everyone has green/blue/silver/multi-coloured hair/skin with varying levels of density or being able to heal fast or whatever else you have, the ones who get 'good stuff' will need to learn how to use it for anything more than making quick getaways or developing new powers for the sake of plot, and the ones who are strong enough to do any damage? They'll be such a little amount of them that it would be outright discriminatory to assume that anyone, just because they're a mutant, is potentially that powerful. Yes, this isn't helped by the fact that the mutants shown tend to have cool powers, but we have a trope to describe that: VocalMinority. My point is, we only see a small percentage of the mutant population, and these are the ones who are (possibly) dangerous. The ones we don't see are the ones who get attacked on the street by lynch mobs or slung abuse because they don't look normal and don't have any useful power to defend themself with.
** ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'' brings this into a more realistic light. Pepper says that yes, how people treat mutants is wrong, but they at least have a good reason to be afraid.
** I was actually thinking about this lately, and I realize that, while mutants seem to represent various different minorities, one that no one points out that they actually bare a lot in common with are the mentally ill. Generally, most people with mental or social disorders don't, actually, pose any threat to anyone, but a few have committed violent crimes that have lead to the assumption that everyone with any mental or social issues are dangerous, and lead to a significant amount of bias against them.
* Hi, I'm coming to this discussion rather late, but I'm wondering why this debate seems to have been about the nature of this power versus that Omega power or whatnot. So what about a different issue: that people have this thing called universal human rights, and that because of those, ''it is wrong to punish an innocent person if he/she has not committed an offense''? Why has nobody brought ''that'' issue up? Why is this debate entirely about whether or not mutant powers are dangerous? "Shared vulnerability to suffering" is the entire point behind ethics in the first place, and why we should treat others as we would wish to be treated. ''Us Tropers'' would hate being treated like trash if we've done nothing wrong, but it's okay when it's mutants we're talking about?
** The issue is complex because mutant powers are subject to PowerIncontinence. Which means that issues of guilt or innocence are irrelevant to the ability to inflict harm to others. For example, Rusty Collins, who power is PlayingWithFire, completely unintentionally burned a prostitute he was with entirely out of sheer nervousness! Rogue's power also first manifested in an otherwise harmless adolescent kiss. So, how are the victims of mutant PowerIncontinence to treated? Should any injuries or fatalities they cause simply be chalked up as "unavoidable accidents"? This is ''before'' one even takes into consideration the growing number of mutants that are basically walking nukes! In RealLife, for example, people carrying infectious diseases with easy transmission vectors are often obliged by the government to enter quarantine. It is not a question of individual civil rights so much as the need for public safety. The infected person is not truly guilty of anything, nor do they control the spread of their disease if their vector is, for example, airborne. But that only means that they are a threat to other people's safety regardless of their own intent. Mutants present the same problem. Especially since initial manifestation of many mutant powers are uncontrolled, regular criminal liability is not the problem, nor is innocent-until-proven-guilty. Because in many cases they are technically innocent because they cannot control their powers, but nevertheless their powers are a direct threat to other people. Since mutation is unpredictable the problem is only worse. A kid that manifests energy manipulation powers during the school day could potentially inflict far worse casualties than a malicious school shooter, even though the mutant kid probably didn't even know they were capable of causing such harm.
[[/folder]]

** No, it doesn't, but you seem to be overestimating the chances of Omega Level mutants. You claim that there's more than a one in a million chance of getting one, but while that is a very high statistic, there's only been about two hundred mutants shown in detail, with only five or six of them being Omega level (Most of whom got to that point with outside enhancement from a machine or cosmic entity). It's been stated a few times that there are millions or even billions of mutants (Pre-Decimation). The mutants we see are the mutants who Xavier or Magneto approach. Why do they approach them? Because these are the mutants who could actually hurt someone with their abilities. The other mutants are left alone because they don't want or need assistance and don't pose any risk to anyone, otherwise Xavier wouldn't just leave them to their own devices. Your random gift metaphor only works if you assume that the 'good' stuff is just as likely to be given out as the 'other' stuff. How many mutants can control the weather? 1 (Storm). How many can control an entire force of nature? 2 (Storm in part, Bobby) How many can shape planets? 3 (Apocalypse, Jean, and Magneto). How many without assistance from a cosmic force of nature? 0. The most powerful of mutants is only such because he altered his DNA and biology with alien machinery, the only mutants who can shape a planet needed to alter themselves to do it with machines, drugs, or bonding with an alien force of nature. The only two 'true' Omega level mutants ever shown is the poster child of a Team Mom (and was once depowered) and a guy who has no idea ''how'' to use his god like power for anything more than making slides and bridges or performing DeusExMachina moves, and the powers in between 'useless and harmless' and 'god like' not only vary, but in their world that takes up less than two hundred, and ranges from healing factors and bag lady fingernails to concussive beams of varying usefulness. The only powers you really have a chance to get is being able to heal fast or having funky hair (or [[MostCommonSuperPower bigger than average boobs]]). So, when all these gifts get given out, when everyone has green/blue/silver/multi-coloured hair/skin with varying levels of density or being able to heal fast or whatever else you have, the ones who get 'good stuff' will need to learn how to use it for anything more than making quick getaways or developing new powers for the sake of plot, and the ones who are strong enough to do any damage? They'll be such a little amount of them that it would be outright discrimatory to assume that anyone, just because they're a mutant, is potentially that powerful. Yes, this isn't helped by the fact that the mutants shown tend to have cool powers, but we have a trope to describe that: VocalMinority. My point is, we only see a small percentage of the mutant population, and these are the ones who are (possibly) dangerous. The ones we don't see are the ones who get attacked on the street by lynch mobs or slung abuse because they don't look normal and don't have any useful power to defend themself with.
** IronManArmoredAdventures brings this into a more realistic light. Pepper says that yes, how people treat mutants is wrong, but they at least have a good reason to be afraid.

[[folder: Why didn't Mister Sinister impregnate Madelyne Pryor himself]]
* Imagine you're an evil mutant scientist who wants to secretly kill his master Apocalypse, so you created a clone of a powerful psychic, hoping she will fall in love with Scott Summers, and have a powerful kid who can defeat your master. But wait! You are more powerful than Scott Summers, so why not impregnate the clone yourself instead of playing matchmaker to your clone? Surely having a baby with an immortal vampire-like man who can regenerate, shape shift, and shoot beams would be more awesome than having a kid with a man with can shoot lasers from his eyes.
[[/folder]]

* Imagine you're an evil mutant scientist who wants to secretly kill his master Apocalypse, so you created a clone of a powerful psychic, hoping she will fall in love with Scott Summers, and have a powerful kid who can defeat your master. But wait! You are more powerful than Scott Summers, so why not impregnate the clone yourself instead of playing matchmaker to your clone?

* Mister Sinister was a powerful villain during the 90s era. Imagine what the kid of a powerful psychic and an immortal regenerating man would look like. Wasn't Madelyne loyal to him? Why go through such a convoluted plan to set Scott up with Jean's clone? Wasn't Sinister more powerful than Scott? Why not perform the deed himself?

[[folder: Just tell people you're not a mutant!]]
* Okay, so let's say you're a close-minded bigot who is running a mutant hate group. How the heck would you know who is a mutant, and who is not? Couldn't a mutant lie to anti-mutant hate groups, and tell them he got his powers from a lab accident? Would they stop harassing him? Personally I would tell people I got my powers from an accident. That way I could be famous, and not receive death threats.