Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[The MunchKING]

From what I hear, they introduced a sentient primordial bacteria hive-mind that has been specifically influencing humanity to hate mutants because it feels threatened by them. And it says something that this actually makes a lot more sense to me than the original justification.

Wasn't the original justification that mutants would supplant humanity? All their super powers, and the high likelihood of breeding more mutants meant that humans were scared they were going to be replaced. And maybe not through evolutionary advantage, but just out right conquered if Magneto got his way?

[Sharpandpointies]

Wasn't the original justification that mutants would supplant humanity? All their super powers, and the high likelihood of breeding more mutants meant that humans were scared they were going to be replaced. And maybe not through evolutionary advantage, but just out right conquered if Magneto got his way?

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. There was the propaganda against Mutants, and then Magneto didn't help by, oh, popping up volcanos in the middle of cities, that kind of thing.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. There was the propaganda against Mutants, and then Magneto didn't help by, oh, popping up volcanos in the middle of cities, that kind of thing.

Those cities had it coming.

He is the master of magnet.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Actually, Spiderman has always seemed a bit all over the place to me in that regard. Like, sometimes he really is widely mistrusted and disliked, while other times he seems genuinely beloved by everyone except Jameson. Is that just my impression?

I think it's more that there are a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum. Spider-man saves a ton of people personally and often helps them with more mundane issues as well. Most of them are truly grateful and will happily cheer him on. But there's also a bunch of people that believe in Jameson's anti-hype and just think the worst of Spidey almost automatically and will blame him for any minor inconvenience that he might unknowingly cause them as part of trying to stop Shocker or whoever from robbing a convenience store.

Funny thing is that in recent years Spider-man revealed his identity to Jameson and that flipped their whole relationship. Now Jameson feels a ton of guilt for all his trash talk and is doing his darndest to make Spider-man look good in the eyes of the public. It doesn't always work out well.

[Dark Soul # 7]

The Grand Carnival has returned!

[Postmania]

#Cyclopswasright

Edit: Now THAT (Cyke) is a real example of someone going ‘From Boy Scout to Batshit’ (my head-canon name for his autobiography) over the course of a couple of years. That’s a real character assassination job.

#CassandraNovaWasRight

Was cyclops ever cool?

[master of read]

Oh, right, I heard about that. So, they're all basically immortal now? Or have the writers already found a way to turn that into something horrible?

to a degree. it takes a bit to actually bring someone back (the five have to be working together, they have to have a sample of the mutant's blood on file and they have to have a copy of their brains in cerebro to put into the body). so far, the only snap-fu i've seen is when they had to bring back shadowcat and that was due to how her powers messed with the process.

[Jcogginsa]

If you think of all the obscure mutants that have been resurrected on Krakoa, the fact that they haven’t bothered resurrecting the first X-Man to really die (Changeling) really is kinda dickish.

I mean it’s not like the writers are worried about it ruining some kind of sacred moment in X-Men history. His death was massively overshadowed by John Proudstar’s, and they’ve gone as far as resurrecting him (Thunderbird).

But Changeling. Screw that guy.

He is back, he's been seen in Crowd Shots

I mean even from his earliest inception, Charles was skeeving on a very teenage Jean Grey.

"Were I not confined to this chair," and so on.

I think the other issue is that the X-men really don't function well in a shared universe. As noted earlier in this very conversation, the selective bigotry of the 616 population is super weird.

Eh, all Bigotry is selective, and mostly arbitrary. The concept on a basic level doesn't make rational sense

[Nik Hasta]

Eh, all Bigotry is selective, and mostly arbitrary. The concept on a basic level doesn't make rational sense

No, bigotry tends to be co-morbid. It's not selective, it's a rationality of viewing the world that breeds further and deeper hatred. It's an ugly ideology but it makes sense in that "hate the other," is a simple and powerful axiom.

616 bigotry is selective and makes less sense.

[master of read]

Those cities had it coming.

He is the master of magnet.

so in other words, magneto was welcoming them.............TO DIE?

[Hiromi]

No, bigotry tends to be co-morbid. It's not selective, it's a rationality of viewing the world that breeds further and deeper hatred. It's an ugly ideology but it makes sense in that "hate the other," is a simple and powerful axiom.

616 bigotry is selective and makes less sense.

Also to Joe Random how the Hell do they tell the difference between a Mutant and a "normal" super to begin with?

[Fervidor]

Saw that new Wonder Woman movie. Which I had somehow managed to never even hear about until just recently. Despite having experienced the longest and most intense of my yearly superhero phases thus far. o__O

Over-all, I liked it. It was kinda over the top and silly in a good way, and at times it almost felt like watching an actual 80s movie except with way better effects. Weak points would be that it felt a bit lacking in action sequences, thought that may have been a pacing issue. Also, I kinda wish it was funnier. I don't think all superhero movies have to imitate the MCU style of constant witty quips and tongue-in-cheek self-awareness but this struck me as one where it would have been tonally appropriate.

