Why is it that mutants are so hated yet the Fantastic Four get parades?

[JasonEsta]

How can someone look at Venom and not assume he's a mutant? The believability is just too silly and kind of far fetched.

[FUBAR007]

Has this ever been confronted in a storyline in either books? They got naturally superior powers too. Why are they off the hook?

It's been touched on at various points.

If you're looking for a satisfactory in-universe explanation, though, you won't find one. It doesn't make sense if you think about it. Given the popularity of other superhumans in the MU, anti-mutant prejudice requires some extra suspension of disbelief to work IMO. It's always read best as a metaphor--originally for Jews, then for ethnic/racial minorities more broadly, and, since the first movie, it seems to be intended more as a metaphor for LGBT.

[salarta]

True meta answer is that X-Men and FF were created with separate philosophies in mind and then mashed together down the line. In story, I'm not sure if any comics ever addressed it. I haven't read others' replies yet, but I'm sure there are many people on CBR who would know much better than me on this.

What I can personally imagine is that circumstances and identity are essential. The Fantastic Four are known, famous and "wholesome." People know what they're getting when looking at the FF. To add, all of them were ordinary people with proven good deeds before they ever got their powers. That they got their powers in an accident intended to help mankind gives them a "tragedy" angle that mutants getting powers by birth don't have, too. By contrast, mutants are an unknown quantity because anyone can be a mutant, and people don't know what they can do. You could be asleep in bed, door locked, when a mutant sneaks in using their powers and kills you. It could even be some guy you ticked off without realizing they had powers.

So, it's essentially the superpowered heroes you know vs the unknown you don't know. Jean becoming the Phoenix, assuming the general populace knew about it and about the X-Men in general by that point, definitely wouldn't have helped either. One of "the good ones" turning bad would've tainted a lot of willingness by people to trust in mutants.

[Anthony Shaw]

This might be disputed, but perhaps Reed Richards is a better PR person than Charles Xavier.

During Waid's run, Reed told baby Valeria that he made it a point not for the FF to be outcasts. He wanted the team to be bright & shiny. He did everything out in the open.

On the other hand, Charles proved to be neither charismatic, nor photogenic, when he had the televised debate with Bolivar Trask during the first Sentinel story.

Just imagine if Xavier was a better orator, and won the debate before Trask rained on his own parade with the out of control Sentinels.

[vitruvian]

How can someone look at Venom and not assume he's a mutant? The believability is just too silly and kind of far fetched.

Actually, aren't Venom's origins kind of known at this point, at least in law enforcement circles, since the symbiote has bonded with different people and everyone seems to know to use fire and sonics?

In fact, Venom would be a prime example of the kinds of fears people might logically have about the FF... what if they're lying about the cosmic rays and actually been taken over by or replaced by some alien life form? I'd love to see a storyline where that's the sort of thing people have conspiracy theories about in the MU. That, and mutants being deliberately generated by the government using serums in the water supply (or chemtrails or whatever) - which was actually kind of true in the old 1610 universe.

But sure, plenty of people would probably think that Spider-Man, Venom, a bunch of others were just mutants and blowing smoke about their accidents or other origins. Even scientists would probably look at how ridiculous some origins were for anything but cancer, and at least hypothesize that most of them were actually mutants whose powers for some reason didn't trigger at puberty but needed some extra push.

[WolverineandDeadpool]

Well it's like the real world people make excuse even though in the Marvel universe some Avengers have done far worst than most mutants.

Also you get people like Styker in the real world as well who say hate Black people but are okay with Asians or hate some Arab countries and not others even though there is not too much difference for some in what they do.

[Knives]

PR. The other teams have it better.

I think that depends on the circumstances during Civil War and Dark Reign many people were against the heroes. Mutants are simply a better target and if we take them out of the equation another group will take their place as a target of prejudice like Inhumans or Meta Human .


I think it's worth remembering some cases where the fear of humans came to life in relation to mutants.



Magneto was the first mutant terrorist villain I think although today he is a distant figure of the mutant supremacist he still remains a character who divides opinions. The fact that he suffered and lost his family to the Nazis made him a tragic character reminiscent of the saying about men creating their own demons.

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Apocalypse a good example of mutant villain representing the danger that mutants can be when they gain their powers.

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MATTHEW MALLOY

A special case different from the previous ones he is more of a victim of his powers than anything else. If we are to take the metaphor seriously in X-mens Gold it is the best example of how mutants are like evolutionary weapons or bombs of mass destruction. How he could not control his powers became a threat that no one could contain even Xavier or the X-mens and in the end Tempus and Xavier had to erase him from existence.

[ClanAskani]

If there really were mutants and they were't in bright superhero costumes. They were random people and they could be anywhere - reading your mind, impersonating politicians, committing crimes. I can see how people would freak out. What if telepaths are stealing information like your passwords? Should testing for mutants be done in sports to prevent them having an unfair advantage? There's more average, everyday issues that normal people would be concerned with that there are these unknown mutants out there potentially impacting their lives because of their special abilities.

Superhero teams which are high profile don't have that same type of anonymity. People see them on tv and like them. No one would be afraid Sue Storm would turn invisible and sneak into the girl's locker room. But if there really were mutants, you'd probably have some conservative talk show host going off on all the damage they could do.

[Knives]

I think it's also worth remembering how the metaphor of the mutants fits in various ways Bendis for example used the subject applying the complicated relationship of cops and black people. Obviously humans are not prepared to deal with mutants when they awaken their powers, most of which generate aggression or worsen the situation and in others the prejudice appears.

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Already in other more complicated cases we have the question of refugees or mass extermination:
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[WolverineandDeadpool]

In universe at one time Marvel said it was to do with some strange thing that could live in all live apart from mutants so that is one reason why.

