How would you evolve the powers of less powerful mutants?

[Veitha]

Just to quickly pick on two of these;

Wow, I'd love a Husk who was more of an Absorbing Man (only not having to touch something, but just being able to 'husk' into a body of steel, or a body of mercury, or a body of chlorine gas...). As it was, she seemed too much like Lifeguard, or Darwin, just sort of ripping away into whatever form was convenient at the time, without her personally having to put much thought into it, since the power was just sort of automatically picking the option for her (which feels lazy, I prefer the character having to actually learn stuff, and not just count on their power to make choices for them).

And Tag, just based on the name, seems like he'd have the sort of power I always envisioned Tempo, of the MLF having, to 'steal time' from other people, slowing and perhaps even trapping them in stasis, and use that time to speed up herself and her allies. It might *appear* that she's got temporary bursts of super-speed, and can grant them to her allies, but she's got to 'charge up' first by slowing down someone else, and robbing them of that 'time' so that she can then grant it to others (or herself). It's a fun limitation to a power that some others (Tempus, Kiden Nixon, Lacuna, Timeslip, Sway) also have, so I think it's key to find ways to make it distinctive and not 'time manipulator #27').

Wait, didn't Husk need to know the chemical composition of what she was turning into?

For Tag, I don't think superspeed suits him, he's psionic. I would like him to be able to put different effects and not only "run away" or "come close". As I've said in a previous page, he should be a crowd controller kind of guy but not full on telepathic. Like say he touches an ally and says "Follow" then everyone who needs to be rescued from a situation follows him. Or if he touches an enemy and says "Attack" everyone, incluiding the enemie's allies, are prompt to attack. Like if he could put a psychic signal on people he touched.

[Veitha]

Well Husk did come first not sure now but she could only transform after learning the properties of whatever she was husking into + her powers were ill defined her first couple appearances.... someone mentioned turning into a bird.... In the GenX '95 Annual she husked into a glass body (that you could see through!) And in Gen neXt(sniff:/) she shifted only parts of her and into liquids!

Oh we posted the same thing lol

Gen NeXt Paige was powerful, she should be on that level now. Turn into acid, or turn into another person and such. The fact she could turn into magma during the Schism era was cool, but it made her another... Magma.

[CRaymond]

TBH I didn’t know much about Tag and sure didn’t google him.

I just knew he was a black male student and there was a movement aspect to his powers. I guess I conflated him with Wally, Keiynan, A-Train, etc... and had read the “How come Marvel’s speedsters suck” title too much in the Marvel Forum.

In any case, wooo baby his powers are unnecessarily complicated. I’m not saying we need every mutant to have a clearly defined powerset(tho maybe we do?), or even have a combat utility... but I AM saying we need more black male mutants that have both those things. Simplify the action, then develop the persona. Like Husk... simply her powers, then make her gay. Boom.

[King_Thor13]

Tree Man/Gregor Smerdyakov: the fruit bore by the living tree, which grows only under unique circumstances, can restore the X-Gene to depowered mutants, offering a secret alternative to the Crucible

Icarus: hone in his vocal manipulation, granting him voice mimicry, ventriloquism and a hypnotic singing voice

Trance: while in her astral form, her physical body doesn't need food, water, light etc. and doesn't age

Um. So this might technically be cheating depending on how flashy you think Match’s powers are. But I always wanted him to experiment with different heat temperatures. Like him going all out and turning blue. Or he could even have different colors for different powers (ie purple = poison, black = darkforce).

Oh I think different heat temperatures make a lot of sense. Orange, red, blue then solid white.

Was thinking maybe she [Bling!] could store energy in her crystals and release them like bombs. Give her both physical and energy projectile powers and is a nod to her days as a Gambit pupil.

I like the idea of being able to store light within her crystalline body. Being able to ''grow'' brass knuckles would be neat too- a nice visual touch.

Other stuff I was thinking of:

Surge: make her develop her speed powers and put her on Quicksilver level when she's fully charged. It'd give her possibilities for more appearances with the speedster role on teams while also keeping a limitation to her powers (the more she's charged with electricity, the faster she goes, so with time she slows down) so she's not too OP

Ruby Summers: if we every see her back, it'd be cool if she could shot Darkforce beams (like her dad could access his own extra-dimensional dimension through his eyes, she can access the Darkforce dimension)

I think Surge's speed powers working in that way is a great idea. When she's at full charge she can run for more extended periods of time, but if she uses up all of her 'battery' she'll slow and eventually lose momentum altogether, and thus her electricity attacks would lose potency too. A nice way of balancing that aspect of her powers.

