why do humans discriminate against mutants and not mutates?

[MaximoffTrash]

I guess it's the same way hardcore nationalist and far right leaning people would hate immigrants: the fear of being replaced by them. In this case, it's humans fearing mutants replacing them, either by being at the top of the food chain, or wiping out humanity entirely.

Nationalists would dislike immigrants because they think they'll take their jobs away, take up land and space, reduce food supply, threaten or change their culture etc. Humans would hate humans by replacing them in the hierarchy of power. Think about how powerful humans feel over plants and animals because they're smarter and have built weapons. Now compare that to a mutant. A human being can shoot a wild dog, but a mutant can stop a bullet, convince the human to shoot themselves, teleport behind them, instantly heal from that gunshot, or electrocute them with a hand gesture. That upsets the natural order.

I think another thing to consider is that while mutates or extraterrestrial beings are many, they don't belong to a 'race' so to speak, while mutants do (because they all have a different gene). This gives off the impression that the mutants prioritise themselves first over humanity. Spider-Man doesn't fight for the mutates because they aren't a 'race'. He's a human kid who was in an scientific accident. Therefore humanity can still see him as one of their own. Wolverine however, is a mutant, was born one, and is a member of the X-Men which are a mutant supergroup fighting for their mutant rights. Of course, they defend humanity all the time, but that won't matter to some humans, similarly to how a prejudiced person will not judge someone of another race by their good deeds but of their race. Humanity already can't get along with the individual races within themselves. Now the mutants are here being a whole different race that isn't even human.

There's also the fact that there are a group of mutants who do believe themselves to be superior, and are therefore a source of terror to the humans, i.e Magneto and his Brotherhood, as well as other evil mutants. If humanity teaches us one thing, it is that we often judge an entire group separate from our own by the negative actions of a few within that group. The entirety of humanity does that against the entirety of mutants. The mutants are often referred to as the next step in evolution (I believe by both Xavier's and Magneto's opposing parties). Whether or not it is true, it's an idea that both humans and mutants share and naturally, humans oppose that.

Which brings me to my question for those who know about mutants in the MU and the X-Men: are there other political ideologies within the mutant race, other than Professor X's coexistence and Magneto's superiority?

The thing with Nationalists argument is that Mutants aren't really a "nation"?
You can call Inhumans, Atlanteans nation with their own exotic culture, religion, systems.
But Mutants can be of any human nationality, and to most countries and government, the majority of new Mutant Population would simply be from their own newborns/teens than immigrants. How would a US Nationalist treat an All-American Mutant?

[Killerbee911]

Because comics ...That is end of discussion really.. But if you want to know why it doesn't hold up because while hate irrational. Praise is rational and one point in time US didn't let black people participate with white people. And today Black Athlete,Musician and Actors are so popular. Once you see Mutants doing amazing to help a large of amount of people would get over their hate. Marvel avoids it getting that good for mutants because it makes for better drama when the hate is extreme. You don't have much of a comic book story if group of less than 400 people are protesting mutants and thousands of people come out to counter protest against you.

Lastly X-men gloss over that mutants with useful powers are resources.Imagine a telekinetic in construction, Telepath in espionage, Healer in the medical field,etc. Mutants will get good jobs and some point be a status symbol. When possibly your kid will make your family a millionaires being the next famous hero or highly wanted in some field it is pretty hard to hate that. Yeah hate and fear is irrational but comics seems to forget that people would want powers Mutants would be praised and even worshiped. The two point of views basically cancel each other out. There is world with a much smarter written comic about super powers, Where mutants useful with good powers are treated good and Mutants with bad powers or strange appearances like crap. The X-men would really be Nightcrawler, Rockslide, Xorn, Marrow, Chamber, Beast, Anole,etc because Storm, Jean grey, Cyclops, Angel,etc would be superstars who people love and would be treated differently from other mutants.

[DanMad1977]

There is another thing that just happens in comics...

With powers like healing/superbrain/teleportation whatever useful thing you come up with, these characters would be millionaires if they decided to just help people or get a profession.

Magneto could build a house in a matter of minutes, Prof.. X could heal people with psychic problems and so on...

But no, all they do is fight.

Oh, killerbee already had that idea...I ve overlooked that...

[Rosebunse]

I guess I always thought it was because mutants are a thing by themselves. They're a people, a nation, and frankly, a lot of mutates get lumped in with them anyways.

[MichelleDiMera]

There is another thing that just happens in comics...

