Why Are Mutants The Prime Enemy?

If Human Torch absent-mindedly flames on in a wooden house, people are also going to die.

If the Hulk sneezes this morning(according to modern writing), people are going to die.

If Dr.Strange messes up a spell and summons a Lovecraftian horror, people are also going to die.

If Iron Man gets his armor stolen again, people are going to die.

Everyone in Marvel is dangerous. Mutants, superpowered people by other means, people with access to magic, normal people. Legitimizing mutant prejudice just because they have superpowers in a universe where anyone can trip over some acid to end up just as powerful is without basis. Not to mention, technological edge of certain heroes(Iron Man) and sometimes just training and experience with contemporary weapons(Punisher) lets normal people become just as dangerous.

Which doesn't take away from the metaphor. Mutants aren't especially dangerous than any other group in Marvel, just like, say, Muslims aren't especially dangerous than people of other religions, yet we don't call scumbags bombing abortion clinics "Christian terrorists", or MRA school shooters "Atheist terrorists", etc.

The problem is that Mutants are consistently portrayed as being threats with stories focusing on them as living WM Ds. It feels like the writers are buying into the stereotypical image of the real life groups Mutants are allegedly meant to represent.

And yes, it's ridiculous how other powered people don't get this type of bigotry. But perhaps that's evidence that the X-Men belong in their own continuity separate from the MU.

I'd argue the Ninja Turtles are a better portrayal of what the X-Men are going for. They're true outcasts, living in a sewer instead of lavish mansion and while good fighters can't level an entire city just by breathing.

The thing is it's not. Real life prejudice is just as arbitrary. An average Muslim is no more dangerous than an average Christian, yet suffers much more prejudice.

And considering normal people really can match superpowered ones in numerous ways, even bigotry against the superpowered would hold little sense. Sure, a superpowered Metaphorical Argument Man can set a town on fire, but so can Random Marvel Genius #4567 with a backyard-built bomb.

It should be noted that the Hulk is already considered a walking disaster area, Stark is closely monitored by civil authorities, Strange keeps a low profile, and the Four's abilities come from a source that isn't likely to just affect random people on Earth... most of the time anyway. Meanwhile, there's more than enough mutant supervillains to have an effect on public views, while the respective superheroes are proportionally few and far between. It's kinda like how it's rather difficult to distinguish the Hulk from every other gamma beast rampaging throughout the countryside, or Spider-Man from his own rogues, particularly the ones that look almost exactly like him.

Indeed, the superheroes closest in character to mutants are the Hulk and Spider-Man, and they're already controversial in-universe, without their villainous counterparts frequently declaring war on humanity in general.

Oh yeah. That point really should be pointed out more.

Also, reading your above post makes me think that Marvel shouldn't have scaled up the potential power level of mutants so much. It might have helped a little.

I'd say the main flaw in most settings with differently powered individuals is treating the abilities as inherent and inseparable from the people, rather than as worth focusing on by themselves. One of the major aversions was in Generator Rex, where the nanobot meta origin was a central point, and just about everyone could randomly manifest strange abilities or even morph into a monster. The story was less about social allegories, and more about dealing with a full-fledged biological singularity.

Alas, superhero comics are essentially built on the idea that power is inherent in particular people, which unfortunately brings about a ton of social and existential angst when given a more serious look.

edited 3rd Aug '16 6:51:51 AM by indiana404

One thing mutants do have that other supers don't is that their powers just happen.

They don't get their powers from a wacky science accident, an experiment, or anything else that might incline them to realize that they have powers now. They don't inherit alien technology or build armored suits. There is no warning whatsoever that a mutant is about to activate.

The first sign anyone ever has that Bob Jenkins has explosion powers - including Bob himself - is when he spontaneously explodes in the middle of his classroom and kills everyone.

That's obviously an extreme example, but that's what people are thinking of when they're freaking out about how anyone can be a mutant. Mutants activate without warning, without reason, and it sucks to be you if you happen to be in the vicinity when they do. Even Inhumans at least have the courtesy of a "Hey, you're an Inhuman, maybe go figure out your powers before you stab somebody's eye out" chrysalis.

Non-mutants frequently get powers without warning as well. You're just happily strolling around a science fair, and then BAM! A spider just bites you. It's so random even Peter Parker himself thought he could have been a mutant all along.

If anything, mutants actually got a warning in the form of having Gene X, don't they?

A radioactive spider bite is still more noticeable than having certain genes. It's not much warning, but it's something.

And like I said, Spider-Man isn't universally popular either.

You'd think by now there'd be a way to scan for potential mutants so that you could be aware of when they are going to manifest their powers and get them ready in case said powers are dangerous.

I mean, with the knowledge that anyone can be a mutant, coming up with a way to protect the potentially violent manifestation of their powers instead of coming up with more ways to murder them should be a priority.

I remember Jean's speech to parents about mutants in X Men Evolution. Pointing out that anyone could become one, and that rather than isolating them, maybe they should be helping them to adjust and live with non powered people.

Perhaps Marvel needs to re-think a lot of things about Mutants at this point.

The two things that bug me the most are the way power incontinence is milked for drama all while various power nullifiers seem to pop up in the hands of every villain; and, particularly in the films, the way permanent cures are most vocally derided by the mutants with the coolest and least socially debilitating abilities. Storm is a hat and a pair of shades away from being an untraceable weather goddess, on top of being Kenyan royalty - the poster-child for oppressive discrimination, she isn't. Meanwhile, Cyclops may be as WASP as they come, but he's one slip away from doing highly visible Hulk-level damage, only he's not bulletproof himself, so at the same time, he's vulnerable to retaliation. In general though, it's difficult to sell the theme of oppressed minority as rooted in the same abilities superheroes enjoy. It's basically the equivalent of being too pretty. Common people should check their ugliness privilege, mmkay!