Among things I appreciated were Diana wasting a bunch of time with her resurrected boyfriend rather investigating the obviously supernatural stuff going on and being super reluctant to give him up so she could save the world. That doesn't sound good, but I thought it did a good job humanizing her. Girl wanted a bit of normal happiness and being in love messed with her priorities. Also, I actually felt legit sorry for both the villains what with them being a pair of losers who simply wanted to improve their lives. That's a bit unusual for the genre.

Oh, and Cheetah's feet being actual cat paws. I dunno, something about that just struck me as weirdly adorable.

Oh, I'm totally cool with this. To a point. It's necessary.

I just sometimes roll my eyes at how the Marvel public gets all worked up against people who have very recently and openly saved the world, that kind of thing. ^_^

In the homebrew superhero setting I've been slowly world-building (mostly as a hobby) I figure it leans more to the DC side. Mainly because one of their earliest heroes was a Superman analogue who made such a good impression that two generations later, people still tend to think of superheroes as living symbols of hope and - if anything - hold them to fairly high standards. Young empowered humans actively try to become worthy successors of his mantle, or that of other iconic heroes of the early days, and the main reason they have fanciful code-names, dress in colorful suits and sometimes wear capes is because people expect them to. It's partly performative.

On the other hand, society has had to adapt to people with super-powers and vice versa. The early days are considered sort of a "wild west" period and is similarly romanticized, but realistically life was more chaotic and dangerous back then. Most modern heroes are licensed and have the legal authority to investigate crimes and make arrests, etc, making them akin to the police. (Although the cops have their own super-people, and the two have a bit of a rivalry with occasional quarrels about jurisdiction and procedure.) Secret identities aren't much of a thing anymore. Unlicensed vigilantes are frowned upon but tolerated as long as they don't cause too much trouble.

There's probably a minority of people who dislike/fear superhumans for various reasons, organizations who want harsher regulation, politicians who want more control over them and so on. However, there are a lot of civilians with basic powers and a huge amount of latent supers, so there's basically no getting rid of them. Plus, they've managed to secure a lot of fairly robust civil rights over time, thanks to their general popularity.

Very true.

I've missed the way we tend to agree on things.

Wasn't the original justification that mutants would supplant humanity? All their super powers, and the high likelihood of breeding more mutants meant that humans were scared they were going to be replaced.

I think very early on it was just a "people fear those who are different" kind of thing. But yeah, pretty much. It's kind of a dumb thing to worry about because people are people regardless so who cares if everyone a few generations down the line can fly and shoot lasers out of their eyes. Except, well, a lot of racist people use disturbingly similar arguments in real life.

Thing is, that has less to do with "our kind" going extinct in the biological sense and more about no longer being the privileged majority ruling over the minorities. For people who're used to preferential treatment, equal treatment can feel like discrimination. That's still wrong, but at least it makes more sense than worrying about what particular sort of human your grand-kids are going to be.

The weird part is that a lot of superhumans who aren't mutants are literally referred to as "heroes." That makes it seem like actually having powers is irrelevant. (Even powers that are probably heritable as well, I think.) Hence why the whole thing seems pretty disingenuous and arbitrary, and why a nefarious hyper-intelligent bacteria setting it all up behind the scenes seems like as good an explanation as any to me.

And maybe not through evolutionary advantage, but just out right conquered if Magneto got his way?

Seriously, I wonder how much better mutants would have it if there wasn't a mass-murdering super-terrorist terrorizing the world while claiming to speak for them. There would probably still be prejudice but Magneto must have made it far worse than it needed to be.

Funny thing is that in recent years Spider-man revealed his identity to Jameson and that flipped their whole relationship. Now Jameson feels a ton of guilt for all his trash talk and is doing his darndest to make Spider-man look good in the eyes of the public. It doesn't always work out well.

Yeah, I've seen parts of that floating around. Also been reading Ultimate Spiderman where pretty much the same thing happened, except Jonah changed his mind about Spidey before learning he was Peter.

Feels a bit weird at first but it is a nice change, and it's heartwarming to see Jameson state that he will protect Spiderman even if he has to fight the whole world to do it.

to a degree. it takes a bit to actually bring someone back (the five have to be working together, they have to have a sample of the mutant's blood on file and they have to have a copy of their brains in cerebro to put into the body). so far, the only snap-fu i've seen is when they had to bring back shadowcat and that was due to how her powers messed with the process.

Kitty died? Damn.

Yeah, I'm staying the hell away from the X-Men. Ain't nobody safe on that team.

...Wait, better idea. I hang around them just long enough to donate some blood and get my brain scanned, just in case. Then I get the hell out of dodge and try to avoid associating myself with them as much as possible.

[master of read]

Saw that new Wonder Woman movie. Which I had somehow managed to never even hear about until just recently. Despite having experienced the longest and most intense of my yearly superhero phases thus far. o__O

Over-all, I liked it. It was kinda over the top and silly in a good way, and at times it almost felt like watching an actual 80s movie except with way better effects. Weak points would be that it felt a bit lacking in action sequences, thought that may have been a pacing issue. Also, I kinda wish it was funnier. I don't think all superhero movies have to imitate the MCU style of constant witty quips and tongue-in-cheek self-awareness but this struck me as one where it would have been tonally appropriate.

