How would you evolve the powers of less powerful mutants?

[Sutekh]

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

I kind of love her power just as it is, but one possibility that stays on theme (and leans her away from 'that chick who can do 1/10th what Storm can do) would be to allow her to turn into air/wind.

But one thing I love about Wind Dancer is what I just said above. She's got a tiny fraction of Storm's power, and yet, is awesome.

Ditto with Karma or Dani or Cypher or Prodigy or Trance, who all have a tiny fraction of the power that gets parsed out to full telepath like Betsy or Xavier or one of the many telepaths who can do all dozen of those things (telepathy, mind control, psychic illusions, translate languages, astral projection, learn/teach skills instantly, mind blasts, body swap, memory tampering, etc.) *and* has other powers, to boot, like Emma, Jean, Rachel or Monet. Despite these limits, these New Mutants have proven capable (and fun to read about), without needing the dozen extra powers that other telepaths have. (Heck, arguably, Betsy got *more* interesting when she stopped using most of her ridiculously long-range telepathy to job foos a mile away and starting stabbing people with a psychic knife! Similarly, I was quite fond of Jean in her early X-Factor years, when she wasn't a telepath at all, 'just' a telekinetic powerful enough to *throw Hercules around!*)

[marhawkman]

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.

My favorite fan theory is that Dragoness on some level thinks she's supposed to have wings. She even has wings in HoM… why? Heck in HoM she either had advanced enough mechanical wings that they looked natural or actual organic wings. Realistically she's actually a weak mutant. Giving her a power to take on a dragon form would be really cool.

[Veitha]

My favorite fan theory is that Dragoness on some level thinks she's supposed to have wings. She even has wings in HoM… why? Heck in HoM she either had advanced enough mechanical wings that they looked natural or actual organic wings. Realistically she's actually a weak mutant. Giving her a power to take on a dragon form would be really cool.

HoM made everyone's true desires come truez didn't it? So probably Dragoness really really wants to have dragon wings.

I could see her putting in her Will to be resurrected as a dragon winged mutant.

[marhawkman]

HoM made everyone's true desires come truez didn't it? So probably Dragoness really really wants to have dragon wings.

I could see her putting in her Will to be resurrected as a dragon winged mutant.

I personally often wonder if maybe she was born with wings or something. MLF were written as guys who had been on the receiving end of hatred for mutants. Were her wings originally intended as a cybernetic replacement? I dunno, but the idea is intriguing.

[Paleo_Rage]

Wind Dancer power of Aerokinesis really is quite a powerful ability. When you think of her being able to manipulate all gasses, using air/gas to manipulate sound , hurricane force winds, atmospheric pressure. I dont see her abilities as a downgrade from storm but simply a specialization of one of storms many abilities.

As far as upgrades, I would allow her to manipulate temperatures, really push her ability to manipulate sound, let her play around with different gasses and do stuff on the molecular level. Outside of that maybe a secondary mutation of body adaption to let her not have to breath, deal with friction and heat from flying fast, even enhanced movement using the wind would be nice a limited version of super speed.

[Paleo_Rage]

I personally often wonder if maybe she was born with wings or something. MLF were written as guys who had been on the receiving end of hatred for mutants. Were her wings originally intended as a cybernetic replacement? I dunno, but the idea is intriguing.

Maybe she could be related to the Lawyer who turned into a dragon.. Maybe she can dragon wings, claws/talons even tails, and fiery bio electric breath. Maybe she is limited and only able to turn some of her body parts but with that comes enhanced strength, durability, etc and some healing.

[CRaymond]

Some of these “mediocre-power” mutants are just shy of Omega. Of the traditional X-Men cast, Wolverine is probably the least powerful and that judgment INCLUDES his adamantium and claws.

I mean the next “least-powerful” X-Man is a super genius.

Shark Girl, Glob, Beak, Dummy. Gimme some X-Kids that have sad physical mutants and a depressing lack of additional combat utility.

[Paleo_Rage]

Some of these “mediocre-power” mutants are just shy of Omega. Of the traditional X-Men cast, Wolverine is probably the least powerful and that judgment INCLUDES his adamantium and claws.

I mean the next “least-powerful” X-Man is a super genius.