With powers like healing/superbrain/teleportation whatever useful thing you come up with, these characters would be millionaires if they decided to just help people or get a profession.

Magneto could build a house in a matter of minutes, Prof.. X could heal people with psychic problems and so on...

But no, all they do is fight.

Oh, killerbee already had that idea...I ve overlooked that...

Magneto used his genetics genius to repair Rogue in the Savage Land.

[MaximoffTrash]

I guess I always thought it was because mutants are a thing by themselves. They're a people, a nation, and frankly, a lot of mutates get lumped in with them anyways.

Would mutants really count as a nation or a people?
They don't really have any shared culture like Inhumans, Atlanteans, etc. They are American Mutants, Russian Mutants, Chinese Mutants, Japanese Mutants and raised in those respective cultural backgrounds. And they would probably identify with Americans, Russians, Chinese, etc than the vague "mutants" if they are not persecuted. (Being treated like **** together do give them some shared identity, really.)

[Electricmastro]

In a broad sense, I think that all Marvel heroes have been hated and feared in a way, mutant or not. It's one of the defining characteristics of a Marvel superhero. There's always this sense that they're a menace and can't be controlled. Thus, there is the distrust. Spider-Man, the Hulk, Namor, Ghost Rider are some of the "heroes" that come off the top of my head. But there have been instances when Captain America, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four have been deemed threats and menaces.

But okay, that's stretching things. Yes, all MU heroes have encountered fears, but the X-Men have gotten it WAAAAYYY worse. Straight up prejudice and discrimination, the likes of which Captain America hasn't encountered before. I think of the reasons MU superhumans never encountered discrimination was because humans saw them as being "one of their own." As amazing as Captain America was, he still sided with humans and fought for them. Mutants, on the other hand, were seen as the other and, as already been pointed out, were the next stage of evolution. Busiek's and Ross' "Marvels" touched on that a lot, how humans were afraid that they would be enslaved by mutants and killed by them all. Phil Sheldon confronted that prejudice starkly when he finds Maggie, a mutant girl hiding in his basement:



Compound that with Magneto and his Brotherhood constantly saying that mutants were superior to humans and deserved to be enslaved, and well, that's how you have that attitude.

I recall that Marvels touched on this fear-mongering idea of:

“Mutants are the next stage of human evolution.”

“Mutants will replace us.”

And this fear manifests into a deep-cutting anger, hate, etc. So while we do see mutates like Hulk getting chased by the army and Spider-Man being called a menace by Jameson, with mutants, I think it goes further considering how Magneto was a Jewish Holocaust survivor and Wolverine even mentions this Jew/mutant parallel in Secret Wars:



This is alongside the fact that X-Men creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are Jewish. I also think it’s more apparent now than back then with how malicious sentences such as “You will not replace us.”/“Jews will not replace us.” have been given more attention in the media in recent times.

[Huntsman Spider]

I recall that Marvels touched on this fear-mongering idea of:

“Mutants are the next stage of human evolution.”

“Mutants will replace us.”

And this fear manifests into a deep-cutting anger, hate, etc. So while we do see mutates like Hulk getting chased by the army and Spider-Man being called a menace by Jameson, with mutants, I think it goes further considering how Magneto was a Jewish Holocaust survivor and Wolverine even mentions this Jew/mutant parallel in Secret Wars:



This is alongside the fact that X-Men creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are Jewish. I also think it’s more apparent now than back then with how malicious sentences such as “You will not replace us.”/“Jews will not replace us.” have been given more attention in the media in recent times.

Pretty much, especially given that the measures taken against mutants by human authorities and governments, particularly in future-set storylines like Days of Future Past and more present-set storylines like Operation: Zero Tolerance, are no different in spirit from what the Nazis did during the Holocaust.

[Electricmastro]

Pretty much, especially given that the measures taken against mutants by human authorities and governments, particularly in future-set storylines like Days of Future Past and more present-set storylines like Operation: Zero Tolerance, are no different in spirit from what the Nazis did during the Holocaust.

Along with how the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, and gay people got slaughtered by the fascist lunatic Nazis as well.

Based on what I've learned about history, whether it's groups like Native Americans, black people, Salem "witches," Catholics, Jewish people, gay people, Japanese people, Communists, Muslim people, Mexicans, etc., if one group of humans sees another group of a certain background as the threatening bad people, and have enough power after deciding to act on that perception, then it inevitably leads to a whole lot of suffering. If you ask me, I think that's the really scary aspect about humans.

