How would you evolve the powers of less powerful mutants?

[Sutekh]

I wonder about her name, Tamara Kurtz. She was introduced in conjunction with Sumo and Kamikazee. Is she supposed to be Japanese? And what’s worse, cultural appropriation or being an Asian dragon lady? It couldn’t hurt for Tammy to get some fleshing out. Her characterization is all over the place.

And she seems to be a redhead, despite also having a sort of Asian-skintone, at times. Tamara Kurtz? Not a common Ainu name... God knows what was going through Liefield's head when he invented those people. Awake for two days on Red Bull and cocaine, I'd assume, trying to keep up with his deadlines.

[marhawkman]

And she seems to be a redhead, despite also having a sort of Asian-skintone, at times. Tamara Kurtz? Not a common Ainu name... God knows what was going through Liefield's head when he invented those people. Awake for two days on Red Bull and cocaine, I'd assume, trying to keep up with his deadlines.

Yeah we never SEE her parents. But her name matches a Swiss person and a lot of her character design details fit a Swiss person too.

Maybe her mother was Japanese and her father Swiss?

Actually I don't think she's ever been drawn to look Japanese at all. So I'd just say "Swiss person whose parents lived in Japan during WW2". RW that's unlikely, but not impossible.

[CRaymond]

She could easily be a US army brat whose parents raised her to respect and model the Japanese culture and iconography. But if a stretch but it’s better than some.

[Grunty]

Since My Hero Academia was mentioned here, i was having a bit of fun thinking up a manga style display of Marrow's powers, after recently pondering on her potential character motivations in relation to Dawn of X.

However for that i would go with changing her growths from being strictly bone to being say a "carbone based psychic reactive bio-synthetic compound" (just made that up), that naturaly takes the shape of bones because of her subconscious. Though having "bone like growths" would be a still fitting descriptions of her powers.
Now this might sound like an unneeded change, but it could lift some perceived limitations on what she can do with her powers, based on what writers or readers might know of bone as material for tools.

To further evolve her powers she could also gain the ability to change their physical properties while still in contact with her body, even if just held in the hand.
For example taking a page from Eijiro of My Hero Academia she could harden them to diamond level strength or sharpen her knives to have moncular edges. Though getting incredible brittle in the process (like how it looks in Marvel vs. Capcom 2) would be a fitting drawback.
But it could now also go the other way. Soften the growths to a point where she can move or shape them like a clay. Creating tendrils for attack (something she displayed in X-force) or mobility (see the protagonist of The Spire for how even thin tendrils could help with that) or even something mundane like patching a hole.

Let's apply this to one of the X-men's usual punching bags. A big dumb Sentinel.

With new controll over her growths and their properties. She takes an energy blast by hardening growths into a shield like carapace on one side of her body. Any damage she still sustains could be handled by her healing factor (i would judge at a 1/2 Wolverine). So she goes right for the offensive. Pulling a knife out and softening some growths on her back to create a few tendrils, that she uses to catapult herself into the air.
While there she rapidly reshapes the knife into being the size of a 2 meter saber and hardens the edge to moncular sharpness.
Then she pulls herself back to the ground and brings the blade down on the Sentinel's head. On the ground her tendrils turn to dust and her sword shatters into pieces from exhaustion, but behind her the Sentinel falls appart in two neat halves.

Of course not even close to what characters like Storm and Iceman can do. But a lot better than just having her knives harmlessly bounce of the Sentinels's head.

[marhawkman]

Since My Hero Academia was mentioned here, i was having a bit of fun thinking up a manga style display of Marrow's powers, after recently pondering on her potential character motivations in relation to Dawn of X.

However for that i would go with changing her growths from being strictly bone to being say a "carbone based psychic reactive bio-synthetic compound" (just made that up), that naturaly takes the shape of bones because of her subconscious. Though having "bone like growths" would be a still fitting descriptions of her powers.
Now this might sound like an unneeded change, but it could lift some perceived limitations on what she can do with her powers, based on what writers or readers might know of bone as material for tools.

To further evolve her powers she could also gain the ability to change their physical properties while still in contact with her body, even if just held in the hand.
For example taking a page from Eijiro of My Hero Academia she could harden them to diamond level strength or sharpen her knives to have moncular edges. Though getting incredible brittle in the process (like how it looks in Marvel vs. Capcom 2) would be a fitting drawback.
But it could now also go the other way. Soften the growths to a point where she can move or shape them like a clay. Creating tendrils for attack (something she displayed in X-force) or mobility (see the protagonist of The Spire for how even thin tendrils could help with that) or even something mundane like patching a hole.

Let's apply this to one of the X-men's usual punching bags. A big dumb Sentinel.

With new controll over her growths and their properties. She takes an energy blast by hardening growths into a shield like carapace on one side of her body. Any damage she still sustains could be handled by her healing factor (i would judge at a 1/2 Wolverine). So she goes right for the offensive. Pulling a knife out and softening some growths on her back to create a few tendrils, that she uses to catapult herself into the air.
While there she rapidly reshapes the knife into being the size of a 2 meter saber and hardens the edge to moncular sharpness.
Then she pulls herself back to the ground and brings the blade down on the Sentinel's head. On the ground her tendrils turn to dust and her sword shatters into pieces from exhaustion, but behind her the Sentinel falls appart in two neat halves.

Of course not even close to what characters like Storm and Iceman can do. But a lot better than just having her knives harmlessly bounce of the Sentinels's head.

Well, late in pre-HoM Xmen Marrow got shoved into a Shi'ar healing device that re-arranged her internal organs to be normal on the inside. somehow this gave her much better control of her powers. Which meant she could do stuff like growing bone armor and stuff like that. And yeah she could make super-dense, super sharp bones. Then she lost her powers on M-day... but kept some of the bone armor...