Shark Girl, Glob, Beak, Dummy. Gimme some X-Kids that have sad physical mutants and a depressing lack of additional combat utility.

Shark Girl should be powerful way more so than wolfsbane, beast, nightcrawler, or angel.. Sharks have loads of abilities that applied to humans are quite superhuman.. Her full form to transitional should be interesting enough to give her superhuman senses,regenerative qualities,etc, Beak is just sad and I hate Glob.. Eye boy already got an upgrade and Nature Girl is hella powerful. SKin def needs some help. He is the weakest of Gen X. Other people just have powers that are redundant or overshadowed i.e. Skids, Rusty,

[CRaymond]

Rusty,

Too many damn pyrokinetics.

Skin is a great example for this thread. I guess we need to discuss what we want FROM his character, and build toward it. He needs more durability, no matter what we do.

[BroHomo]

Too many damn pyrokinetics.

Skin is a great example for this thread. I guess we need to discuss what we want FROM his character, and build toward it. He needs more durability, no matter what we do.

Well his amalgam char in Generation HeX already was given extra durability without turning him into a brick

[Agent Z]

Tag - He can mark anyone or anything with a certain energy signature that attracts and repels objects and/or people like a sort of bio-magnetism.

Jubliee - Just have her get smart about the applications of her abilities.

Too many damn pyrokinetics.

Skin is a great example for this thread. I guess we need to discuss what we want FROM his character, and build toward it. He needs more durability, no matter what we do.

There's a character from My Hero Academia who can increase his muscle fibers to extra strength and durability. Not quite the same as Skin's powers but it's somewhat similar.

[Veitha]

Wind Dancer power of Aerokinesis really is quite a powerful ability. When you think of her being able to manipulate all gasses, using air/gas to manipulate sound , hurricane force winds, atmospheric pressure. I dont see her abilities as a downgrade from storm but simply a specialization of one of storms many abilities.

As far as upgrades, I would allow her to manipulate temperatures, really push her ability to manipulate sound, let her play around with different gasses and do stuff on the molecular level. Outside of that maybe a secondary mutation of body adaption to let her not have to breath, deal with friction and heat from flying fast, even enhanced movement using the wind would be nice a limited version of super speed.

Yeah Wind Dancer is already very powerful, I don't think she needs an upgrade but just more time to define her skills. Sound and pressure manipulation can come easily out of her wind powerset and make her pretty powerful.

I personally often wonder if maybe she was born with wings or something. MLF were written as guys who had been on the receiving end of hatred for mutants. Were her wings originally intended as a cybernetic replacement? I dunno, but the idea is intriguing.

That would be a nice backstory for her. And it'd explain her "obsession" with wings.

[Veitha]

There's a character from My Hero Academia who can increase his muscle fibers to extra strength and durability. Not quite the same as Skin's powers but it's somewhat similar.

I feel for Skin either add some enhanced muscles to support his skin powers, or let him change his skin properties (like add scales for protection and such). I feel like if he was in MHA he would be able to control his shed skin like the serpentine student from Class 1-B that can control her deattached body parts.

Shark Girl should be powerful way more so than wolfsbane, beast, nightcrawler, or angel.. Sharks have loads of abilities that applied to humans are quite superhuman.. Her full form to transitional should be interesting enough to give her superhuman senses,regenerative qualities,etc

Shark-girl has a good mutation that got overshadowed by the fact that Aaron wanted jus to make her look weird imo. Sharks have a lot of abilities that translated to a were-shark form could be super useful. They can even kill or detect prey with bioelectricity. They should let her tap into abilities from different shark species and even let her become a full-on shark like Wolfsbane can turn into a full wolf.

[Sutekh]

Shark Girl is, like Aquaman, only situationally awesome, in that if the story ever features an underwater component, the X-gal who doesn't need a scuba-tank and dive lights is gonna swim circles around the competition. But even without that, she seems tougher than Wolfsbane out of the box, so I think she doesn't belong on a list with Beak, Glob, etc. (whose powers are even less exciting).

But I'm biased as hell, 'cause I love her.

I am impressed that even in the 'generations' I don't generally care for, there's always a few new mutants that really strike my fancy, like Shark Girl, Goldballs, Evan Sabah Nur and Nature Girl, from more recent batches. My list of 'favorites' just keeps growing out of control...