[MichaelC]

The thing with Nationalists argument is that Mutants aren't really a "nation"?
You can call Inhumans, Atlanteans nation with their own exotic culture, religion, systems.
But Mutants can be of any human nationality, and to most countries and government, the majority of new Mutant Population would simply be from their own newborns/teens than immigrants. How would a US Nationalist treat an All-American Mutant?

Perhaps that makes things worse, because it blends the usual fear of The Other with the fear of disease and infiltration. The fears that drive zombie movies and invasion of the body snatchers type stories. Not only are mutants "the other", but they are a genetic disease that could pop up under your nose, changelings who replace your children with monsters as soon as the gene manifests and eats your offspring alive from the inside.

[Huntsman Spider]

Along with how the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, and gay people got slaughtered by the fascist lunatic Nazis as well.

Based on what I've learned about history, whether it's groups like Native Americans, black people, Salem "witches," Catholics, Jewish people, gay people, Japanese people, Communists, Muslim people, Mexicans, etc., if one group of humans sees another group of a certain background as the threatening bad people, and have enough power after deciding to act on that perception, then it inevitably leads to a whole lot of suffering. If you ask me, I think that's the really scary aspect about humans.

Pretty much, yeah. That is indeed the scary part, and if people can react like that based on relatively minor superficial differences, imagine how much worse they'd react to the kinds of differences that enable someone to bench-press a tank or shoot energy beams from their eyes or hands or move objects with their minds.

Perhaps that makes things worse, because it blends the usual fear of The Other with the fear of disease and infiltration. The fears that drive zombie movies and invasion of the body snatchers type stories. Not only are mutants "the other", but they are a genetic disease that could pop up under your nose, changelings who replace your children with monsters as soon as the gene manifests and eats your offspring alive from the inside.

I like how you phrased that. It encapsulates perfectly why so many parents whose offspring turn out to be mutants react with such visceral fear and loathing to the children they sired and once loved. In their minds, "that thing isn't my child; it's the thing that killed and replaced my child, and is now going to kill me unless I kill it!"

[milton75]

I think it goes a bit further than the usual tropes associated with prejudice and racism. There's a body-horror element to it that doesn't really exist with the other "mutated" characters in the MU. It may not be as overt at the penetrative rape-themes in the Alien series (and in particular in Giger's paintings), but it's still there.
Mutants are often (in fact, owing to the slow-time of comics, meaning that we don't really have multiple generations), usually, depicted as coming from human parents. We have seen, therefore, situations in which the parents are disgusted/ashamed/scared by the fact that they conceived and gestated something almost alien to them. The mutation may not have shown itself until the kid was 12-14, but it was there, under the surface.
For that reason I'd say it's less like racism and more like the sort of prejudice aimed at disabled people. It's a really uncomfortable unpleasant prejudice, and the only even semi-acceptable excuse is the fear of the often poorly-controlled power that the child in question wields.

[milton75]

Perhaps that makes things worse, because it blends the usual fear of The Other with the fear of disease and infiltration. The fears that drive zombie movies and invasion of the body snatchers type stories. Not only are mutants "the other", but they are a genetic disease that could pop up under your nose, changelings who replace your children with monsters as soon as the gene manifests and eats your offspring alive from the inside.

Said better and more succinctly than I managed.

[dreyga2000]

Because of politics. The whole mutant debate gif politicized. And like real politics everyone took sides and got super tribal. Doesn’t help that Magneto lead a mutant terrorist organization that regularly attack civilians.

[MaximoffTrash]

Perhaps that makes things worse, because it blends the usual fear of The Other with the fear of disease and infiltration. The fears that drive zombie movies and invasion of the body snatchers type stories. Not only are mutants "the other", but they are a genetic disease that could pop up under your nose, changelings who replace your children with monsters as soon as the gene manifests and eats your offspring alive from the inside.

Well, that is one way to see it but really I don't think everyone would immediately think of possession/The Thing plot when they see their kids act strangely or develop unnatural powers.
It could be the case if they are severely mutated in appearance from the start, but developing powers itself isn't something freakish to the people of MU right?
(There is a difference between people bursting into giant mass of unspeakable horror and your kids lift stuff with their minds)

Disease maybe, but infiltration? I would like people in MU making conspiracy theories about mutants are actually alien invaders trying to transform mankind to them within generations of hidden genetic mutation.
But really we don't know how the general public know about Mutants or humanity as a whole in MU for that matter.
Is there anyone who connected dots and explained what the whole mutant deal is?(I mean objectively, Mutants in the end are just the newest offshoot of humanity, like many others before them really.)