Too many people with the same powers

[killerbee]

This age of xmen sucks to be honest. Everyone is creating psychic weapons. Multiple power copiers like hope, synch,mimic. Multiple telepaths! What happened to attempting originality?

[Phoenixx9]

This age of xmen sucks to be honest. Everyone is creating psychic weapons. Multiple power copiers like hope, synch,mimic. Multiple telepaths! What happened to attempting originality?

Good points. I think it died in the late 1980's?

[salarta]

I think multiple people with the same powers is fine. It's not whether or not you have the power, it's what you do with it and how you express it.

The core issue, I think, is that writers need to do more work to make it clear how characters differ. When they don't do that is when you get people thinking they're just copies of each other.

As I'm writing this, I remember how Supergirl was killed off in the 80s comics purely because an editor thought she "didn't add anything to the Superman mythos." But last decade, she got a TV show that lasted several seasons. Because they made it clear she's not just Superman with boobs, she's her own character who happens to have the same power set.

[Dthirds3]

What are you suggesting have character uses there powers in creative ways to difference between each other?

[salarta]

What are you suggesting have character uses there powers in creative ways to difference between each other?

Let's take psychic powers for example, and let's say two different psychics want to destroy a politician's image. One psychic might take a "brute force" approach, where they directly control and alter that politician's mind. Another psychic might do it indirectly, like chess, by influencing the people around that politician into sabotaging the politician. Both characters are using the same powers, but in different ways.

By using their powers in different ways, you're representing how they have different personalities and different perspectives on the world and how to go about things.

[shooshoomanjoe]

IMO, you can't create something new when it's all be done already.

[Nicoclaws]

This age of xmen sucks to be honest. Everyone is creating psychic weapons. Multiple power copiers like hope, synch,mimic. Multiple telepaths! What happened to attempting originality?

This era, you mean from the 90s until now ?

[jwatson]

This era, you mean from the 90s until now ?

It didn't get too bad imo until the whole x-men lineup was basically telepaths and cyclops. so i'd say about early 2000s. quentin, 5 in 1, emma, xavier, i mean the list of telepaths was ridiculous. at least before then they were spaced out a bit.

I don't see the problem with 3 mimics all spaced out who all use their powers different. Hope can only copy mutants and proximity matters, Synch can copy both from close or distance and since rogue green aura is gone she can only absorb by touch.

I think people just got things against this era because everything it's been called now started under some of the runs people tout as AMAZING. lol

[Cyclone_Ablaze]

This age of xmen sucks to be honest. Everyone is creating psychic weapons. Multiple power copiers like hope, synch,mimic. Multiple telepaths! What happened to attempting originality?

Honestly, it doesn't really bother me.

[nx01a]

There are too many generic telepaths, and the people with unique mind powers are just bumped up to basically having telepathy (Karma, Mesmero, Mastermind).

Re: the 90s...
Generation X was a mix of nice characters with some very original (and skin-related) powers among them (Husk, Chamber, Skin, Mondo).
Cecilia Reyes' personal force field was a different take on the concept quite unlike Skids. Marrow's bone abilities were grotesquely different, and, well, then there was Maggott.

[Odd Rödney]

I think if every mutant had a totally unique power, like, literally no-one else had the same power, then their world would be even more unrealistic and unrelatable. People in the real world have heaps of similarities. In fact, we have much more in common than we realize. The key to doing this well, in my opinion is in what Salarta said:

By using their powers in different ways, you're representing how they have different personalities and different perspectives on the world and how to go about things.

That is the key thing; creators should be free to make characters with similar power sets but be mindful of what's important to that individual. Show what they value, how they make decisions.

Same powers doesn't mean same person.

[Antarctic]

I don't see much problem 1) Because of what Salarta said, which it actually enhances the personality of a character when contrasted with a peer with same power. 2) Telepaths are usually scattered in different books and used as the comm system of said group. (Same with teleporters) But for me is always fun seeing them together. For example I'm excited to see that psychic battle next issue in Immortal.

[Outburstz]

Telepathy the easiest power to draw since forever

There is a reason why there are so many telepath and not a lot of summoners like Animax

[Nicoclaws]

It didn't get too bad imo until the whole x-men lineup was basically telepaths and cyclops. so i'd say about early 2000s. quentin, 5 in 1, emma, xavier, i mean the list of telepaths was ridiculous. at least before then they were spaced out a bit.

I don't see the problem with 3 mimics all spaced out who all use their powers different. Hope can only copy mutants and proximity matters, Synch can copy both from close or distance and since rogue green aura is gone she can only absorb by touch.

I think people just got things against this era because everything it's been called now started under some of the runs people tout as AMAZING. lol

Yeah you're right, they just had Grey, Xavier and Psylocke, who has the specific psychic weapon thing that Quentin stole plus Karma and Mirage in New Mutants before that, but even they're use of their power was vastly different. Honestly the biggest redudancy is the white queen and the 5in1, at least visually, and if they had to keep one concept, the Cuckoos have a basically more interesting power.

I'd say the most redudant are the feral characters and the strong guys, but this has been a really old problem.

[Jackraow21]

I think it’s okay to have lots of characters with similar powers. After all, there are millions of mutants again. Expecting every mutant to have a unique power is a bit unrealistic… if not impossible. Rather there are buckets of power sets that fall under things like “psychic abilities”, “energy manipulation”, “matter manipulation”, “physical enhancement,” etc. And even within those buckets there will be subsets (e.g., feral mutants under the physical enhancements bucket or healing powers, durability/strength, etc.).

The key to me is to figure out how to make a particular character’s spin on their powers unique. Either visually or in how they use them.