Ruby Summers' eyeblasts tapping into the Darkforce dimension is a neat idea. I'm not sure how that works though. Is it solid? Is it hot or cold? How much force would they have in comparison to Cyclops?

I have ideas.

Rogue // should need physical touch to "steal" powers
Husk // should only transform into solid elements

I liked Rogue best when she needed physical touch to steal powers, but could hold onto said powers for extended periods of time, or borrow numerous powers for short bursts. Having them work like that makes her powerset more tactile, and doesn't mean she automatically gets the upper hand just by being near her powered opposition. Furthermore, difficult to control powers or foreign powersets (magic/supernatural based for example) would be tough for Rogue to handle, rather than her having instant access to everything they can do. I'd have Rogue often borrow powers from the same allies, ones shes accustomed to and has learnt to use almost as if they were her own. But if she were to grab Adam X, Boom Boom, Erg etc. while in battle, she wouldn't necessarily be able to use those powers in the best of ways.

Solid agree on Husk. Gaseous or liquid forms should be reserved for other mutants, as should shapeshifting into creatures and such. I'd rather see Husk be more inventive with her physical forms, becoming metals and stones that have certain properties that prove useful in the battlefield.

For Tag, I would like him to be able to put different effects and not only "run away" or "come close". As I've said in a previous page, he should be a crowd controller kind of guy but not full on telepathic. Like say he touches an ally and says "Follow" then everyone who needs to be rescued from a situation follows him. Or if he touches an enemy and says "Attack" everyone, including the enemies allies, are prompt to attack. Like if he could put a psychic signal on people he touched.

Yeah I think it's necessary for physical touch to be required to tag, but his commands could become more complex, like follow, defend or stop

[Michael Watkins]

Psifi

I'd upgrade Shortpack so that he's more like a telepathic hot spot who can allow several people within range to utilize telepathy and boost the signals of regular telepaths. Otherwise maybe some low grade tactile telekinesis so he doesn't have to worry about falling to his death or being crushed.

[Michael Watkins]

I would give Reaper long black praying mantis arms and a lighter skeleton to make him quicker (but only the arms would be insectoid). He'd keep the paralytic enzymes.

Dragoness would actually grow scales all over her body and leathery wings that she'd shed when she doesn't need them.

[Veitha]

Tree Man/Gregor Smerdyakov: the fruit bore by the living tree, which grows only under unique circumstances, can restore the X-Gene to depowered mutants, offering a secret alternative to the Crucible

Icarus: hone in his vocal manipulation, granting him voice mimicry, ventriloquism and a hypnotic singing voice

Trance: while in her astral form, her physical body doesn't need food, water, light etc. and doesn't age



Oh I think different heat temperatures make a lot of sense. Orange, red, blue then solid white.



I like the idea of being able to store light within her crystalline body. Being able to ''grow'' brass knuckles would be neat too- a nice visual touch.



I think Surge's speed powers working in that way is a great idea. When she's at full charge she can run for more extended periods of time, but if she uses up all of her 'battery' she'll slow and eventually lose momentum altogether, and thus her electricity attacks would lose potency too. A nice way of balancing that aspect of her powers.

Ruby Summers' eyeblasts tapping into the Darkforce dimension is a neat idea. I'm not sure how that works though. Is it solid? Is it hot or cold? How much force would they have in comparison to Cyclops?


I liked Rogue best when she needed physical touch to steal powers, but could hold onto said powers for extended periods of time, or borrow numerous powers for short bursts. Having them work like that makes her powerset more tactile, and doesn't mean she automatically gets the upper hand just by being near her powered opposition. Furthermore, difficult to control powers or foreign powersets (magic/supernatural based for example) would be tough for Rogue to handle, rather than her having instant access to everything they can do. I'd have Rogue often borrow powers from the same allies, ones shes accustomed to and has learnt to use almost as if they were her own. But if she were to grab Adam X, Boom Boom, Erg etc. while in battle, she wouldn't necessarily be able to use those powers in the best of ways.