I'd say a viable approach is to go back to formula, and retool mutants as the sign of a global evolutionary response to all the other strange developments common to the Marvel universe. The theme would be less "this could be your neighbor" and more "this could be you", with all the perks and problems this implies. If anything, this is probably the ultimate evolution of the superhero mythos itself - the idea that powers don't really elevate one from society, and bring no inherent responsibilities on top of just being a regular citizen who just doesn't need matches to light the oven.

edited 4th Aug '16 5:03:37 AM by indiana404

That could work. Stop seeing Mutations as a disease, and start seeing it as something inevitable to counteract all the unnatural mutations instead.

That being said, I should point out that those mutant cures you mention imply that being a mutant is a disease. That's an issue with them, though not one that should complete stop the drugs from being made for people who don't like their powers and simply can't control them.

I'll give X-Men 3 credit for something; it didn't demonize Rogue for taking the cure.

God, power nullifiers. >.< I hate power nullifiers.

I mean, when they're a precise thing, that's fine. Like a cure for the X-gene or something. During Civil War, we had S.P.I.N., high-tech darts that could permanently disable someone's powerset by reversing the genetic mutation that created them, essentially "fixing" their biology. Not only were they, prohibitively expensive, but they also had to be specifically coded for a target.

And that was cool. Because Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Captain America don't get their powers from the same place. It's ridiculous to suggest that a single device would be able to depower all three of them at the same time.

It's an oddity of superhero stories that the existence of a baseline "Normal Human" state is assumed for supers. Like, without his powers constantly acting upon him, Peter Parker would revert to his default unpowered state. And you can just disrupt that signal and then BAM, physical mutations regress, psychic abilities fade, sorcerors can't sorcery anymore, etc. When the default state of Peter Parker should be Spider-Man, and depowering him would constitute a second mutation rather than just undoing the first.

• Maria Hill: These special S.H.I.E.L.D. handcuffs have disabled your Healing Factor.
• Wolverine: Yeah, that's not actually a thing. Thought you should know.
• Maria Hill: Of course it is! These cuffs turn off powers.
• Wolverine: "Powers" is a relative term. So is "Healing Factor", for that matter. It's just a vague umbrella to describe the fact that my specific genetic mutation has given me an overclocked self-repair system capable of creating new tissue at an accelerated rate and in more ways than yours can. It's not some mystical energy field within me that you can shut off, it's genetics, bub. You can't just "turn it off" any more than you could "turn off" the system that carries oxygen from your lungs to your brain.
• Maria Hill: No, it's a power. So now you don't have it while the cuffs are on. Also, your claws are temporarily gone.
• Wolverine: Oh, for f*ck's sake....

edited 4th Aug '16 1:36:33 PM by TobiasDrake

Actually as Wolverine helpfully pointed out the claws aren't a 'power' they're an appendage. You can't turn them off.

I mean sure you could paralyse the muscles he uses to move them I guess.

That is actually somewhat practical...I think I could use that.

One of the things I enjoyed about the first X-Men film was how the lessons going on in the background at Xavier's school were actually commentary on the plot. You had Storm, for instance, teaching about how Christianity was persecuted in the Roman Empire until the Emperor Constantine became a Christian himself, which was meant to parallel the bones of Magneto's plan. In Days of Future Past you had, in the beginning, Kitty teaching about how Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals coexisted until Homo Sapiens won the evolutionary race, which was obviously meant to reflect what was currently going on between Homo Sapiens and Homo Superior. Then the end comes around and, instead of pointing out that current genetic evidence would seem to point out that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals actually interbred (and thus raising the possibility that Neanderthals did not so much die out as become absorbed into Homo Sapiens) which would be a more hopeful idea for the ultimate fate of human/mutant relations, Kitty gasses on about Buckminster Fuller, which as far as I can tell didn't have anything to do with anything.

Well you see there was this colony of bacteria that throughout the ages of the world had hitched rides on the dominant species of the planet and had fun controlling them. Sure, there were gods above it, but they ended running each other off the planet...and yes, more gods came but they also went. But then, a strain of humanity developed an immunity to it, and that couldn't be tolerated. It had to die. Unfortunately it also had superpowers, like the gods, so killing it proved difficult.

Here's reasoning from a bigot's perspective. It's my closest rationalization towards all this

• Mutates: They're ordinary people who were changed. They still have the same heart deep-down
• Mutants: They were never like us. Thus I fear their presence

They can't be racist against both unless they're really stupid since without either mankind would've been roflstomped over and over, but that's not necessarily the case with only one. And they chose one through racist logic

edited 25th Aug '16 8:21:01 PM by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93

That still doesn't explain how these people can still tell the difference between Mutates and Mutants upon sight.

Simple. They wave signs that read "KILL ALL MUTANTS" and then hate the supers who get offended. Spider-Man doesn't get involved with anti-mutant movements so he's probably not a mutant. Dazzler flies her mutant status proudly so she's probably a mutant. Those X-Men breaking up that protest over there? Yeah, those are mutants. The Avenger that flew overhead without batting an eye? Probably not a mutant.

And now we're in the digital age so, like, you can look up Cyclops on Wikipedia and see if he's ever been confirmed to be a mutant or, alternately, confirmed not to be one.

edited 26th Aug '16 9:53:50 AM by TobiasDrake

Now I have the image of someone in uinverse looking up Cyclops and learning of his abandoning Maddie and getting a more logical reason to hate him.