She could easily be a US army brat whose parents raised her to respect and model the Japanese culture and iconography. But if a stretch but it’s better than some.

Her official nationality... Madripoorian. I think the idea is that her family were kinda... not the sort of people to stay in the country they were born. Makes me wonder why. That could be an interesting story.....

Also.... I just realized she probably has a secondary mutation already. Her backstory is tied to a specific event with a specific date. IE she was irradiated by the Hiroshima blast, and that caused her to be born a mutant instead of developing powers as a teen.

yeah... that made her over 40 years old in her first appearance in 1990.

[GodfatherIV]

Another thing I would do and im not sure if this is a matter of evolving their powers or just adding to what it means to be a mutant and a reason why they are hated and feared amd in some cases experimented on.....I would have it that all mutants automatically age much slower having a longer lifespan than baseline humans and mutants are less susceptible or immune to certain diseases.

[Paleo_Rage]

Another thing I would do and im not sure if this is a matter of evolving their powers or just adding to what it means to be a mutant and a reason why they are hated and feared amd in some cases experimented on.....I would have it that all mutants automatically age much slower having a longer lifespan than baseline humans and mutants are less susceptible or immune to certain diseases.

I think austen tried this a little. I do think the average mutant should be more durable than the avg human but in order to make this distinctive from inhumans who also have this.. I would connect it to the mutant levels. So gamma, and beta level mutants have this, alpha, and omega's have this etc But there should be exceptions to the rule.

[MyriVerse]

Yeah we never SEE her parents. But her name matches a Swiss person and a lot of her character design details fit a Swiss person too.

Maybe her mother was Japanese and her father Swiss?

Jewish cannot be ruled out, either. Tamara is Hebrew, and Kurtz has Ashkenazic roots.

[CRaymond]

Aside from Emma Frost's diamond form, are there any secondary mutations that have persisted?

[Havok83]

Aside from Emma Frost's diamond form, are there any secondary mutations that have persisted?

Iceman presumably still turns fully ice when he ices up. Warren still has a healing factor

[Beetle]

Iceman presumably still turns fully ice when he ices up. Warren still has a healing factor

Isn't his healing factor more of a side effect of his Archangel form/Celestial tech enhancements?

I don't remember the last time he healed someone with his blood

[Veitha]

Wasn't Jean's TK returning to her a secondary mutations too?

Since My Hero Academia was mentioned here, i was having a bit of fun thinking up a manga style display of Marrow's powers, after recently pondering on her potential character motivations in relation to Dawn of X.

However for that i would go with changing her growths from being strictly bone to being say a "carbone based psychic reactive bio-synthetic compound" (just made that up), that naturaly takes the shape of bones because of her subconscious. Though having "bone like growths" would be a still fitting descriptions of her powers.
Now this might sound like an unneeded change, but it could lift some perceived limitations on what she can do with her powers, based on what writers or readers might know of bone as material for tools.

To further evolve her powers she could also gain the ability to change their physical properties while still in contact with her body, even if just held in the hand.
For example taking a page from Eijiro of My Hero Academia she could harden them to diamond level strength or sharpen her knives to have moncular edges. Though getting incredible brittle in the process (like how it looks in Marvel vs. Capcom 2) would be a fitting drawback.
But it could now also go the other way. Soften the growths to a point where she can move or shape them like a clay. Creating tendrils for attack (something she displayed in X-force) or mobility (see the protagonist of The Spire for how even thin tendrils could help with that) or even something mundane like patching a hole.

Let's apply this to one of the X-men's usual punching bags. A big dumb Sentinel.

With new controll over her growths and their properties. She takes an energy blast by hardening growths into a shield like carapace on one side of her body. Any damage she still sustains could be handled by her healing factor (i would judge at a 1/2 Wolverine). So she goes right for the offensive. Pulling a knife out and softening some growths on her back to create a few tendrils, that she uses to catapult herself into the air.
While there she rapidly reshapes the knife into being the size of a 2 meter saber and hardens the edge to moncular sharpness.
Then she pulls herself back to the ground and brings the blade down on the Sentinel's head. On the ground her tendrils turn to dust and her sword shatters into pieces from exhaustion, but behind her the Sentinel falls appart in two neat halves.

Of course not even close to what characters like Storm and Iceman can do. But a lot better than just having her knives harmlessly bounce of the Sentinels's head.

In Spurrier's X-Force her power evolved and she could kind do this kind of things (shields, tendrils etc.). But if she had a little bit more control to make her construct more precise it'd be cool.

3977214-x-force6-01.jpg

[marhawkman]

Jewish cannot be ruled out, either. Tamara is Hebrew, and Kurtz has Ashkenazic roots.

True, maybe that's why her parents left Europe? Maybe they were trying to get away from the Third Reich?

I'm still a bit stunned about the fact she's almost as old as Magneto though.. :/ Hmm... Maybe she does have or had children? If we lean on the whole cybernetic replacement limbs explanation for her wings, then... Maybe she joined the MLF because her husband and children got killed in the incident that destroyed her natural wings? It's one of those weird things where a character is hinted at having a tragic past, but it's not explained. :/

[Michael Watkins]

I'm just going to say that Tamara's backstory is a fabrication. She's probably an orphan and just as young as she looks. She's the MLF's Rachel Dolezal. Look at her cribbing Strobe's style.

[marhawkman]

Dragoness with no wings is a bit weird.

Also, while trying to look up who wrote that issue... I realized that THIS:

is how Dragoness looked after moving to Krakoa. Um.... that's the same wing design as HoM…. also she's not wearing a backpack.