[The tall man]

Well aside from the destruction they can do humans see mutants as having a advantage over them in all aspects. say you're an athlete that trained hard for a competition then a mutant who is gifted with enhanced physical abilities comes along and dominates the event, you would be bitter and resentful. or you are in the the running for a promotion at work but a mutant co-worker abilities allow him to get promoted instead. or say you like a certain someone but a mutant telepath who also likes the same person uses their abilities to make the person like them and reject you or more insidious you're in a happy relationship but the telepathic mutant comes along and decides they want your partner, uses their abilities and your life is blown apart. or just for shits and giggles a mutant just decides to destroy your life, what can you do? So when you look at it that way you can understand why humans would have feel the way they do. Mutant are just like humans in behavior. They can be Petty, spiteful, jealous, hateful, and on and on. It's not a one way street.

[BushidoBlade2]

If there really were mutants and they were't in bright superhero costumes. They were random people and they could be anywhere - reading your mind, impersonating politicians, committing crimes. I can see how people would freak out. What if telepaths are stealing information like your passwords? Should testing for mutants be done in sports to prevent them having an unfair advantage? There's more average, everyday issues that normal people would be concerned with that there are these unknown mutants out there potentially impacting their lives because of their special abilities.

Superhero teams which are high profile don't have that same type of anonymity. People see them on tv and like them. No one would be afraid Sue Storm would turn invisible and sneak into the girl's locker room. But if there really were mutants, you'd probably have some conservative talk show host going off on all the damage they could do.

No one would be afraid of Sue Storm but a mutant with the power of invisibility would be hated and feared?
So all the X-Men have to do is make a reality show that introduces them to the public like the FF4.

[vitruvian]

If there really were mutants and they were't in bright superhero costumes. They were random people and they could be anywhere - reading your mind, impersonating politicians, committing crimes. I can see how people would freak out. What if telepaths are stealing information like your passwords? Should testing for mutants be done in sports to prevent them having an unfair advantage? There's more average, everyday issues that normal people would be concerned with that there are these unknown mutants out there potentially impacting their lives because of their special abilities.

Superhero teams which are high profile don't have that same type of anonymity. People see them on tv and like them. No one would be afraid Sue Storm would turn invisible and sneak into the girl's locker room. But if there really were mutants, you'd probably have some conservative talk show host going off on all the damage they could do.

If mutants with potentially destructive (or disruptive, at least, in cases like precognition and telepathy and shapeshifting) powers did exist in the real world, there would be absolutely legitimate reasons for the government and authorities to get involved to ensure national security, public safety, etc. You would absolutely want to forestall both 'power onset' disasters and deliberate malicious use of powers (although no more so than for any other superhumans that might exist). Ideally, this would be handled with as light a hand as possible while still dealing with legitimate safety and security issues - like finding out about those with dangerous powers in combination with either lack of control or malicious motivations, hopefully before they actually do harm; training those without control rather than imprisoning, possibly in cooperation with more experienced mutants, providing due process but still finding ways to contain those who were malicious.

Whether there would be a need for universal registration, or at least universal registration of those with destructive powers, just in case they turned malicious, is more debatable; my tendency would be to say no, not because there wouldn't be some degree of public interest in knowing who can blow up their neighborhood with a thought even if they have no intention of ever doing so, but because it seems like a slippery slope from there to the heavy handed regime of registration, restrictions, camps, Sentinels, etc.... but I can see arguments for it, even so. Likewise, private organizations such as casinos, stock markets, sports leagues, etc. would have every reason to have rules of their own about participation by those with powers - from any origin - that are too disruptive to their workings.

But all of this is dependent on the gap between costumed superheroes and supervillains on the one hand, and plainclothes, possibly secret superhumans in the general population on the other hand - without respect to where they got their powers. Unless it's somehow known for sure that people who get their powers in accidents pretty much all throw on costumes, or are much less common than mutants, people would be just as concerned about them.

Bottom line, rational concerns and fears would be mostly rooted in what superhumans can do, regardless of why they can do it. Even in terms of the whole evolutionary successor thing, it doesn't make much sense to be more frightened of a group of people who are just born with powers, and who your own kids might turn out to be members of, than of people who got powers in wacky accidents with strange substances that you or your neighbors might also be exposed to (and who might be driven crazy by it), or of people who purposely sought out powers so they could dominate the rest of humanity (or just for a high, like with MGH addicts). But bigotry often doesn't make sense. It might be as simple as the early experiment or accidental superhumans like Cap and the FF having good PR (although not so much with the Hulk and Spider-Man), while Trask and Magneto managed to push the whole Homo superior, evolutionary successor (who want to accelerate the process of replacement in Trask's view) early and often, so that the public at large bought into it and those predisposed to be prejudiced have rarely questioned the premise.

[BushidoBlade2]

Well aside from the destruction they can do humans see mutants as having a advantage over them in all aspects. say you're an athlete that trained hard for a competition then a mutant who is gifted with enhanced physical abilities comes along and dominates the event, you would be bitter and resentful.

So you'd hate a mutant for being born with enhanced physical abilities but celebrate Captain America because his enhanced physical abilities were given to him by the Super Soldier Serum?

or say you like a certain someone but a mutant telepath who also likes the same person uses their abilities to make the person like them and reject you or more insidious you're in a happy relationship but the telepathic mutant comes along and decides they want your partner, uses their abilities and your life is blown apart. or just for shits and giggles a mutant just decides to destroy your life, what can you do? .

How would you even know the person was a telepath unless it's posted in their twitter/facebook bio.
What's to stop a telepath whose abilities were given to them by magic from doing the same thing.
In a world filled with super powered people, how would one be able to tell the difference between a mutant telepath and a magic telepath.
Doesn't make sense to be fine with one but not the other.

[Confuzzled]

Double Post