Solid agree on Husk. Gaseous or liquid forms should be reserved for other mutants, as should shapeshifting into creatures and such. I'd rather see Husk be more inventive with her physical forms, becoming metals and stones that have certain properties that prove useful in the battlefield.



Yeah I think it's necessary for physical touch to be required to tag, but his commands could become more complex, like follow, defend or stop

I forgot about Treeman! He could give powers... That could be interesting to see in Krakoa. What if he merged with the Island, they could be making some cool stuff with his fruits.

I think that Tag having more commands and with some H2H training could be great. Like he punches you and says "Flee" and you run away, or he gives a nerve strike and says "Stop" and you need to stay still.

Psifi

I'd upgrade Shortpack so that he's more like a telepathic hot spot who can allow several people within range to utilize telepathy and boost the signals of regular telepaths. Otherwise maybe some low grade tactile telekinesis so he doesn't have to worry about falling to his death or being crushed.

I looked it up and I'm wondering why he's a Telepath and a size changer.

The telepathic hotspot thing is genius and I love it. The Cuckoos kinda acted like that with Emma when she was powerless and they were used in a similar fashion to connect to the Orchis Mission squad. With the telepathic hivemind thing they could develop this kind of power.

[houndsofluv]

Wow, I'd love a Husk who was more of an Absorbing Man (only not having to touch something, but just being able to 'husk' into a body of steel, or a body of mercury, or a body of chlorine gas...). As it was, she seemed too much like Lifeguard, or Darwin, just sort of ripping away into whatever form was convenient at the time, without her personally having to put much thought into it, since the power was just sort of automatically picking the option for her (which feels lazy, I prefer the character having to actually learn stuff, and not just count on their power to make choices for them).

I agree, the personal connection to powers is always an interesting angle to me

I thought it was interesting how they introduced that element of her "losing herself" or whatever the more she husked its too bad it led into a completely horseshit storyline and then was just resolved because she meditated and burned some incense or whatever .

I like her as a bruiser and agree non-solid materials don't make sense..how is she supposed to "peel off" water of gas like come on. What I think would be super interesting would be if she could pull off her skin and have like a replica of someone else underneath, sort of like ashapeshifting but the appearance is based entirely on her memory of them so it isn't perfect and like starts to peel away the longer she tries to maintain it bc its an incredibly challenging chemical structure .. checks off the icky body horror box and could lead to interesting uses . it kills me that she has such a unique power and its never really capitalized on creatively like at all

[GodfatherIV]

Ive mentioned it before but I like the idea of Husk being an omni-morph able to bodily duplicate the properties of any organic/inorganic matter she touches or studies.

[Ferro]

Sofia needs an extra sumting, so I sugest her to return with some added featers in her arms and she can channel energy, sound and air into concentrated feather daggers, i dunno its a cute visual in my head but the idea of utlizing her wind to collect, channel and generate some sort of light and sound based energy is an idea i had to diferentiate her

[MyriVerse]

In a nutshell, I wouldn't. Flashy is "blech." The best characters, generally, are not. That Goldballs egg thing is really horribad.

But my headcanon for non-fleshy mutants (like Rockslide, Mercury, COLOSSUS, ICEMAN, etc.) is that they are actually psionic energy beings.

[marhawkman]

I would give Reaper long black praying mantis arms and a lighter skeleton to make him quicker (but only the arms would be insectoid). He'd keep the paralytic enzymes.

Dragoness would actually grow scales all over her body and leathery wings that she'd shed when she doesn't need them.

The MLF characters filled a weird design space. The were introduced as battle-scarred combat veterans in the war for mutant survival, but not given much backstory.... like why does Dragoness even have wings? House of M made things even more interesting by showing her in a form that appeared to have ORGANIC wings. Is she using a mechanical prosthetic because she used to have organic wings? Dragoness's armor, if you can call it that, isn't much more than the wings.... which seem useful, but.... she once got beaten senseless by normal humans using riot batons...