Among things I appreciated were Diana wasting a bunch of time with her resurrected boyfriend rather investigating the obviously supernatural stuff going on and being super reluctant to give him up so she could save the world. That doesn't sound good, but I thought it did a good job humanizing her. Girl wanted a bit of normal happiness and being in love messed with her priorities. Also, I actually felt legit sorry for both the villains what with them being a pair of losers who simply wanted to improve their lives. That's a bit unusual for the genre.

Oh, and Cheetah's feet being actual cat paws. I dunno, something about that just struck me as weirdly adorable.



In the homebrew superhero setting I've been slowly world-building (mostly as a hobby) I figure it leans more to the DC side. Mainly because one of their earliest heroes was a Superman analogue who made such a good impression that two generations later, people still tend to think of superheroes as living symbols of hope and - if anything - hold them to fairly high standards. Young empowered humans actively try to become worthy successors of his mantle, or that of other iconic heroes of the early days, and the main reason they have fanciful code-names, dress in colorful suits and sometimes wear capes is because people expect them to. It's partly performative.

On the other hand, society has had to adapt to people with super-powers and vice versa. The early days are considered sort of a "wild west" period and is similarly romanticized, but realistically life was more chaotic and dangerous back then. Most modern heroes are licensed and have the legal authority to investigate crimes and make arrests, etc, making them akin to the police. (Although the cops have their own super-people, and the two have a bit of a rivalry with occasional quarrels about jurisdiction and procedure.) Secret identities aren't much of a thing anymore. Unlicensed vigilantes are frowned upon but tolerated as long as they don't cause too much trouble.

There's probably a minority of people who dislike/fear superhumans for various reasons, organizations who want harsher regulation, politicians who want more control over them and so on. However, there are a lot of civilians with basic powers and a huge amount of latent supers, so there's basically no getting rid of them. Plus, they've managed to secure a lot of fairly robust civil rights over time, thanks to their general popularity.



I've missed the way we tend to agree on things.



I think very early on it was just a "people fear those who are different" kind of thing. But yeah, pretty much. It's kind of a dumb thing to worry about because people are people regardless so who cares if everyone a few generations down the line can fly and shoot lasers out of their eyes. Except, well, a lot of racist people use disturbingly similar arguments in real life.

Thing is, that has less to do with "our kind" going extinct in the biological sense and more about no longer being the privileged majority ruling over the minorities. For people who're used to preferential treatment, equal treatment can feel like discrimination. That's still wrong, but at least it makes more sense than worrying about what particular sort of human your grand-kids are going to be.

The weird part is that a lot of superhumans who aren't mutants are literally referred to as "heroes." That makes it seem like actually having powers is irrelevant. (Even powers that are probably heritable as well, I think.) Hence why the whole thing seems pretty disingenuous and arbitrary, and why a nefarious hyper-intelligent bacteria setting it all up behind the scenes seems like as good an explanation as any to me.



Seriously, I wonder how much better mutants would have it if there wasn't a mass-murdering super-terrorist terrorizing the world while claiming to speak for them. There would probably still be prejudice but Magneto must have made it far worse than it needed to be.



Yeah, I've seen parts of that floating around. Also been reading Ultimate Spiderman where pretty much the same thing happened, except Jonah changed his mind about Spidey before learning he was Peter.

Feels a bit weird at first but it is a nice change, and it's heartwarming to see Jameson state that he will protect Spiderman even if he has to fight the whole world to do it.



Kitty died? Damn.

Yeah, I'm staying the hell away from the X-Men. Ain't nobody safe on that team.

...Wait, better idea. I hang around them just long enough to donate some blood and get my brain scanned, just in case. Then I get the hell out of dodge and try to avoid associating myself with them as much as possible.

oh don't worry. she got better. once they figured out what was wrong, she was back again and planning to screw over shaw, since he was the one who killed her and all.

but the x-men got disbanded after the whole "X of swords" event.

but i will say the new krakoa stuff gave us two things i like: love sick poccy lips and sassy sinister.

[Beadle]

Seriously, I wonder how much better mutants would have it if there wasn't a mass-murdering super-terrorist terrorizing the world while claiming to speak for them. There would probably still be prejudice but Magneto must have made it far worse than it needed to be.

I mean the Krakoa ruling council has had Magneto, Apocalypse, Mr Sinister, Sebastian Shaw, Exodus, Mystique and Krakoa itself.

They’ve not exactly set themselves up to avoid suspicion from the general human populace.

[master of read]

I mean the Krakoa ruling council has had Magneto, Apocalypse, Mr Sinister, Sebastian Shaw, Exodus, Mystique and Krakoa itself.

They’ve not exactly set themselves up to avoid suspicion from the general human populace.

at this point, i don't think they give a **** what the humans think.

especially since a lot of countries won't let their mutant population leave. it's really weird. they hate having mutants in their countries but don't want them to leave.