I personally often wonder if maybe she was born with wings or something. MLF were written as guys who had been on the receiving end of hatred for mutants. Were her wings originally intended as a cybernetic replacement? I dunno, but the idea is intriguing.

That's kind of awesome, and gives her an interesting parallel with Warren Worthington. Mutilated winged mutants 'fixed' up with mechanical replacements by supervillains and recruited to team evil.

Also the possibility that she was born with, and actually still has, wings, and always thought she should be able to fly, but they are tiny stunted things tucked away under her shirt, and that the mechanical wings are Stryfe's answer (or her own answer? It would develop her character in a completely different direction if she turned out to study engineering out of this powerful desire to build working wings for herself, and did so, all by herself, with possibly stolen materiel, leading to her falling in with other 'villain' sorts...) to her wish for 'wings that work.'

Several different directions this could go, from 'just a suit Stryfe made' to 'replacement for wings that got cut off' to 'prosthesis to augment/replace stunted non-functional wings' to 'just a suit that *I* made, and oh, BTW, I'm a (self-taught? school-educated?) mechanical engineer!' that, IMO, are more interesting than just 'also a dragon chick.' ('Cause we already have those. Vange Whedon. Scaleface. Jade Dragon, over in 'China Force.' All mutant ladies who turn into dragons. It's a niche compared to telepaths, but still.)

I do kind of agree that lots of mutants (like Dragoness, Wind-Dancer or Shark Girl) are 'good enough' or even perhaps a tad too good (in Sofia's case, assuming she ever gets her powers back, I mean, gosh, I don't regret Melody Guthrie getting her Crucible, but she wasn't the flying teen I wanted most...), already, and 'moar featz!' is hardly what they need. Being an Omega isn't doing Storm any favors these days, let alone folk like Gabriel Summers or Nate Gray or Mikhail Rasputin or David Haller. Prodigy, for instance, may have a tiny crippled version of one tenth the power of the dozens of full telepaths running around Krakoa, *but he's still in a book,* and that makes him kinda more relevant than someone like Exodus, for all his power...

[Veitha]

Shark Girl is, like Aquaman, only situationally awesome, in that if the story ever features an underwater component, the X-gal who doesn't need a scuba-tank and dive lights is gonna swim circles around the competition. But even without that, she seems tougher than Wolfsbane out of the box, so I think she doesn't belong on a list with Beak, Glob, etc. (whose powers are even less exciting).

But I'm biased as hell, 'cause I love her.

I am impressed that even in the 'generations' I don't generally care for, there's always a few new mutants that really strike my fancy, like Shark Girl, Goldballs, Evan Sabah Nur and Nature Girl, from more recent batches. My list of 'favorites' just keeps growing out of control...


I do kind of agree that lots of mutants (like Dragoness, Wind-Dancer or Shark Girl) are 'good enough' or even perhaps a tad too good (in Sofia's case, assuming she ever gets her powers back, I mean, gosh, I don't regret Melody Guthrie getting her Crucible, but she wasn't the flying teen I wanted most...), already, and 'moar featz!' is hardly what they need. Being an Omega isn't doing Storm any favors these days, let alone folk like Gabriel Summers or Nate Gray or Mikhail Rasputin or David Haller. Prodigy, for instance, may have a tiny crippled version of one tenth the power of the dozens of full telepaths running around Krakoa, *but he's still in a book,* and that makes him kinda more relevant than someone like Exodus, for all his power...

I love Shark-Girl too! That's maybe because I love sharks lol. But I think that she could be a really strong bruiser or short-distance fighter. Sharks are very strong and different species can do crazy stuff. Keeping the parallel with My Hero Academia, Gang Orca has a similar power to Shark-Girl but with Orcas, and he's one of the top heroes since he can manifest different abilities that cetaceans have, including sonic scream to paralize prey and such. Most sharks use bio-electricity, they could give her something like that at short distance (like a Venom Sting). Just expanding on her strenght and senses should put her above Wolfsbane though.

I feel like at this point some less common or less powerful powers are more interesting than the usual "Omega Level Telekinetic" powers which often are just "pink energy beams!!". I'm eager to see Eye-Boy and Prodigy at work in X-Factor.