In Reaper's case, making him more powerful is as simple as combining the powersets he's had in the past. His original power was hurling energy blades. Then he gained powers that let him change shape to create blades from his body, mix those and you've got something interesting.

true Its interesting how some chars suffer cause of their limitations, Like Karma, Husk, Tag, some gain more popularity with a wider power arsenal Sunspot, Doug, and still others...are Magma

Magma... the character whose powers almost never get used much because they destroy her surroundings. didn't the one comic suggest she was a descendant of one of the oldest and most powerful mutants alive... and I don't mean Apocalypse: SELENE GALLIO. the idea that at full power Magma can actually create a small volcano is adequate for me. Maybe give her a trick for lava armor for more focused destruction or something? Selene's earth manipulation let her make golems, so giving Magma lava golems would be nice I guess.

Sounds like Darkseid's Omega beams, zigzaging and following its targets

In the case of Darkseid on inconsistency is whether he needs to mentally direct the beams or if they are "fire and forget".

[Michael Watkins]

I forgot about Treeman! He could give powers... That could be interesting to see in Krakoa. What if he merged with the Island, they could be making some cool stuff with his fruits.

I think that Tag having more commands and with some H2H training could be great. Like he punches you and says "Flee" and you run away, or he gives a nerve strike and says "Stop" and you need to stay still.



I looked it up and I'm wondering why he's a Telepath and a size changer.

The telepathic hotspot thing is genius and I love it. The Cuckoos kinda acted like that with Emma when she was powerless and they were used in a similar fashion to connect to the Orchis Mission squad. With the telepathic hivemind thing they could develop this kind of power.

I’m sure that it was just for the sight gag. He was Mystique’s tp cell phone basically. And he wasn’t a size changer in the way that he could control it. He just started losing the height and Professor X stopped it (but didn’t train him how to reverse his condition). My speculation was that he was trading psionic energy for physical mass. If Charles hadn’t interfered, shortpack would be some high level telepath with no physical form (like Malice).

[Sutekh]

Dragoness would actually grow scales all over her body and leathery wings that she'd shed when she doesn't need them.

I kinda like the idea that Dragoness is so different than what you expect, using tech (probably given by Stryfe?) to put on the 'dragoness' air. She's just an electrical blaster, no different, mechanically than the way less interesting Stinger. But she's got that scaly suit with the mechanical wings, and that gives her a totally different (much cooler, IMO) visual than Stinger and her 'mall-rat Jubilee wannabe what throws lightning.' That said, I *also* like the idea of more lady mutants who aren't just 'hot chicks with powers,' but have some physical mutations that lean them away from 'bathing suit wearing male fantasy what throws zaps,' so it could be neat to develop her wings and scales as an actual physical mutation, and not just a costume. (I have a fondness for Shark Girl for this reason, she defies all expectations.)

I wonder sometimes if Tempo has a similar deal to Dragoness with the flying armor. She's been shown flying as well, but that's not something that has anything to do with her power of time-manipulation, so I wonder if it's also a property of that gold armor she got (again, presumably future-tech from Stryfe), and not just some rando other power.

[Alan2099]

Here's my idea on Maggot... yup, that's right, somebody's going to try to improve Maggott.

Honestly, outside of the weird technorganic bug things that made up his digestive system, I don't think most people ever really got a good feeling for what his powers were. Sometimes he was blue. Sometimes not. He seemed bigger at times than other times ...

Here's what we do, first off, his maggots are now energy beings. They can fly though the air. They can eat almost anything including absorbing energy. Maggott unleashes them to attack and for food. They "eat" whatever and when Maggott reabsorbs them, he gains power and nourishment from them.

He can burn though that power quicker by assuming his blue form, where he becomes slightly taller, bulkier, and much more durable, with a low level of super strength (similar to classic Luke Cage).


And another mutant that most people don't want to do anything with ... Eye-Scream.
Eye-Scream appeared once in an Obnoxio the Clown/X-men team-up. He had the ability to turn his body into any form of ice cream. That's it. He could turn his body into ice cream.

That's it.

To enhance his power, let's give him the ability to not only turn himself into, but create and mentally control ice cream. That's right, he can create ice cream out of thin air. He is officially the mutant you most want at your parties.

He can also control it. That might not sound impressive, but when you get your butt kicked by somebody that's slammed 150 pounds of fudge ripple right into your face you're not going to be laughing.

He can also do sprinkles, whipped cream, hot fudge, and cherries. Toppings count.